Julia Roberts, ca. Pretty Woman: Big mistake. Huge.
Cardi B, in any situation: Bitch, please.
All of those worked. Unfortunately, what was more likely to come out of her mouth was straight-up Jennifer Lawrence: I volunteer as tribute.
Eight hours, Nyx thought. Wasn’t that what the gentlemale in the prison clothes had said? Maybe ten.
So it was going to be a very long time until she and Jack could get going to the Wall.
And talking was overrated, wasn’t it.
“I’ll do the kissing,” she muttered. “Thank you very much.”
With that, she crossed the space between them with her lips, putting them on his. And as the softness of his mouth registered, she was surprised, but that made no sense. All mouths were soft, even if they came attached to big, strong bodies. And what do you know. In spite of his obvious arousal, he didn’t jump her. Instead, Jack stayed where he was, reclining against the smooth rock, letting her set the pace as she explored and . . . enjoyed.
Tilting her head, she deepened things, running her tongue along his lower lip. Then she licked inside of him.
The shaking that rose up from his body was erotic. The way his breath caught was hotter than hell. The taste of him and the scent of him and—
He pulled back sharply, his glittering blue eyes finding hers. There was a flush on his face and the cords in his neck were straining, like he was forcing himself to stay put.
“You do not disappoint,” he said roughly. “Not in the slightest.”
That was when he grabbed her and pulled her onto his chest. His kiss was nothing like hers. It was not tentative. It wasn’t a caress of lips. It wasn’t soft, lilting, a polite exploration that was a prelude to passion.
He was a full-blooded, fully aroused male and he took what he wanted, his hands biting into her upper arms, his mouth hard on hers, catching . . . owning. And she told herself that she felt it all so acutely because her senses were alive in this dangerous, strange prison.
But that was bullshit. She would have felt the same up above, in the real world, if they were out on a date and he was kissing her up against a car in a restaurant’s parking lot. Her body was alive because of him, not where they were.
“Will you let me inside,” he asked against her mouth.
“Yes,” she breathed. Even as she told herself to stay quiet.
Her need for him was something she felt like she should hide. It gave him power over her, the kind that had nothing to do with the dead lift thing or the bullcrap that came with his antiquated view of females.
But like her response was a secret? Especially as she split her legs and sat on his hard, muscled thigh, her core rubbing against him, creating delicious friction. And as if he knew what she was doing, he purred, deep in his throat, one of his hands coming up to cup the back of her neck. When her hair tie was pulled out, she knew that was the prelude to him taking her clothes off, and she was ready for the naked, starved for the next level to all this—
Just as Jack had overtaken her when she’d first entered the prison’s labyrinth, he again moved so fast, she couldn’t track him. One moment, he was underneath her and their mouths were fused. The next, he was all the way on the far side of the pool.
As he began to pace back and forth, he put one of his hands to his forehead. Meanwhile, she was stuck on the stone sofa, wondering what the hell had happened.
What the hell had gone wrong.
But he’d been feeling her. She knew it.
Hell, she could see it, in that bulge in the front of his loose pants.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes,” he snapped. “I am perfectly well.”
“Well, that’s good. You know, you look fine. You look totally, completely fine. I mean, honestly, the poster child for fine.”
“Will you please stop talking,” he muttered.
“You could make me. If you kissed me again.”
At that, he stopped and looked over at her. She braced herself to be called a hussy, or some other old-fashioned word. Instead, the full force of his sexual arousal sizzled across the warm, humid space.
“You’re afraid of me,” she said. “Aren’t you.”
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are. You started a game and now you’re afraid of finishing it.” She crossed her arms over her breasts. “Why is that.”
“I am not afraid of anything.” His tone was dead. “This place has taught me to know no fear.”
Nyx opened her mouth to argue with him, but she didn’t follow through on the knee-jerk impulse as all of the life drained out of him. No more light behind those beautiful blue eyes. No more arousal in his magnificent body. No more connection to anything around him, even her.