Sensation rushed.
Overwhelming.
Delicious and decadent and dizzying.
I had to be dreaming.
That was it. I was still in bed, finally succumbing to the tossing and turning that had kept me up all night, lost to the idea of the man who had to be asleep on the couch and not currently touching me.
Right?
Only this felt real. So freaking real.
“Kenna,” Kyle murmured, low and rough, and even in my inexperience, I was pretty sure it was loaded with seduction.
A rash of chills shuddered through my entire being.
“Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?” His lips whispered across my skin, and I was sucking for air, trying not to pass out.
I wanted to reject it and accept it. Push away and fall into his arms at the same time. This felt . . . dangerous. Dangerous and perfect and more than anything I’d ever felt.
I swayed under the magnitude of it, and he edged even closer, keeping me pinned with my belly against the counter to keep me from falling.
His hard, hard body molded to my back.
Nothing had ever felt so good.
A big hand came to my shoulder, skimming down my arm. Chills crashed like waves climbing the beach, rising higher.
A desperate, shaky feeling seeped all the way into my blood stream.
Pulse wild, a thunder that was riding completely out of control.
Kyle’s tone deepened, the man inundating every sense. “I bet you don’t have the first clue, do you? How gorgeous you are? How people turn their heads every time you walk down the sidewalk because there is just something special about you? Something beautiful and bright and inspiring?”
“I . . .” I couldn’t form a response, couldn’t process what he was saying.
Was he really saying he thought I was beautiful? Did he really mean it? Or was this the cruelest prank that had ever been played on me? God knew, I’d endured some brutal ones.
He feathered those lips down the column of my neck, and my heart took flight. Shooting into orbit. I was pretty sure I was floating with it. No gravity left to keep me grounded.
“I bet you look in the mirror, and you don’t see what the rest of the world sees. What I see.”
He nuzzled his nose along my jaw. “What I’ve always seen.”
The last was raw and grating. Penetrating all the way to the soul.
Tremors took hold, nerves and anxiety and need. It was the last that was blooming bright, sprinting out in front of the others, my belly tightening and my heart battering against my ribs.
I wanted him.
I wanted this.
And for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like I was freaking out by the brush of a hand. This felt . . . safe. Safe and right and terrifying.
I wanted to tap into the feeling, make it a part of me, keep it forever.
I sagged against his chest, giving him permission to touch me however he wanted, praying that would be everywhere, and he spread his hands down my sides and tucked me closer. “Did you know that, cupcake? Did you know I spent my whole life wanting you? Wondering what your little hands would feel like on my body. What your mouth would feel like on mine. The way you’d taste.”
The last evoked an embarrassing moan I stood no chance of holding back, a fire lit in the middle of me, flames licking up and scorching all those places a man had never been.
“Did you feel it, too?” Kyle pressed, his hands cinching down tighter on my hips.
His hardness pressed to my lower back, and a gasp was escaping, shock and desire and confusion.
Was this really happening?
My head nodded where it rested on the thunder of his heart, my admission locked in my throat, but my body shouting it from the rooftops.
I felt it. Oh God, I felt it in a way I’d never felt anything else.
“Say it,” he demanded, and he slowly turned me around, taking my face in the well of those big, big hands. Intense brown eyes stared down at me.
Trapping me.
Taking me.
Owning me.
“I want to hear you say it, Kenna. I don’t want there to be any mistake. Not about the way you feel, and not about the way I feel.”
Anxiety fluttered and flapped, a buzz in my brain that wanted to take hold the way it always did, but this mattered too much. Was too important. The thing I’d wanted most. No chance was I letting my insecurities get in the way.
“I . . . I’ve always wanted you, Kyle.” The words were a choppy wheeze, a confession that rose from my spirit and tumbled from my tongue. My tongue darted out to wet my dry lips, and I did my best to keep it together.
To be honest.
To tear away the layers that kept everything veiled and offer them to him.