Stealing Her (Covet 1)

“Good differences or bad differences?”

I gulped, throat suddenly dry. “Good.”

“How good?” He ran his free hand up my leg and gripped my thigh. I felt his fingertips everywhere. “Are we talking really good? Or just sort of good?”

I licked my lips. “Really good.”

“So . . .” His fingers crawled higher until he came into contact with my hip. “On a scale of one to ten . . .” His fingers swept past my hip and slid under my shirt.

I let out a gasp.

“Ten being really good, one being really bad . . .” His hand was right below my breasts, his fingers inching beneath my bra. “What would you say?”

Say? I couldn’t even think! I was afraid to set down my wineglass, afraid to breathe, afraid this moment like so many other moments before would disappear and I’d be left with nothing.

“Ten.” My answer was breathless, my body weak.

Bridge didn’t move right away, his eyes were so intense I wondered how I never saw it. Saw the raw emotion there that Julian had shuttered so often from me, saw the war beneath the surface of his calm façade. Julian had stopped fighting. And Bridge?

He was a man at war.

My body pulsed and ached.

A heady tension pulled between us.

Bridge closed his eyes. “I can’t—I want to—”

He started pulling his hand away.

I hated it.

I counted the seconds.

Fingers slid back down my body, leaving me emptier than before.

And I was angry.

So angry.

Maybe I was worse than all of the Tennysons, because one selfish act would break me away from Julian for forever.

One choice.

Just like the one he’d made when he started working for his father.

When he didn’t value what we had anymore.

When he started making decisions for us without asking me.

So I decided I would make this choice without asking him.

And damning any future we could have in the process.

I set my wine down on the glass table, and then I slowly stood.

Bridge’s lazy perusal gave me confidence that I wouldn’t get turned down. I was doing this knowing exactly who he was.

And who I was as well.

He didn’t move as I slowly peeled my shirt over my head and dropped it onto the floor.

His chest rose like he’d just sucked in a large amount of air because he was having trouble getting enough oxygen into his body.

“Bridge.” I whispered his name, tested it on my lips. I liked the way it made me feel, his name, I liked saying it while I was stripping in front of him. I liked the way his massive body seemed to go rock hard just watching me take off something as simple as a shirt.

My bra came next.

He still didn’t move.

I wasn’t giving up.

I was seeing this through.

I was making my choice.

He bit down on his bottom lip and muttered a curse when my hands moved to my jeans. I kicked off my flats in the process, then unbuttoned the first button, the second, his eyes zeroed in on my fingers like he was about to devour them and me completely whole.

I shrugged them down my hips and kicked them off my legs, discarding them next to the rest of my clothes.

And still he didn’t move.

All I had left was my white lace underwear because even then, I was a creature of habit and I wore white, didn’t I? To please the Kingdom, I wore white.

I started to slink them off when Bridge suddenly reached out and jerked my hips toward him. He held on, his eyes never leaving mine as he fisted the sides of my panties in his hands and jerked them from my body, ripping them completely in half.

No, this definitely wasn’t Julian, was it?

This man had danger lurking beneath his gaze. This man also had a simmering hatred I recognized in my own eyes.

“I never want to see you wear white again,” he rasped. “Do you fucking understand?”

I nodded numbly. “My wedding dress is champagne.”

“Izzy?”

“Yeah?”

“I really don’t want to talk right now.” And then he pulled me onto his lap, causing me to straddle him still fully clothed as his mouth met mine in a frenzy of heat and tongue that left me aching everywhere. I felt him in my lungs, I felt him in my brain, against my skin, the weight of his body between my legs. I squeezed my thighs, imagining what it would feel like when he was finally between them, when he was mine.

When I took what was mine.

My hands roamed over his solid chest and then lower as I pulled his shirt over his head.

Perfection.

Muscles everywhere.

Ink that was finally uncovered.

I raked my nails down his chest while he flipped me onto my back on the couch, never pulling his lips from mine.

He was aggressive.

There was nothing tender about Bridge Tennyson.

He was raw, feral, hungry.

Starved.

So I fed him my body, I opened up to him, I watched while he shrugged out of his jeans, kicking them down the couch.