Slashed (Extreme Risk 3)

“Like that’s going to happen.”

“That’s pretty much what I said,” she answers, hopping down from the counter. She winces when her torn-up feet hit the ground, stumbles.

I reach out to steady her, wrapping one hand around her elbow and the other around her waist. The second I touch her, I know it’s a mistake, know I’ll end up regretting it. But it’s been four months since I’ve held her, four months since I’ve felt her long, lithe body pressed against mine—and though I know I should, I can’t force myself to let her go. Can’t force my hands to cooperate, or my fingers to uncurl from around her.

Images bombard me, of Cam naked and spread out beneath me.

Of her curls wrapped around my hands and her legs wrapped around my waist.

Of her hard nipples between my fingers, and her sex against my mouth.

For a few interminable seconds, it’s all I can do not to pull her against me. Not to press my lips to hers. It’s been so long and I’ve spent so many hours remembering what it was like to be inside her that the temptation is almost too great to resist.

I look at her and I know that she’s remembering, too. I know that right here, right now, that one night is as real to her as it is to me.

“Cam.” I murmur her name as my fingers gently stroke the delicate skin at the bend of her elbow.

Her breath breaks and she sways on her feet. Leans into me.

Suddenly, the air between us is charged with electricity, with memories I have no desire to suppress, and for a moment, just a moment, I forget about this afternoon. I forget about her pity, forget about the fact that she doesn’t think I’m good enough. Forget, even, about the fact that I’m a poor substitute for the guy she really wants.

I shove it all aside. I cup the back of her head with my hand, urge her just a little closer. Even knowing it’s a bad move, even knowing it’s going to end up costing me everything—I whisper her name. Watch her eyes go wide. And then I kiss her like I’ve been dying to for the past few months.

Like I’ve been dying to since I was fourteen fucking years old.

Chapter 5

Cam

There are about a million and five reasons this is a bad idea, but I have trouble caring about any of them when it feels this good. When he feels this good.

We were both drunk the last time he touched me, so all I have are flashes of our night together. Flashes which are dark and intense and hot—so hot, that for months I’ve told myself that I’m remembering wrong. Told myself that nothing could possibly feel as amazing as those memories suggest. But as Luc kisses me, as he licks his way across my lower lip and slowly, slowly, slowly, into my mouth, I realize that I was wrong. It wasn’t that I remembered too much from that night—it was that I didn’t remember enough. Because even those stolen moments of mind-numbing pleasure can’t compare to the deep, drugging intensity of his mouth on mine.

So instead of pulling away—instead of pushing him away—I wrap my arms around his shoulders. I tilt my head to give him better access. Press my body against the long, lean, hardness of his. And revel in the shudder he doesn’t even try to hide.

I find his mouth again, nip at his lower lip before sucking it gently into my mouth to soothe the sting. He groans a little at that, shifts his hands down to cup my ass e

ven as he murmurs against my lips.

“What are we doing?”

“Whatever we want.”

I tug at his shirt, pull it free from his jeans so I can slide my hands over the tight, firm muscles of his back. I’ve been thinking about them, off and on, since I first saw him, shirtless, on the lake this morning.

It must be the right answer, because it’s like a switch flips inside of him. He goes from gentle to hot as fuck in two seconds flat—and takes me along for the ride.

His hands—huge, hard, calloused—cup my face, tilt my head this way and that as he plunders my mouth. I open for him like he wants, like he demands, and he groans his appreciation as he licks and sucks and bites and strokes my lips, my tongue, the inside of my cheek.

It takes me up another notch, makes my nipples peak.

Makes my body ache.

Makes my mind blank so that I don’t have to think, don’t have to worry, don’t have to do anything but feel.

And it feels so good.

“Luc.” His name is ripped from me as I clutch at him, pull at him, arch against him in a desperate need to get closer.