Southern Hotshot (North Carolina Highlands 2)

I could be honest. But fuck it, honesty leads to hope, and hope leads to hurt. How many times do I need to learn that lesson?

“Are you fine after how I made you feel today?” I duck my head and lower my voice. “I saw it, Emma. I heard it, I felt it, and I saw how much you wanted me. You’ve wanted to touch me like that from day one, haven’t you? And please, since you’re so into the truth, be honest.”

She stares back, not moving an inch. Eyes glowing like burning embers.

I smirk. “You want to do it again, don’t you? Touch me?”

She keeps staring. A voice in my head keeps screaming What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck are you doing?

“Do it,” I say. “Touch me again. You wanna slap me? Fuck me? Do it.” I hold out my arms. “I dare you.”

She stands there, two inches from a kiss, tits rising and falling on sharp breaths. My dick perks right up.

Emma isn’t leaving.

Which means she wants to stay.

Aw, yeah.

Slowly—carefully—Emma lifts her arm. My entire being pulses when she wraps her hand around my throat. Her gaze, heated and hazy, moves to my mouth, like she can’t look me in the eye.

Good. I won’t be able to look myself in the eye after this either.

“You’re full of shit,” she whispers. And then she tightens her hand around my neck and pushes me against the wall and presses a bruising, hot kiss to my mouth.

My dick goes full salute in one second flat. She’s strong for such a little thing, and my shoulder blades sting from the impact of being shoved against the wall.

“Give me permission to put my hands on you,” she rasps.

“Already did,” I murmur against her lips.

“No.” I nearly jump out of my skin when her other hand skates down my belly to the waistband of my sweats. “I mean put my hands on you.”

“Granted. Yes. Done.”

Her hand slips inside my sweats and finds my dick. She gives it a tight, almost painful tug.

Goddamn, do I like all this pain.

I like how she gets right to it. She knows what she wants, and she wants my dick.

I ain’t mad at it. When was the last time a woman was so fearlessly up front with me about what she likes? I could always tell when my partners were holding back. Playing a part, almost, as if they were feeling me out to see what I liked and what I wanted. They were putting on a show.

Hell, I’m certainly guilty of that sin. I’m guilty of it every damn day.

But Emma, per usual, isn’t afraid to tell it like it is. She isn’t afraid to be selfish in seeking out her pleasure. It’s filthy and sexy and so damn great I want to do it too.

What if what pleases me pleases her?

I shove the thought from my head. This is hate sex, pure and simple. Nothing more.

She tugs me again, and again, and behind my closed eyelids I see stars. Her kiss tastes like wine. It’s deep, urgent, our tongues and breath tangled. She bites my bottom lip, and I growl. She tightens her grip on my neck, and I do it again.

I don’t think it’s a sound I’ve ever made before.

She takes her hand off my cock.

“Emma—”

“Shut up,” she says into my mouth. She grabs my hand and guides it inside her leggings. My entire being leaps when my fingertips meet her pussy.

Emma goes commando too? Fuck. My dick is in agony.

I jump the gun and try to part her lips with my fingers. Immediately, her teeth come down on my tongue, and she pulls back my hand.

“Mine,” she snaps, her voice smokier and raspier than ever.

Fuck. Yes.

I owe her this at least, the ability to punish my cowardice.

Her lips curve into a smile against mine. She pushes my finger inside her slit, and my eyes fly open.

Hers are open too, and they’re on mine. For a second, we break the kiss to look at each other.

She’s wet. So fucking wet and swollen I buck my hips, the heaven of sinking inside her almost too sweet to contemplate.

She’s gotta let me do something. Taste her. Fuck her. See her.

She must read my mind because together, we circle the pad of my finger against her clit. Her breath catches.

Without a word, and her other hand still on my throat, she pulls me away from the wall and walks us closer to the edge of the island.

Yes.

If she’s doing what I think she’s doing, yes.

Since she’s reading me so well, I try to return the favor. Her hips are rolling against my hand as her ass meets the countertop. She’s bending one knee, pulling it up, and I instinctively take her leg in my free hand.

“Uh-huh,” she breathes, dipping her head in a quick nod. She releases the hand I’ve got between her legs, and I use it to grab her other leg and lift her onto the counter. Her hand isn’t on my throat, her hands are moving up my chest, stopping to play with my nipples. A direct wire of sensation between there and the head of my cock lights up.