“I want you to listen to me before you have another freak out, okay?”
“You have to take me back to Hallborough, Ivan.”
“I will. I promise you I will take you back, but just not tonight. Gabrielle, please—please give me this night. With you…here.”
I tried to understand what he was asking.
“You said you were ashamed of what we did before and I gather you have your reasons. I’m not ashamed of anything we did together that night. I want to do more. Much more, Gabrielle.”
I struggled to get out of his grip on me but my senses were dulled from the alcohol.
“Just listen for a moment.”
“No, you tricked me—”
He slammed his lips against mine to shut me up. It worked. And once he started in with the nibbling and sucking on my bottom lip I no longer wanted to get away. His kisses drugged me into compliance and took me to a place where I didn’t have to think about anything, or make difficult decisions. I could just feel good.
But Ivan knew all of this about me already.
“Here we can be totally private and nobody will ever have to know. If that’s what you want, we can do this in secret and not tell anyone. This is Northern Ireland—a virtual wilderness.”
“Ivan…”
“Just me and you doing what we’ve wanted to do from that first night. I’m right, aren’t I?”
I took a deep breath and drew up a finger to move his hair behind his ear. It felt so good to touch him, and he was right.
“Give me the rest of the weekend alone with you,” he told me as he pulled the palm of my hand to his cheek and held it there.
“I don’t have any clothes.”
He smirked and tilted his head. “You won’t need them.”
“You just want to fuck me, Ivan.” I waited for his response to my statement, watching his eyes for the truth.
He shook his head sharply. “No, that’s not completely true. I want to get to know you and…explore…what I think we have going on already.” He held one side of my face with his other hand and said the rest. “In addition to the fucking. I want to do that, too. Over and over again, I’ll admit.”
His eyes seared me while my brain conjured all sorts of pornographic images of him and me doing that very thing. What would it be like with him?
And I truly did want to know how it would be.
I shivered at his blunt speech. At least he was being honest with me about his desires. Did I dare give him back the same honesty?
“If there’s anything you don’t want to do just tell me. I’ll respect it. I follow the rules,” he said carefully, his hand still holding my face, his thumb rubbing my jaw.
Rules. I’d pledged to rules before and it involved not going into another
entanglement like Ivan was offering. And this was what he was suggesting to me. I understood him crystal clear. He was a dominant in the bedroom, and he was very aware of what I was, too. Could I do sex just for the pleasure of it with no emotional attachments? I didn’t even know if I could.
“Trust me, Gabrielle. That’s all you have to do right now. We have to begin somewhere and I’m asking you to start by trusting me for just this one night.”
“I’m afraid of trusting a man again,” I whispered.
“I can tell, and it bothers me. Very much,” he said softly as he pulled me under his lips with a hand at the back of my neck. His kiss was sweet at first, but then he opened his mouth wide and covered mine completely, plunging his tongue inside in an act of dominance that stole away my hesitation in the same moment as he took control.
When he was finished with the kiss he held my face firmly with both of his hands. “I know you want this. I know you’re curious. I know I can’t stop thinking about you. I don’t want to stop,” he said harshly, “I want to go all the way with you until we both know what that feels like.” He whispered, “I know it will feel so good.”
His deep green eyes searched mine, his thumbs brushed along my cheekbones, his body throbbed along with my heart—and I knew I was going to agree.