“Nothing.” Mutinous denial. “We should go to bed.”
“No.” He ran his thumb over her lower lip. “Should I have thought of you?”
Chapter 21
Her skin burned under his fingertips, but she held her stubborn ground. “Ignore me. I’ve had a hellish day. I should really catch some sleep.”
Fox didn’t budge. “You were very clear on the rules,” he said. “If you want to change them, tell me.”
A long, tense silence before she said, “You’re leaving in two and a half weeks.”
His pulse turned into a drumbeat. “That’s not an answer.”
Breaking his hold without warning, she walked into the bedroom, her movements jittery as she stripped off her T-shirt and kicked away her pajama bottoms to reveal the white lace of her panties. His poor Molly was running to the safety of their scorching physical connection, a connection that required no words, no arguments.
His body reacted as always to the lush sight of her, his erection pushing against the zipper of his jeans. But this was too important to allow himself to be distracted. Shifting to face her, he ran his knuckles down the centerline of her body. “Tell me what you want.”
Eyes huge and stark, she angled her face away, went to cover her br**sts with her arms, but he enclosed her in his embrace before she could complete the action. Never did he want Molly to feel ashamed of her nakedness with him. She didn’t struggle, but neither did she speak. Fighting his impatient fury to have her belong to him, he reminded himself that the scars that marked Molly were brutal and had been caused at a time in her life when she was incredibly vulnerable.
His temper simmered again, directed at those who had mauled an innocent young girl with such ugly savagery. Nuzzling a kiss to her temple, he cuddled her close, her creamy skin holding a shocked kind of coolness. “Molly?”
“Yes?”
“You can always ask,” he said at that wary sound. “I’d rather you get pissed at me, scream and yell, than let suspicion stew inside that smart head of yours.”
Trembling, she splayed her hands over his T-shirt. “You said I should trust you.” A soft reminder, her head bent, the curling darkness of her hair in his vision.
“You should.” He couldn’t keep the demand out of his voice. “But until you do, I’ll take questions.” As long as she came to him, he could handle anything; all he needed was a chance to fight for her. “We agreed on that?”
She nodded, her fingers playing with the edges of his jacket.
“Molly?”
Clear brown eyes holding his own without blinking. “I’ll always ask,” she said. “I don’t have it in me to stay quiet—not about something like that. I’ll try to be an adult about it, but I can’t guarantee no screaming and yelling.”
“There it is,” Fox murmured, his dimple appearing as his smile lit up his eyes. “There’s my Molly’s mouth.”
The affectionate caress of his words broke Molly. Rising on tiptoe, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him, hating that she might’ve hurt him. She wanted to trust him without question, wasn’t sure the capacity for such faith hadn’t been crushed out of her in childhood.
The fact Fox hadn’t berated her for her need to ask, had instead done what was necessary to ease her worries, it meant more than he could ever know. Her father had always belittled and made her mother feel stupid on the rare occasions when Karen Webster had even mildly questioned his behavior.
Swamped with what she felt for Fox, she poured it into her kiss. And when the smooth metal of his lip ring invited her to play, she did. His responding chuckle was sexy, was Fox. “And that’s definitely my Molly.”
She wanted to be his Molly. So much.
Taking control of the kiss, he nudged her into a seated position on the bed. When she lifted her hands to his jeans, he shook his head. “I’ll take care of you tonight, baby. I think you need it.”
Molly grabbed his hand, shook her head. “This hurt you, too.” Kissing his palm, she pressed it against her cheek. “Let’s take care of each other.”
Fox’s eyes flashed, and she was flat on her back in bed a split-second later, his body big and heavy on her own.
“The things you say, Molly,” he said in that whiskey-and-sin voice, his bristled jaw rasping over the palm she lifted to his jaw. “I’d planned to seduce you, coax you, and now all I want to do is push my c**k into you, your skin touching mine, your heart beating against mine.”
“Yes,” she whispered, pushing his jacket off his shoulders.
The action made him exhale harshly and then he rose off the bed to strip down to the skin. Always he’d been her beautiful rock star. Today, his body was no less beautiful, but all she saw was the potent emotion in his eyes, an emotion that echoed the painful, hopeful thing inside her.
Needing him, she slipped off her panties and held out a hand. “Fox.”
He came to her in a storm of masculine heat and blunt sexual words that made her feel adored. Breath lost when he entered her, she blinked back tears at the sheer rightness of their intimate connection, skin sliding against skin, breaths mingling.
Then Fox intertwined his hands with her own, pressing them on either side of her head, and she lost the battle. Kissing away her tears, Fox attempted to pull out, but she held him too possessively, her legs locked around his hips.
Shuddering, he said her name, buried his face against the side of hers. Rolling with his shallow thrusts, she turned her face to kiss his jaw, any part of him she could reach.