I hoisted her from her feet. She wrapped those sleek legs around my waist about as tightly as she wrapped her arms around my neck.
“I want to feel somethin’ good.” She whispered the words along the pulse point that thrummed in my neck, her lips so soft as she kissed along the flesh. “I need you to remind me that there is somethin’ good out there for me. I need to feel. To feel alive.”
Flames leapt, and my stomach fisted with need.
Greed taking me over.
“I’m the last person you want to show you that.”
“You’re wrong. You’re the only person I want to show me that.”
I’d left the sliding door open to my room, the lights completely cut, the only illumination coming from the bare lights that shone from the balcony wall that became a hazy mesh with the moon.
I carried her to the lounge chair that sat immediately inside, set her onto her feet, and swiveled her away from me just as fast.
There was a large mirror hanging from the wall right in front of her.
I needed her to see herself the way that I did.
A gasp raked from her throat, surprise and heat exploding in the atmosphere.
I bent her over so her hands were planted on the arm rests of the fabric chair.
The back of her neck was exposed to me, her firm ass angling toward me in its own plea.
Jade eyes glittered where they met mine in the shadowy reflection, and tendrils of blonde that had gotten loose brushed her shoulders, her chest heaving like a song that had gone out of sync.
I smoothed my hands over the curve of her ass, my cock jumping in my jeans, need winding me so tight I couldn’t breathe. “You are so fucking perfect, Emily Ramsey. This body.”
I nudged my painfully hard erection against her bottom.
She whimpered and pressed back, welcoming the heat, her eyes never leaving mine as pants jutted from her mouth.
The sound was like gasoline to the charged, dense air.
I eased her back, running my hands up the outside of her ribs until I was cupping the front of her neck in my hand, the other pressing down on her quaking, quivering belly.
Blood thundered beneath my palm, a blustering storm ravaging the night sky.
Frantic and erratic and freed.
No fear.
I wanted to get lost in the sensation. Drunk on something that was pure and right.
From behind, my mouth caressed up the angle of her jaw and moved across her cheek. “This face that is unlike anything or anyone else. Priceless. Precious.”
She leaned back into me, the caress of her body ravaging my senses, her head resting on my shoulder.
The girl fully entrusting herself to my hands.
Fuck. This little thing was more than I could handle. A bigger temptation than I could endure.
Hands spread wide, I rode them down her slender arms until I was threading my fingers with hers. “These fingers that paint art. A picture written in song.”
She shuddered, her exhale sharp. “Royce,” she begged.
Guilt streaked.
What am I doing?
What am I doing?
I knew better than this. I needed to put an end to this before it completely spun out of control.
Before I couldn’t take it back.
But there was no stopping this moment.
I gathered our weaved hands and pulled them to the trigger point of her heart, holding her close. “But this? This is so much more than all of that. Better than anything I’ve ever witnessed. You want to see something good, Emily? Look right here.”
I pressed tighter against the drumbeat of her heart, and my voice lowered to a grunt. “And I refuse to taint that. Refuse to mar it with depravity. I’ve fucked up in more ways than I could ever count, and I won’t fuck this up, too. You’re worth too much, and I’m not talking dollars and cents.”
“You think we’re not all made of mistakes?” she murmured into the night.
Slowly, she turned around to face me. Her eyes glimmered in the muted light. “You think all of our days aren’t missteps and accomplishments? Joys and sorrows? Victories and failures? Not one of us is perfect, Royce, not one. Either we choose to remain captives to our mistakes or we choose to rise above them. Learn from them and become better.”
I held her by one side of the face. “And is this you rising above them? Or is this you making a mistake you’re going to regret forever?”
It was nothing but a warning.
Desire flashed through her expression, and she raked her fingers across my chest.
Hooks in my soul.
Shit.
She fluttered them all the way down my abdomen, my muscles flexing and ticking and jumping in need.
“This is me deciding what I want.” Her words were coarse and real. “What I need. What feels right. That is, unless you don’t want it? Tell me you don’t want this.”