Strike (Sphere of Irony 2)

It’s quiet in the back of the car as it makes it way to Dax’s hotel. We have to talk. I need answers to so many questions I don’t even know where to start. So instead, we sit there silently in the dark, ignoring the colossal number of issues that suffocate us like a heavy blanket on a hot day.

Dax escorts me through the lobby of the posh Warren hotel, guiding me with a hand on my lower back over to the lifts. Once inside, he slips his rough hand into mine, glancing over to make sure I’m okay with it.

I smile at his uncertainty. It’s odd to see something other than brash confidence on his handsome face. Yet the fact that he can be vulnerable is endearing. It makes him more human.

“Here we are.” Dax only releases my hand to fish out his keycard and open the door to his suite.

“Thank you.”

“Drink?” he asks, making his way to a small bar area.

“White wine if you have it.” I glance around the room. It’s gorgeous. “You can see the river from here. There’s the London Eye! Wow, and Kensington Palace.”

Dax comes up next to me at the window, putting a glass of wine in my trembling hand. “I haven’t looked.” His large palm covers the hand holding the wine, steadying it. “I’d rather look at you.”

My eyes jerk away from the view to meet his dark, soulful gaze. I’ve always been able to read his eyes… most of the time. But tonight the door that had been keeping me out has been blown wide open. I can not only read his eyes but his body and even that striking face of his. Everything is laid out for me to see.

He loves me. Of that, I no longer have any doubts.

There are still questions, of course.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Dax says, sliding his hands up my shoulders to rest at the base of my throat. His fingers curl around behind my neck leaving his thumbs below my jaw, resting over my fluttering pulse.

I know he can feel the shudder that wracks my body, the hitch in my breath as I struggle to speak. He can definitely feel the way my blood is flying through my veins, pounding out a staccato rhythm under his hands. I ache for him to touch me, to bring us together physically and make me his again.

Questions can be answered later.

Reaching up, I thread one hand into that thick head of dark blonde hair, fisting it tight. A throaty growl rips from Dax’s chest and that loving gaze turns primal. He relieves me of my glass and places it on the bar behind him without looking. Taking advantage of my empty hand, it joins the other one in Dax’s hair, gripping it hard to yank his mouth down to mine.

We crash together, devouring each other in wet, messy kisses. Dax uses his bulk to muscle me back until I’m pinned against the cold glass of the floor to ceiling window.

“Fuck, I’ve missed this. Missed you… your scent, your voice, the feel of your skin.” His hands are everywhere, touching, squeezing, caressing every part of me.

“Dax…I need you,” I pant as he attacks my mouth again. His tongue forces it’s way in, dominating the kiss in a way Dax does so well. “I want you to take me.” I need him to erase what happened with Wes. For him to be the last man to have touched me.

He releases me, putting a hand on the window on either side of my head. Dax lowers his forehead to mine. Both of us are out of breath, struggling to control our desires. “Are you sure?” he asks with his eyes screwed shut.

He’s so attentive to my needs. Even now, with his hair all disheveled, his dark shirt rucked up on one side, exposing a sliver of tan skin, and an unmistakable bulge straining in his jeans — he’s worried about pushing me into something I may regret.

“Look at me.”

He opens his eyes and those gorgeous dark irises lock onto mine. I put a hand on his chest, sliding it down until my fingers are hooked in his waistband. Dax’s breath stutters and his hips instinctively jerk forward.

“I love you, Dax. Always have. I always will.”

Those eyes widen, shimmering with disbelief. As quickly as it appears, the surprise is gone, replaced with naked lust.

“Dax!” I squeal.

In one swift motion, he has scooped me up, throwing me over his shoulder like a rag doll. I laugh, my hair hanging down and my face against his lower back.

&

nbsp; Turnabout’s fair play !

I lift the back of his shirt and lick a hot swath across the skin above the waist of his jeans. When I get to his side, I bite down on the muscle and suck—hard.

I’m rewarded with a grunt right before I’m tossed onto a massive bed. Shocked, he tries to see where I marked him while I giggle.