“Just another time life stabbed me in the back. This time it was my business partner. Asshole nearly destroyed me. He made me look like I was a part of his shady practices, stealing from clients, falsifying documents. I very well might have ended up in jail like he did. I managed to prove I had no clue what kind of bullshit he was pulling back at the office while I was out working my fingers to the bone with the crew. Still nearly lost the company because of it, but somehow I managed to hold it together.”
Hatred pulsed through my veins. Still couldn’t believe the bastard had pulled that shit. It’d nearly knocked me on my ass. The blow was almost as harsh as coming home and finding my wife had left me.
“That’s horrible.”
Nodding, I pulled into her drive. “It was. Pisses me off the fucker just got released. Takes about all I have not to hunt him down.”
She laughed this incredulous sound, honesty gliding onto her face. “You want to hunt yours down and the weak part of me wants to run the other direction.”
“Don’t ever let anyone chase you from what belongs to you, Rynna Dayne.”
18
Rynna
Tension roiled between us. That tether pulled taut. Drawing us closer. I swallowed around it and reached for the latch. He was quick to open his door, jumping out and rounding to my side before I had time to step out of his massive truck. He helped me down, and his hand scorched where he aided me by holding on to my elbow.
“Let me walk you to the door. Last thing I need to be worried about is you here by yourself and some asshole taking advantage of you.”
He quirked this belly-flopping grin that pierced me like an arrow. “Unless of course that asshole is me.”
He barely angled his head to the side. There was something so endearing and self-deprecating about it. Everything about him right then was at odds with the surly, bear of a man I’d met weeks ago, the man exposing himself, layer by layer.
I lifted my chin, both in strength and vulnerability, tossing all the uncertainties and questions out into the open. “Should I be afraid?”
“Yeah, you should be.” His response was hard, but there was no missing the fact his irritation was aimed at himself. He set his palm on the small of my back, helping me through the gravel drive in my heels, an inch behind as we ascended the porch steps.
We crossed the planks. That tension wound higher with each step until we were nothing but needy pants at my door. Slowly, I turned around to face him.
His presence sent a ripple of energy vibrating across the floorboards, the overwhelming sight of him the owner of my breath.
He stood beneath the faint glow of the hurricane lamp that hung outside the door. A sculpture of sinewy muscle and raw strength, forged through years of obvious physical labor. Every inch of him was rugged, from those roughened, callused hands to the crinkles set deep at the edges of his eyes.
The man was a carving of pure, daunting beauty.
“What exactly am I supposed to be afraid of, Rex?” My brow twisted, and my voice quieted with the admission. “Because when I’m around you, the last thing I feel is afraid.”
“I fuck everything up, Rynna, and the only thing I’ve got to offer you is my mess. I can’t do this.”
Restraint rumbled in his chest, the sound so deep I felt it shake the ground beneath my feet.
I gently cupped one side of his rugged face. “I’m not afraid.”
It was a promise.
An appeal.
“You should be,” he grated. “Warned you, my shit doesn’t ever end well.”
“Maybe that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
He groaned and he planted his hands high above my head. The man panted above me, torn, desperate, his nose just brushing mine. “God damn it, Rynna. God damn it.”
I felt the moment he broke. When the thread pulled too tight and this mesmerizing man snapped. His mouth descended on mine.
Overpowering.
Overwhelming.
Dizzying.
Lips and tongue and nips of teeth.
And those hands. They were on my face. My neck. My waist. Somehow, I managed to hold on to him and spin away as I fumbled with the lock. He pressed against my backside, his cock against my bottom, and his mouth leaving a trail of fire at the side of my neck. We stumbled into the darkness of my house, breaking apart as I turned to face him.
The only light trickled down from the lamp I’d left on upstairs.
Slowly, he clicked the door shut behind him. We stood there, two feet away from each other, staring.
Chests heaving.
Before we collided.
A tangle of tongues and bodies.
The man frantic, trying to touch me everywhere.
“What am I doing? Fuck, what am I doing?” he muttered incoherently, kissing me deeper. Madder. Wilder.
I pushed up on my toes and tore my mouth from his so I could kiss down the strong column of his throat. His head thudded back against the door, his entire body pressing against it as if he needed it to keep him standing.
He grated my name, and I kept kissing at his throat while I worked free the button on his jeans, hands shaking.
Every reservation spun out of control.
Out of reach.
It was only spurred further when the defined muscles of his abdomen jumped and twitched beneath my touch, when he mumbled, “You’re killing me, Rynna. Fucking killing me.”
Desire rippled from him in heady waves.
And I felt so brave and bold, my kisses brazen as I nipped at the hollow of his throat, my fingers sure as I inched down his zipper.
Before I could consider it—the ramifications and the repercussions and the distinct threat to my heart—I dropped to my knees and pulled his jeans and underwear down to the middle of his thighs.
I refused to think of anything but setting him free.
Hoping he’d find a little of that freedom in me.
Even if it was only for a few stolen moments.
But God, I was unprepared. Just an unsuspecting, naïve fool when his thick cock bobbed out in front of me, level with my eyes.
Engorged and hard.
As big and ruggedly beautiful as the rest of him, the fat head already dripping with his need.
A flood of desire rushed me, and my stomach twisted into a thousand knots. It incited an ache in the deepest part of me. My core was a ball of fire. Heat spreading fast and throbbing between my thighs.
I pressed them together as if it might offer relief, my mouth dry, my heart thrashing against its boundaries.
Racing ahead of me as if it already knew our destination.
Those big hands were suddenly on the sides of my head. He forced me to look up at him. Hunger glinted in his eyes, a dangerous cocktail of sorrow and need and restraint.
That mesmerizing sage deepened to steel. It was when I knew he’d taken another turn.
All needy, dominant man.
“Is this what you really want? You want me to fuck that sweet mouth?”
I shivered with the promise of his words. Again caught off guard by this man who’d left me on unstable ground.
“I just want to make you feel good,” I whispered.
He was so hard. Every inch of him. From the clench of his jaw to the ripple of his stomach to his length that protruded and dipped and bounced in front of me.
The tip barely grazed my lips. My tongue flicked out and swept across the velvet flesh.
Rex hissed. “Fuck . . . Rynna. I can’t fucking do this. This is wrong. So fucking wrong.”
But instead of pushing me away, he tugged me closer. A raw groan escaped him when I wrapped both my hands around him at the base and sucked his crown into my mouth.
He rasped a curse and rocked forward. Control slipping. Control I somehow knew he used as a defense. As a way to keep everyone at arm’s length.
My tongue pressed at the underside of his cock, and I pulled him deeper.
Drawing him in.
Slowly.
Just as slowly as I began to work him with my hands.
And maybe I should have known I was in trouble when I began to shake. When the entire room spun at the feel of him. At the impact of him.
At the way I completely succumbed when he muttered, “That mouth,” as he hooked his fingertips below my jaw, drawing my eyes up to meet his.
His thumbs brushed the curve of my cheeks before he moved them to the edge of my lips. His eyes flashed with something tender. Soft and gentle.