Tempt Me: A First Class Romance Collection

by Jessica Hawkins

  “Rex.” It was a whimper.

  “Shh. I know, baby. I know.”

  I clung to his neck as he carried me upstairs. At the landing, he took a left and headed into my bedroom, pushing right past my unmade bed and through the cutout arch that led to the bathroom.

  As if this man already knew the way.

  He set me on unsteady feet and turned me to face the counter. My eyes met his in the mirror. A low growl climbed his throat, and he leaned around me to turn on the faucet.

  The air constricted.

  Charged.

  I swore, our slowed, measured movements attracted every molecule within five miles. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, taking my hands in his and placing them beneath the fall of warm water. He gently rubbed our hands together, the basin filling with pink-tinged water as he scrubbed the blood free from our dirtied hands.

  “Two weeks, Rynna. Two weeks I’ve been dying, hating the way I left things between us. Hating that I hurt you.”

  His words brushed my cheek, and his presence filled my senses.

  Overwhelming.

  He squirted soap onto our hands, continuing to wash away this afternoon, as if he wanted to erase the possibility of what could have happened.

  Carefully.

  Meticulously.

  His voice was a soft scrape at the shell of my ear, sending shivers down my neck, turning my heart into a thundering orb at the center of my chest. “All that time, I was wishing with every part of me I could change my circumstances. That I could be right for you. Then this, Rynna. Then this happened and I don’t fucking care, anymore. Don’t fucking care that this is wrong.”

  His eyes captured mine through the mirror. They flashed with a warning. An omen. A prediction.

  “I’m not afraid,” I whispered, my promise striking the throbbing air. He gathered my hair in his hand, shifting it all to one side, exposing my neck. He pressed his lips there in the barest kiss. “That’s funny, because I’m fucking terrified of you.” His nose ran up to the back of my ear. “Terrified of this.”

  A shiver rolled down my spine, and Rex eased back a fraction, taking the hem of my shirt and drawing it slowly up my body.

  That shiver shifted. An avalanche of chills. He peeled it over my head before he did the same to his own, scrubbing at his face before he tossed his shirt to his feet.

  My gaze traced him through the mirror, and I swallowed around the emotion that grew thick at the base of my throat.

  This complicated, amazing man drove me crazy with desire. Crazy with need. Crazy with this want that had become its own entity inside of me.

  He reached up and let his fingertips flutter across my exposed shoulder and down my arm. Tingles spread in a slow slide. All the fear I’d felt earlier transformed into this emotion I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt before.

  Something so real it staggered my senses.

  He reached back and unfastened my bra, drawing the straps down my arms.

  My nipples pebbled as my breasts were exposed, and his chest heaved with a grunt. “So beautiful. So goddamned beautiful,” he murmured.

  His fingers pressed under the waistband of my shorts.

  “You want this, Rynna? You want me?” There was a tremor in his words. That same warning that flamed in his eyes. “Because I’m done running from you.”

  “I want you so badly it hurts.”

  He heaved a breath before he dipped down and kissed a path down my spine as he dragged my shorts and underwear down my legs.

  “Oh God,” I whimpered, hit by an onslaught of sensations.

  Need and want and desire.

  But it was that emotion that pulsed in the depths of me that nearly sent me to my knees. Wave after wave. Seeping and saturating. Trembling in my throat and tightening in my stomach.

  “Rynna.” It was a groan as he kissed down the cleft of my bottom and unwound my clothing from my feet, the sound so guttural it rumbled against the walls.

  Then I was back in his arms and he was carrying me to my bed, lying me in the middle.

  He stood with his chest heaving. So much stunning strength. The man so gorgeous and darkly appealing my mouth went dry.

  Every thought and reservation fled from my mind. Every pep talk I’d given myself over the last two weeks about forgetting him and moving on scattered in the wind.

  Because when it was just him and me?

  There was nothing but the beat of our hearts.

  Nothing but the call of our spirits. It was something louder than all the questions. Something bigger than his past. Something higher than our obstacles.

  Something fierce rippled as he looked down at me completely naked on my bed.

  “Are you sure?” he grated.

  My hands fisted in my sheets, my body arching toward him. Needing him in a way I’d never needed anyone before. “I already told you I’m not afraid. You, Rex Gunner, are a chance I’m willing to take.”

  “You shouldn’t be real.” It was rough. Just like the man.

  I bit my bottom lip, loving when he let me glimpse under all that hardness. “Yet, here I am.”

  “And what happens when you’re gone?” There was something so sorrowful in it, a stab right to the center of my chest.

  Slowly, I climbed up onto my knees and stretched out my hand. I brushed my fingertips down the side of his rugged face. “And what happens if I stay?”

  For a beat, his eyes dropped closed, and he leaned into my touch before he snatched me by the wrist and pressed my palm to his mouth. “And what if I don’t let you leave?”

  God, this man. He pushed and pulled. Taunted and tugged.

  Slowly he edged back, eying me with those mesmerizing eyes as he kicked off his boots. Without freeing me of his gaze, he unfastened his belt. His abdomen flexed and bowed as he tugged on his fly and lowered the zipper.

  Desire swept through my body.

  A battering storm.

  Anticipation and need.

  He nudged the jeans down his legs and took his underwear with them.

  He stood there in the shadows that fell into my room.

  Completely naked.

  Bare.

  So beautiful a downpour of desire soaked me through.

  I hadn’t been lying to Macy. This man was what gods were made of. Sleek and defined. Carved in hard, indestructible perfection.

  All except for the broken pieces I knew he tried to keep concealed, buried deep inside. I saw them so clearly. Held in the depths of those eyes. Those eyes that were looking at me as if maybe I should run if I didn’t want to be devoured.

  But I did.

  I so desperately did.

  He edged forward an inch, big hand splayed across my chest, nudging me down onto the mattress. I was spread across its width, the man towering over me from the side.

  I writhed, hips jutting into the air, not caring for a second that I was desperate.

  That I needed him.

  His touch and his body and that spirit that had already taken me whole. He ran a fingertip down the inside of my thigh. “Last two times I touched you nearly ruined me. Seeing you like this? Don’t think I’m ever going to be the same. Stealing my sleep. Stealing my breath. Stealing my sanity. Little thief.”

  Chills flew. A chaos of sensation.

  His hands were on my knees, pulling them apart.

  I’d never felt so exposed, and I gasped out a shocked breath when he leaned down and gave one long lick up my slit.

  He pulled back, and it was almost a smirk that was riding his sexy mouth as he stared down at me, as if he were looking at the sunrise for the very first time. Shifting his attention to my face, he grazed just the tips of his fingers through my folds. “Stunning. Fucking stunning. Feel like I’m in a dream when I’m touching you this way. Like I’m lost in some kind of fantasy and I don’t ever want to wake up.”

  Redness flushed across the surface of my skin

  “And you . . . you make me feel like I’ve finally found my reality. Like I f
inally figured out exactly where I’m supposed to be.” A million emotions flashed across his mesmerizing face. Regret and lust and this consuming affection he couldn’t keep contained.

  He crawled over me.

  Slowly.

  Carefully.

  I sucked in a staggered breath when the man was suddenly caging me, hands planted on either side of my head, those powerful thighs wedged between mine.

  His cock bobbed against my belly, and a shudder ripped through my body.

  He sank down onto his elbows, hot hands framing my face. “I don’t understand this, Rynna. The hold you have on me. But when I look at you? Get this feeling that I’m looking at everything right.”

  “Rex.” His name was a tremor.

  A plea.

  He leaned down and kissed me.

  He kissed me carefully.

  Gently.

  Tenderly.

  That energy lapped through the air. A slow, steady build. A current stoked by each pass of his tongue, by the heat that sizzled across our flesh, by our hands that explored. I ran my palms across his chest and over his wide shoulders, down the sinewy muscle of his back to his narrow hips.

  I wrapped my hand around him, stroking him slow from the base of him to the tip.

  He pulled his mouth away from mine. Head tilting back, he released a long groan. “Rynna . . . fuck . . . Rynna.”

  He pressed back up onto one hand, touching my face, a hand on my cheek before he edged back even more. He grasped me by the back of my knee and spread me wide. Jagged pants ripped from his lungs as he took himself in his hand and rubbed just the head of his cock through my center.

  Flames.

  I swore that single touch set me on fire.

  “Rynna . . . fuck . . . you are gonna destroy me.”

  I whimpered, “Please.”

  Jaw clenched, he began to work himself inside me, tiny thrusts as he spread me, as he stole my breaths and seared himself into my body.

  He was so big, so big that my nails sank into his shoulders. I knew he was holding himself back, forcing himself to remain in control.

  He slowly worked himself farther.

  Deeper.

  Until he was seated fully.

  Owning me.

  His cock throbbed in the tight clutch of my walls.

  The hand that had been on my thigh skimmed over my hip and up my side, cupping my breast, gliding to my jaw. “Fuck, Rynna . . . you feel so right. So fucking right.”

  “We are right,” I murmured toward his face.

  He groaned again before he pulled almost all the way out and paused, that mesmerizing stare held fast on my face. As if he held the power to see straight inside me.

  Or maybe he was just begging me to look to the depths of him.

  In that moment, everything went electric, that current lashing and zapping in the air.

  Then he consumed me with one dominating thrust.

  A thrust that shocked the air from my lungs and sent it scattering somewhere in the vicinity of my heart. My heart I could feel shattering. Shattering with emotion.

  With need and affection and this feeling that was rising to obliterate all else.

  The same annihilated heart that struggled to keep up with the battering crash of his.

  He went back to holding me behind the knee.

  He watched down on me while he dominated my body.

  Eyes raking my flesh. My face. My breasts. Where we were joined.

  Again and again.

  As if he couldn’t get enough. As if he never wanted it to end.

  His body glistened with sweat as he worked over me. Muscles bowing.

  His fucks deep.

  Passionate.

  Whole.

  Pleasure glowed. Bright white flames.

  He was looking at me as if I weren’t real.

  As if I were a fantasy.

  Something he could never deserve or hold or keep.

  When he’d already won every part of me.

  Body and mind and quivering soul.

  He shuddered through a frantic swallow, barely hanging on. “Fuck . . . baby . . . Ryn. Baby. You are a fucking miracle. No woman should feel this good. Fuck . . . I don’t know if I can hold back.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “Shit. You are so fuckin’ sweet. So goddamned sweet.” And I loved the grin that quirked at the side of that mouth. That mouth that was descending on mine, his hand on my neck. He kissed me until my head spun then he edged all the way back onto his knees and grabbed me by the waist.

  He lifted my hips in the air.

  My body arched.

  All spread out.

  My hands fisted in the sheets. I held on while Rex Gunner let go.

  His control gone. The man driving to the depths of me. Where bliss spun and tightened and burned.

  Gasps shocked from my mouth.

  His fucks so desperate they were almost sweet.

  He hissed through the wild rocks of his hips. “You are a miracle. Look at you. So damned sexy. So gorgeous and you don’t even know.”

  He drove harder.

  Faster.

  His frenzied pants lifted into the air.

  He tightened his hold with one hand, the other grazing over my trembling belly, and his thumb found my clit.

  “Oh God,” I cried out.

  And I could feel my own reality slipping away. The burn of pleasure he incited with every thrust of his cock.

  The man fucked like a barbarian that had perfected his art. Rough and grueling and driving me mad.

  Higher and higher toward where day and night spun.

  “Rex—”

  Everything burst.

  Strobes of light that flashed behind my eyes and the pleasure that exploded in my body.

  Fracturing.

  Scattering wide. Bliss.

  It rode every nerve and obliterated every cell.

  A sound tore from my throat, given voice where it came to life from somewhere in my spirit.

  Because just like Rex had said, this shouldn’t have been real.

  It was too good. Too much. Too overwhelming.

  Pleasure rushed.

  A landslide.

  So intense I thought it might go on forever.

  Rex drove deeper and harder and wilder. His fingers sank into my hips, and he jerked my body to meet each dominating thrust. The man coming unhinged. Every breath a grunt. He gripped me as if he were clinging to safety, afraid he would be swept away, too. His head kicked back, and he roared toward the ceiling.

  And I floated on his ecstasy. My walls clutching him tight. My heart holding on tighter.

  For a few moments, we remained there, his shoulders and chest heaving as he panted for air. He slowly lowered my hips to the bed, wincing as he pulled out before he slumped down on top of me.

  Threading his fingers through my hair, he rolled us to our sides. He stared at me, blinking in wonder as he brushed his thumb over the curve of my cheek. “That was . . .”

  “Incredible,” I whispered, almost shy.

  “Incredible might be an insult. Feeling this way should be impossible, Rynna Dayne. Not sure how I’m going to walk out of this house and ever be the same.”

  “What if I don’t want you to walk out of here ever feeling the same?”

  “Don’t think there’s any worry about that.” He studied me, hesitating, before he spoke, his admission scratchy. “I haven’t been with anyone since Frankie’s mom.”

  Shock burned through my mind and jolted my spirit, questions tumbling through my head, this man who was such a mystery.

  I shifted onto my elbow, causing Rex to roll onto his back. I searched him in the shadows. “What? Why now? Why me?”

  “Because you change everything, Rynna. You walk in a room, it’s better. And when you walk away, everything grows dimmer. Colder. And I’m tired of living in the dark.” He brushed back the hair that fell against my cheek. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not terrified. That I’m not scared I’m doing
something wrong. Making bad choices, the way I have all along. Last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

  I dipped down and placed a soft kiss to his chin, rising back up to meet the intensity of his stare. “The only thing that would hurt me is you walking away.”

  “My daughter . . .” I watched the heavy bob of this thick throat, the fierce protectiveness seeping through his pores.

  I pressed my palm over the erratic thunder of his heart. “I know. Your daughter . . . your beautiful Frankie. I promise you I would rather die than hurt her, just like I know you’d rather die than see her hurt.”

  His heart pounded harder, and a dent pulled between his eyes. “How’s it you just get it?”

  “There are some things that just aren’t that hard to understand. Like loving a child. It’s complete. Absolute. There’s no middle ground. So yeah, I get it.”

  “She’s gonna fall for you, Rynna.”

  A soft smile pulled at my mouth, and I scratched my fingertips through the scruff on his jaw. “That’s good, because I’m already falling for her.”

  Falling for you.

  I didn’t say it. Because I had my own fears. That he might not be ready. That the words might push him away. I figured when he looked at me, it was blatant, anyway.

  Tentatively, I reached down to run my fingers through the soft locks of his hair. “What happened with Frankie’s mom?”

  He flinched. “I don’t fucking know, Rynna. I came home one day, and she was . . . driving away. She didn’t even stop when she saw me pass her on the road.” His eyes squeezed shut. “Thought everything was fine. Left for work that morning, and then boom . . . gone. Some bullshit letter left behind about me working too much and she couldn’t take it anymore.”

  Nikki was right. What a selfish bitch.

  “What was she like?”

  Emotion flashed through his eyes. Hurt and hatred.

  “Last thing I want to be talking about is her when I’m lying here with you. Because right here? With you? That’s where I want to be, and the last thing I need is her here in the middle of it.”

  “You don’t need to tell me anything, Rex,” I whispered, just as softly as my fingers that trailed across his jaw. “But when you want to? When you’re ready? I’ll be right here, ready to listen. I promise you there isn’t anything you could say that would turn me off or send me in the other direction. Because this is where I want to be, too.”