Haunted Wolves: Green Pines, Book 2 (14 page)

She shook herself. “Nothing. It’s silly.”

“Nothing’s silly if it matters to you.” He kissed one cheek and then the other. “Especially since you’ll have to hear how beautiful you are all the damn time.”

Her doubt seemed even sillier in the face of his words. “I was just wondering if you resent it. My coming to you like this.”

Colin threaded his fingers into her hair and tilted her head back. “Because of what Jay told me?” His lips traced her jaw.

“You’ve been worried about it.”

“He drew the line he needed to when none of us knew each other. But lines can change.” He closed his teeth playfully on her chin. “I think you get to draw your own now.”

Her nipples tightened, and she cupped one hand around his neck. “Then it’s your turn to kiss me.”

His teeth came back, a little higher. A little rougher. “Oh, I will.”

Power rose around them, turbulent and aroused. Lorelei leaned away, out of reach of his mouth. “I don’t believe you.”

He growled and dragged her to him, his already open mouth coming down over hers. The need for more seized her immediately, tumbling end over end past the sheer pleasure of the kiss, and she wound her arms around his neck.

For all his rush in claiming her mouth, his kiss was lazy patience wrapped around a hungry edge. There was no mistaking the desire in every tense line of his body, but he took his time tasting her lips, licking one and then the other, pulling them between his own for lingering caresses or quick nips.

Lorelei bit him back, catching his tongue between her teeth, but only for a split second. “That’s first base, right?”

“Barely.” Colin trailed kisses to her jaw again, and lower, as his hands settled on her hips. “Plenty more to explore without going below the shoulders.” He swiped his tongue over the spot where her pulse beat rapidly in her throat.

A helpless, pleading noise escaped her. He could probably think of a hundred ways to make her beg, and she didn’t care. She’d think of a few of her own. “Like this?” She ducked her head and licked his jaw, right up to the spot beneath his ear.

His fingers flexed at her waist, and a low noise escaped him. “Not so gentle. Let me feel your teeth.”

“Or what?” She traced her tongue over his earlobe.

The low noise shifted toward a growl. “Or I’ll use mine.”

“That’s a shitty threat.” But she bit him anyway—hard, unforgiving. To the point of bruising.

He shuddered under her touch, and then his hands were in her hair, his mouth on hers. Deep kisses this time, fast and a little rough, his tongue driving past her lips.

Lorelei shifted on the table, eager to get closer, to cross the line she’d laid out herself. She dropped her hands to his hips, then slipped her fingertips just inside his jeans.

Colin drew away, panting, as he caught her wrist in an iron grip. “I’m not changing my mind,” he murmured against her cheek. “You can touch me wherever the hell you want, but no matter what you do, I’m not crossing that line.”

“I believe it.” She turned her face until her lips pressed to the corner of his mouth. “Don’t worry. You’re nowhere near it—yet.”

Another heartbeat, and his grip eased. He stroked her wrist and trailed his fingers up her arm and over her shoulder before claiming her mouth again.

Lorelei expected the kiss to spark a more fervent need, and it did, but somehow that need was now tempered by a different one altogether. To slow down, to find another line—his. The point at which control would melt into undeniable passion.

After a thorough exploration of her mouth, he shifted his kisses to her jaw, dropping them one after another in a ragged arch marching along her throat. Each was its own sensual attack, a silken brush of his lips followed by sharp nips and teasing licks.

She couldn’t stop herself from stretching up as she threaded her fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck and pulled him closer. Lower.

He growled as his mouth found the neckline of her shirt. His hand tightened, tangling in the fabric for a tense moment, as if he’d tear it free of her body.

She slid her arms free of her unbuttoned cardigan and tugged at the hem of her T-shirt. “I could take it off—”

“Shh.” The command came out low and hoarse, and his hands trembled as he smoothed them up her body to cup her breasts. “Close your eyes.”

Lorelei sank her teeth into her lower lip to hold back a moan as she complied.

With his thumbs, he stroked a taunting path just shy of her nipples. “Now tilt your head back.”

“Colin…”

“Mmm?”

Not being able to see him, to gauge his reactions, was nerve-wracking enough. But to have her throat bared… She swallowed hard and dropped her head back. “I’m trusting you right now.”

“I know, honey.” Colin trailed one hand over her collarbone and up to the nape of her neck. His thumb traced a delicate line from the hollow of her throat to her chin, reinforcing the vulnerability of her position. “You don’t know how much that means to me. How it makes me feel.”

She shivered. “Then tell me.”

He showed her instead, a groan thundering out of him as he closed his teeth gently over her pulse.

Not hard, not exactly, but firm. Resolute. He
meant
it, and she lifted her hands to cover his, pressing them closer to her breasts.

Another groan, and she barely had time to gasp before he tugged at her T-shirt. He hauled it over her head and let it drop, and then he was touching her, hands warm and strong and a little rough as he bent her back over his arm and pressed his open mouth to one fabric-covered nipple.

His name caught in her throat, along with the breath she had left. All she could do was wiggle closer and damn herself for bothering to put on a bra that morning.

He sucked hard enough to arch her back before nipping the curve of her breast. “I can’t cross the line, but you can.”

It took a moment for his meaning to sink in, and when it did, her cheeks flamed and her pulse kicked into high gear. “Me with my hands in my panties? That has to qualify as third base.”

Colin kissed her flaming cheeks. “We never said you couldn’t get to third base with yourself.”

“It’s cheating,” she admonished with a whisper, even as she dropped her hand to the button on her jeans.

“Only if you don’t want to do it.” He closed his thumb and forefinger around her nipple, pinching just hard enough to elicit a gasp. “You draw all your own lines now, right?”

“I do.” She yanked at the denim, pulling the button and zipper free all at once. “But I’m not a nice girl, Colin. Those lines aren’t always going to be safe or easy.”

His touch stilled, and he met her gaze, eyes narrowed. “Don’t need easy, but safe’s not negotiable.”

“You won’t always be able to keep your pants on,” she clarified, allowing her gaze to drift down his body.

His tension dissolved with his low, relieved laugh, and he leaned in to nuzzle her ear. “Just my pants? Gonna have to be a lot kinkier than that before I believe you’re not a nice girl.”

Embarrassment threatened, and she exhaled in relief when it failed to supplant her arousal. “Maybe that means you’re not a nice boy.”

He mastered the clasp on her bra with one hand before sliding the fabric free. “I think this is the nicest part about me,” he murmured, sliding his fingertips over newly bared skin. Always slow, always soft, but she could feel the steely edge of control and the trembling need behind it, taste it in the power brushing over her. Dominant. Hungry.

She knew it was chilly in the barn, but she couldn’t feel it. Everything was warmth and desire and
Colin
, and she tugged at his shirt. “Take yours off too.”

That careful control didn’t extend to his own clothing. The neckline ripped as he tore his T-shirt over his head, and he cast it aside with rough impatience. His feverish gaze latched on to her fingers where they rested near her open pants.

Lorelei quelled a shudder and edged her hand inside the denim and under the cotton. Lower, until her fingers slipped over sensitized flesh and brought that shudder back to life.

Colin buried his face against her throat, his fingers flexing on her skin. “Don’t hold back. I need to know how you sound when you come.”

“Why?” The word broke on a gasp, and she arched off the worktable, pressing closer as she wrapped her other arm around his shoulders.

Teeth scraped her skin. “So I can imagine it tonight,” he murmured before biting the spot where her shoulder met her neck, sending another zip of pleasure up her spine.

“When you’re alone in your bed?” Lorelei wiggled until his hips pressed firmly between her thighs, pushing against the back of her hand through her jeans.

“Yes.” He splayed his fingers across the small of her back and held her close as his other hand twisted in her hair. “Or maybe in the chair. You were there long enough for it to smell like you…”

“
I
smell like me.” They were close, so close. All she had to do was kick off her jeans and open his.

His fist tightened behind her head with a roughness that bordered on
too much
, and she felt his growl as much as heard it—low and hoarse, vibrating through her. “Not in my bed,” he rasped hoarsely. “You can’t be in my bed yet. Not until there aren’t any lines.”

The pressure of his hand in her hair made her shift her hips. Her fingertips skated closer to her clit, and Lorelei bit back a whimper.

Colin repeated the gesture, pressing his mouth to her ear. “Make that noise again.”

A moan slipped free instead. “Tell me how you’ll touch me.”

“Fingers first. Soft, until you’re squirming. Then harder.” The words blew hot on her skin, hotter when he continued. “And when you’re panting, I’ll get my tongue on your clit.”

A delicious threat, one to feed a hundred fantasies. Lorelei obeyed Colin’s implicit instructions with a slow, careful circle of her fingertips, followed by a firmer caress. Her nails bit into his shoulder, and she turned her face to his. “
Yes.
”

He licked her lower lip and pressed his forehead to hers. “I’ll make you feel so good. So safe.”

The very concept seemed distant, foreign. There was nothing safe about the inescapable need burning her from the inside out. But
good
…

Oh, that was undeniable.

“Harder,” she whispered. Her hand brushed the erection straining his fly, and he hissed out a breath. So she did it again, deliberately this time, the caress too rough in counterpoint to her own questing fingers.

She yanked her hand free of her jeans and gripped his shoulders, locking her legs around his hips. “Please.”

“This is bending the rules,” he muttered, but then he was
there
, the unyielding steel of his denim-clad cock grinding between her thighs with just the right pressure to splinter blinding light behind her closed eyelids.

She scrambled to get closer, to ride the sensation cascading through her in a very real, very literal way. “I make the rules, remember?”

“Then tell me what you want.” He rocked harder. Faster. “Tell me what you need.”

The hair on his chest teased her already hard nipples to painful points, and she soothed them by pressing tight to his warm skin as she fed his earlier words back to him. “I need to know how you sound when you come.”

He growled. “That
is
cheating.”

Because it felt selfish to seek his own pleasure while she found hers? Or because he needed to hold on to control? Both were possible—and neither mattered.

Lorelei gripped his hips, urging him to give her
more
, held on tight and hid her face at the base of his throat. She licked the spot where his pulse pounded under his skin—once, twice—and bit him. Hard.

He froze, panting, her name a plea. “Lorelei…”

She stilled, as well. Maybe it did matter, after all—not that he wanted to hold back, but
why
. And until she knew those reasons, she couldn’t ask him to set them aside.

She wouldn’t.

Lorelei pushed herself back on the table and shoved her hair out of her eyes with one trembling hand. “I want to understand,” she whispered. “I want it more than this. Does that make sense?”

Heavy silence broke on his rough sigh, and he looked away as he straightened. “Trust,” he said finally. “I want it. I need it. But maybe I don’t feel like I deserve it.”

He couldn’t know how strongly the thought weighed on her, as well. She had to swallow around the lump in her throat. “Why not?”

He traced a line up her arm, his attention fixed on her shoulder and the tiny, swirling patterns he drew there with his fingertip. “Because it’s too easy for me to justify taking things I swore I wouldn’t. If I want something—someone—badly enough.” His gaze leapt to hers, dark and intent. “I want you. Would you say no, if I wanted too much?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “If it was too much for me, absolutely.”

He touched his thumb to the corner of her mouth with a crooked little smile. “It doesn’t feel right to do more, not when we made the agreement when we were both clearheaded. Maybe you still are, darling, but I’m sure as hell not. I’m drunk on you. And that’s why. If I’m ever going to trust myself, I need to know I won’t break a promise, even if being inside you seems more important than breathing.”