When We Met

A low chuckle rumbled up his chest, and he kissed the back of my hand, our fingers still twisted together. “Yeah, it definitely fits.” The intense emotion in his hazel eyes deepened, flashed with something I didn’t quite recognize, almost a blend of anger and devotion. “It all makes sense now.”

Darryn pushed his weight to one of his hands, moving over me. Slowly I rolled onto my back, led by his motion, that strong chest hovering over me with his body still off to my side. My nerve endings ratcheted up, all those darts of energy rapid-firing across my skin as his eyes changed and everything between us became charged, heightened to a level I’d never experienced. One that had me trembling below him.

He touched my face. “You’re amazing, Misha.”

Heat blazed up my throat, and Darryn dipped down, pressing his mouth to the oversensitive skin. He trailed kisses up and down along the hollow of my neck, up to beneath my ear.

I whimpered, and he brought his mouth to mine, shifting his weight over me, his knee wedged between my thighs. “Is this okay?” he asked, leaning back to run his hands down my sides.

“Yes.”

He continued his assault, kissing every exposed inch of skin on my chest and shoulders, moving to my face, trailing sweet kisses over my closed lids. He ran his nose down between the swell of my breasts exposed over the top of my tank.

“And this?” he whispered, almost urgently—almost as urgently as the need stampeding through my veins. “Tell me when to stop, because I don’t know if I can trust myself not to push you too far. You have no idea how badly I want you.”

And the crazy thing was I didn’t want him to stop, but I needed him to. I pulled back, tipping my head to force him to look at me. All that shyness came rushing to my face, flaming with the fire he’d set inside me. I blinked, murmuring my plea. “Just . . . respect me . . . Be patient with me.” My tongue darted out to my lips. “Above all, be honest with me.”

He hefted the air from his lungs, and again I was slammed with all that was Darryn—all soap and sex and man.

He pulled back and settled down at my side. And right there, in that one action, he earned a huge piece of my trust. Because he did know when to stop. He could have continued, and I would have let him. But he didn’t.

He pulled me into the sanctuary of his arms, right up against his beating heart. “I’ll take care of you, Misha,” he said. The words sounded like the most solemn of promises.

Maybe my boy-man-god really was my avenging angel. Darryn the Destroyer. Sent to rescue me. To slay all the beasts that had held me captive.

I guess I really wanted a fairy tale, after all.

chapter ten

Misha

“Oh my gosh . . . stop!” I pled. Breathless giggles built up in my belly and rolled through my entire body before they spilled from my mouth.

My cries only encouraged Darryn. Hazel eyes gleamed with all that mischief, and his deft fingers made another assault on my sides, tickling my ribs. It might have hurt if being near him didn’t feel so good.

I flailed and kicked my legs, howling with laughter as I twisted and turned and tried to pull myself out of his reach.

Darryn only leaned in farther, pi

“You’re going to make me pee my pants,” I yelped, thinking that just might do the trick considering that our bodies were in a very compromised position, his overpowering mine as I struggled under him.

No such luck.

“Really?” he dared, leaning in a little farther, digging in a little deeper. “Come on, let’s see it, Misha.” His smell enveloped me like a big, huge hug. A hug that came with an overwhelming surge of desire. Because who could blame me?

This boy-man-god was mine.

He’d been mine for more than a month.

Was it wrong it’d been the single best month of my life?

Darryn pulled back a fraction, just enough to allow me to drag a gulping breath into my lungs. Even though he had me at his mercy, there was so much softness in his eyes, so much restraint in his hands, so much goodness in his heart, I knew he’d never hurt me. There was no mistaking it.

He pushed back and dragged the hem of my shirt up, exposing my stomach. His mouth went for my side, tickling me in a whole new way as he suckled at my skin.

I squealed, my hips doing their best to buck Darryn from me, but there was nothing I could do to stop him from leaving his mark.

He pulled back and glanced up at me with a smirk before he turned back to his handiwork. “Perfect,” he said, rubbing his thumb over the flaming skin that he’d exposed just above my hip.

I wondered if it could possibly be as red as my face.

So yeah, he was still a total punk. Arrogant and sly. But God help me if I didn’t like that about him, too.

He’d told me a month ago he just wanted to mean something to me.

Little did he know he was slowly becoming everything.

I sobered a little, reaching out to brush my fingers through the flop of hair that had fallen on his forehead. Slowly he helped me up to sitting, and he plopped down on a chair in front of where my legs dangled off the side of the table, wedging himself between my knees. He looked up at me, his expression so sweet it twisted something loose inside my heart. A smile pulled at his mouth, and he touched my chin, tilting it, quietly inspecting my face. “I love that blush,” he whispered, fluttering his fingers over it like he wished it were palpable, something tangible he could ball up in his hand and hide away.

I felt so exposed, yet so adored. “Do you know what I love?”

His eyes glimmered. “What?”

I ran my thumb across his bottom lip. “This mouth.” I leaned in and placed a kiss on it, so soft I hoped it spoke a thousand words that I wasn’t ready to say. Or maybe it was just three.

I love you.

It was there, screaming out from my heart. But even as I thought them, all those feelings of vulnerability came barreling in, warning me against feeling something so strong for someone I’d only been dating for a month. But I couldn’t stop my feelings or change them. I couldn’t help the way he made me feel. Couldn’t help that his arms were my favorite place. Couldn’t help that his mouth was my favorite flavor and his voice was my favorite song.

His tongue was all warm when he swept it against my mouth, and tingles spread through me like a wildfire. “Mm,” he moaned, “not as much as I love yours.”

I tilted my head and parted my lips, welcoming the rush of his heat as he took over my mouth, the way his tongue danced and played before he closed his mouth over my lips, before they opened again and the kiss only deepened.

With both hands, he palmed my breasts over my T-shirt, urging a moan from somewhere in the deepest part of my spirit, before his fingers hooked in my collar and pulled my shirt down to expose me.

I gasped.

Sure, I was wearing a bra. But that didn’t mean I didn’t feel laid bare.

I could feel the heat emanating from my chest, the burning red I knew was flaming on all that skin Darryn had just brought out into the light.

Darryn looked up at me, wetting his swollen lips with his tongue, hunger and hard-won restraint so vivid in his eyes. “Too much?” he asked as the worry floated into his strained voice, his question guarded as he let his hands wander over the lacy cups of my bra, so slowly, giving me time to react. Time to clamp my hands over his to stop him the way I usually did, when I’d beg him to be patient even though he’d never given me any reason to feel I needed to plea.

He always understood and never pushed me any further than where I wanted to go.

And I knew he probably thought me a blushing virgin, the reason for all these pesky layers of clothing we had to maintain.