Page 4 of Taken By the Lumberjack
Something shifted in his expression. Careful. Deliberate. “You sure you want to know that?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
He stood slowly, moved around the end of the bar until he was in my space again — that close, that warm, that much. I held my ground, but barely. I had a little bit of sense left.
“Make a new bet with me,” he said.
“What kind of bet?”
“Simple.” His eyes were dark and steady. “I bet I can make you fall apart with just a kiss.”
The air went out of the room.
“That’s—” I started.
“One kiss. Right now. You still standing at the end of it means I lose.”
“And if you win?”
His smile was slow and devastating. “One night. On my terms.”
Every sensible thought I owned told me to laugh it off, close the bar, go upstairs to my apartment and my safe, predictable life. Every other part of me was already leaning forward.
“You’re that confident?” I managed.
“I’m that good.”
“And if I win?”
“Name your price.”
I thought about it for exactly three seconds. “You go back to your mountain and leave me alone. No more Friday night brooding sessions. No more watching me from the corner booth.”
Something dark crossed his face as if me trying to keep him out of my life bothered him. Then it was gone.
“What about the repairs?”
“I’ll find a way.” Why? Because I always did.
“Deal.” He held out his hand. I looked at it, knowing that shaking it would change something.
I shook it anyway.
“Well?” I said, lifting my chin. “You said right now.”
He reached out and tangled his hand in my hair, tilting my head back, and kissed me.
I gasped at the unexpected move, and he took full advantage of the fact, thrusting his tongue into my mouth. I tried not to moan, I really did.
But this was the hottest damn kiss I’d ever had, and I could still feel him holding back — which meant what he was giving me was the restrained version. I didn’t like that.
He licked into my mouth, tasting me, his tongue skimming my teeth before sliding deep, setting a slow, filthy rhythm that made my knees forget their job. Not just a kiss. A demonstration. A promise of exactly what that mouth could do given the time and the space and a woman who’d stopped arguing.
I opened wider for him with a sound I would be embarrassed about later. His hand slid from my waist straight down to cup my ass, both hands, pulling me up and into him until every hard inch of his cock was pressed against my belly with absolutely nothing left to the imagination.
He wasn’t hiding what this was doing to him. And God help me, I didn’t want him to.
That cautious voice in my head — the sensible one, the one that had been running my life for years — said something I completely ignored. Because the rest of me, every nerve ending and every inch of skin and the wet heat building between my thighs, was entirely focused on the man grinding against me like he wanted me to be his and was just waiting for me to admit it.
