Page 83 of Creeping Beautiful

Until it wasn’t.

“You wanna…” I sigh. “I dunno. Go watch TV or something? Take a walk?”

Her smile slowly broadens and she takes a few slow steps towards me until almost all the distance between us has been erased. She reaches for me. Takes hold of each side of my open leather jacket and tugs me the final step towards her.

Into her.

“No. I do not want to watch TV or go for a walk. I want to be here with you.”

Then she leans up on her tiptoes and pulls me down to her at the same time.

And we kiss.

And this time the kiss is nothing like the last time. It’s not tentative and hesitant.

She opens her mouth and I respond by doing the same. And then the tip of her tongue slides across the tip of mine and there is nowhere in this world I’d rather be than right here with her. There is nothing I want more than to kiss her forever. Steal all the breath inside her, and replace it with mine. Fill her up and make her whole again.

That’s what I tell myself when I spin her around and walk her backwards towards the bed. The back of her knees bump against the mattress and then she reaches down, grabs the dress and the garment bag, and shoves them on the floor.

She’s still got a hold of my jacket and she pulls me down with her when she sits and then leans back on the bed.

I brace both hands on the mattress on either side of her head and press my chest into her breasts.

Then her fingertips are once again fumbling with my belt, and the button on my jeans, and then my zipper. And when her cool palm wraps around my quickly hardening cock and squeezes it, I almost pull away.

Almost.

Because even though almost everything about this is wrong, and has been wrong since that very first day she came here to live with us at Old Home, it suddenly feels… maybe not right, but certainly inevitable.

I know who she really wants, and it’s not me. It’s not Donovan, either. And it’s certainly not Adam.

It’s Nathan St. James.

But he’s not here and I just don’t care anymore.

I want her.

I have always wanted her and that’s the only thing that matters.

Our kiss continues. But I want us both naked. Now. So I nip her lip and stand back up, shrugging off my jacket and letting it drop to the floor at my feet.

She sits up too, squirming to get her arms out of her jacket, and then she’s tugging on her sweats as I kick off my boots and lift my t-shirt over my head. I let it fall to the floor on top of the jacket and just stand there as her eyes practically caress me as she studies the hard muscles of my stomach.

I reach for the hem of her t-shirt—“Let me help you with this”—and then lift it up over her head. She has no bra on now. No panties either. She is quickly naked and all I want to do is look at her body. Her firm, round breasts and tightly peaked nipples. Her small waist and the wide curve of her hips. The way she bites her lip when she’s thinking hard or very nervous.

She bites it now, conscious of my staring eyes.

Do I make her nervous?

Even if I do, I’m not gonna stop.

I was never allowed to look at her like this. From the day she first walked through this door until the day she walked out, everything about Indie Anna Accorsi was forbidden.

She tried a few times. Once she turned eighteen everything changed around here. And every once in a while she’d find me alone in the house and she’d sit in my lap and hug me. Try to force me to make a move.

But I didn’t.

I wouldn’t.