Page 85 of Bitter’s Sweet

I am instantly, completely fucked.

Her hands slide up my chest. Mine find her waist before I can remind them I had rules. She is warm through the old T-shirt, soft and solid and alive, and when I pull her closer, she comes to me with a gasp that punches straight through my ribs.

My body goes hard enough that there is no hiding it between us. Her breath catches when she feels exactly what kissing her is doing to me.

“Bitter.”

My name in her mouth is a bad idea with a holy sound.

I kiss along her jaw. “You tell me no, I listen.”

“I know.”

That answer nearly kills me.

Not because she says yes.

Because she knows I’ll honor no.

That kind of trust is worse than seduction.

I drag my mouth down her throat, and she tips her head back, fingers tightening in my shirt. Her body arches just enough to fit closer, and I feel every soft place I told myself not to think about.

My hand slides under the edge of her shirt and finds bare skin at her waist. My thumb moves once over the warm curve there, and she shivers.

I stop. “Cold?”

“No.”

“Scared?”

“A little.”

I go still.

Her hands clutch me before I can move back. “Not of you.”

“Still counts.”

“Don’t you dare be decent now.”

A rough laugh scrapes out of me. “I ain’t decent.”

“You’re trying.”

“That should scare us both.”

Her smile flashes, breathless and beautiful, and I kiss it because I have no defense left against that mouth.

This time she meets me hard, like she is tired of being careful. I lift her onto the counter before I think better of it, and she lets me, thighs parting enough for me to stand between them.

My hands grip her bare thighs, warm skin under my palms, and the word mine flashes through my head before I kill it.

No.

Not mine.

Sweet belongs to Sweet.