I worried the inside of my cheek. “I didn’t want you going somewhere the link didn’t work thinking I wasn’t attracted to you.” I dragged my hand through my straightened hair. “I’m really jealous of Ingrid. Of pretty much every girl you’ve dated.”
“You have nothing to be jealous about.”
“Are you kidding? They’re all still hung up on you. And they’re all older, and way more experienced, and-”
He kissed me before saying, “And none of them are you.”
“Are you sure it’s not just the link that makes you want me?”
He pulled away, the tendons in his neck pinching beneath my fingertips. “When you went off to Tennessee with Liam, I considered boarding a plane and coming after you, but Mom told me the best way to scare a girl off was to do just that, so I stayed here and sulked and imagined the worst things. And then when you came back and said you hadn’t missed me”-he grimaced-“it felt like I’d taken a bullet to the heart.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“I’m just sorry we lost all this time, sweetheart.” He nudged my nose with his before kissing me so tenderly it made my toes curl. After a deliciously long while, he said, “I have a confession of my own.”
“You do?”
“I went to speak with Evelyn this week.”
I blanched.
“I told her about my intentions toward you.”
I stared at him in mute horror. “Your intentions?”
“I told her that when I returned from my trip, I would ask you out. On a proper date.”
“Did she threaten to murder you?”
His lips quirked. “No. She thanked me for my honesty and then she left the room.” His mouth straightened into a contemplative expression. “I didn’t mean to upset her; I only meant to show her that I was serious about you. I hope that, in time, she’ll accept me.”
“I think she’s already starting to.”
He stared so intently into my eyes that I shivered again.
“What are your intentions toward me?”
He leaned in to nuzzle the base of my neck again. “Long term, making you mine, but you already know that.”
My heartbeat detonated.
“Short term, showing you how right we are for each other.” He licked a line up to my earlobe, making a fierce wave of desire break against my skin. “How well we fit together.”
The word fitting had my mind concocting all sorts of scenarios that involved a lot less clothes. None at all for that matter. “If we use protection, we can have sex without consolidating the mating link,” I blurted out, before slapping my hand over my mouth.
Had I really said this out loud?
He pulled away from me, eyebrows writhing in amusement.
“I learned that in Tennessee,” I mumbled, cheeks flaming.
He studied me a long beat before dragging my hand off my mouth. “Is that what you want?”
My throat went dry so fast I had to swallow several times before I could speak again. “Isn’t it what you want?”
“What I want is you.” He crooked my face up. “And I’m not going to lie . . . I most definitely want to make love to you, but I don’t want to rush into something you’re not ready for.”
“I’m ready.”
His gaze turned hooded.
“I don’t want to feel like a kid anymore, August.”
He frowned. “You’re not.” His hands tracked up my ribcage and cupped my breasts. “I’m not sure why you don’t seem to believe this, but you’re already very much a woman.”
“Maybe I feel this way because I’m still a virgin.” I strained against his palms. “Please?”
Letting out a husky growl, he dropped his hands to my ass and lifted me up. I gasped, my legs reflexively coming around his waist. He carried me over to the kitchen island and sat me down on the satiny wood, the dim glow over our heads casting luminous ripples over his face.
As he stood between my legs, he said, “I won’t have sex with you to make you feel like more of a woman.”
My heart stumbled around in my chest. Everything about his body echoed my own desire. Had I read him wrong?
He traced the contour of my lips with his fingertip. “I’ll have sex with you to show you that you already are.”
He dipped his finger down my neck, then kissed the hollow at the base of my neck where his finger had been, before trawling his tongue lower. His hands came around my back and eased my zipper open.
Air rushed out of my mouth at the sensation of the fabric falling away from my skin, baring my upper body.
He straightened and drank me in. “God, you’re beautiful.”
I wanted to roll my eyes or say, have you looked in a mirror? Instead, I forced his already open shirt off his shoulders and rolled it down his arms. I knew this wasn’t a comparison, but my upper body had nothing on his. I trailed my fingers over his copper skin, over his dark nipples, over the perfect grid of his abs, stilling on the sharp indents at his waist.
Looking back into his eyes that flashed with the same lust heating my blood, I lowered my hands to the button of his pants and popped it open, then got off the island so that my dress pooled around my feet.
August’s pupils swelled, blotting out all the green around them, and then his calloused hands grazed my skin. After an agonizingly quiet moment, his face slanted to one of my breasts. He tugged me into his mouth, licking the pebbling skin. As he moved to the other, he raked his deft hands down my spine, hooking the waistband of my black thong and sliding it down my legs.
He lifted me back to the island, his breathing growing so ragged that the mere sound of him exhaling on me sent daggers of heat into my core. When he took a step back, I squeezed my thighs together and covered my breasts.
“Please don’t hide yourself from me, sweetheart.”
Biting my lip, I whispered, “Can you also-I don’t want to be the only one . . . naked.” I felt silly asking him to take off his clothes, but the weight of his stare made me terribly self-conscious.
He pushed his pants and briefs down in one swift stroke. The sight of him springing out, thick and ready, made my entire body blaze warmer. I inched my hand closer to his silky flesh, closed my fingers around him, then dragged them up to the tip.
He cuffed my wrist and towed it off his body.
“You have a . . . condom?”