Ava Gray - Skin Tight

He didn’t think about it overlong. “What do you want me to do?”

The rug was soft beneath Mia’s bare belly.

Søren held her arms outstretched at her sides. If she was unwilling, she wouldn’t raise her hips for him. She came up on her knees, chest flat on the floor. He wrenched her thighs open, showing her how he wanted her. It was incredibly arousing to hear his harsh, labored breaths as he positioned himself behind her, but his heat threatened to ignite her utterly, leaving her no mind with which to appreciate his abandon.

There was no tenderness in him now, no delicacy. With one rough thrust, he took her with the fury of a man too often alone, desires too often denied. She should have felt vulnerable, and yet she felt as if she owned him, as if her slightest whisper could break him wide open.

“Mia. Mia, I need this,” he growled, sounding angry about it. “I need you.”

“Take me,” she whispered, but she had the oddest feeling it was she who took him.

The sex that time was savage. He was less focused on her pleasure, more centered on exorcising personal demons. They fired his ferocity, driving his thrusts, but she found it easy to lose herself in the storm of his desire.

Later, she lay in Søren’s arms.

He’d gotten easier with touching, more accustomed to affection. At least he no longer recoiled when she reached for him. To her surprise, he was the most patient lover she’d ever known. This anomaly aside, he spent hours nuzzling the curve of her throat, appearing to luxuriate in the feel of her skin. He kissed as if he had nothing else to do for the rest of his life: slow, drugging kisses, where his lips played with hers until she went boneless.

He had just lifted his head from one such kiss, and his gray gaze glittered as he gazed down at her. “I can’t get enough of you.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“A little alarming.”

“How come?”

His eyes answered where his lips would not: I need you, and I don’t want to. As if he could not help himself, he kissed her again, this time fiercely. By the time he pulled back, she was panting, her peace supplanted with sexual arousal. With him, it only took a touch or a look and she was ready to do the wickedest things.

“I love your mouth.” Feather light, he brushed her lips with his fingertips, tracing the contours. “After.”

“After you’ve made it red, wet, and swollen. A wanton mouth.”

He sucked in a breath. “Yes.”

“You’re not as civilized as you pretend.”

“I’m not civilized at all. You’d do well to remember that.”

“How can I forget?” Mia flexed her fingers, looking at the faint marks that encircled her wrists. “You lost control completely.”

“You drove me to it.”

So she had. Remembered power surged through her. Driving this disciplined man past restraint-when he had borne so much-made her a little crazy. Reckless.

“And you took me on the floor like an animal.”

He caught her hand. “Stop. Or I might do it again.”

“That’s supposed to be an inducement to stop?”

She wished she knew more about him. The bits and pieces she’d gleaned elsewhere didn’t encompass the whole. If she could put all the pieces together, then-

Maybe I can learn how to love him. Søren wasn’t like other men; this, she understood instinctively. It was miraculous she’d come this far, blindly. His lover.

Søren laughed. “You make a good point.”

There would never be a better moment to broach this subject. “Can I ask you something?”

“I think you just did.”

“Another something.”

Wariness pervaded his voice. “What?”

“How did they come to take Lexie from you? You said they injected you through a free vaccination.”

“That’s not something I talk about.” Ever, his tone implied.

“Maybe you should.”

“Maybe you should mind your own business.”

“You are my business,” she bit out, exasperated.

“Why in the hell would you think that?”

It was now or never. She could spend the rest of her life wondering what would’ve happened if she’d been brave enough, or she could be brave.

“Because I love you.” The words dropped into the silence like stones into a still pond.

“Love me?” He spat the two words as if they were poisoned meat. “You don’t have any idea who I am.”

Søren pushed her away and sprang to his feet. If the cabin were larger, surely he’d be pacing. Instead, he took a position at the window, shutting her out with a turn of his back. She’d expected as much.

“So tell me.”

“Obviously, sex was a bad idea,” he said, ignoring that. “You’re not sophisticated enough to separate physical pleasure from emotional attachment.”

“As if you are,” she returned. “You sniff my hair when you think I’m asleep. I sense you watching me all the time. You’re worried and committed to protecting me. Did you really think I hadn’t noticed? I’m clever, remember? Give me a column of numbers to add, and I’ll prove it.”

“I will not argue this with you.”

“Of course not. Anger is an emotion, too. And you’re not supposed to have any. You’re dead, after all. You died when you lost your little girl.”

He whirled on her then, eyes blazing feral silver. “Do not speak. Not one more word. You don’t understand. You can’t.”

Mia pushed to her feet as well, knowing that provoking him would be a calculated risk. He might not forgive her what came next. “No, I don’t, because I’ve never lost a child. I have lost my father, who loved me better than my mother, who insisted on custody out of spite. I know what it’s like to miss someone. I can’t know more because you won’t tell me. Because you’re just a sad shell of a man who eats and fucks. Right?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Right.”

“Nothing matters more than repaying those who hurt you. So what does it matter if you leave me dying in your wake?” Push, push, push. With each word, she could see him teetering closer to the edge. Hating herself, Mia went on ruthlessly, “Someone like you doesn’t build. What good ever came of you? You only destroy: lives, dreams, hearts. You’re nothing but a human tsunami.”

She knew she was right by his stricken, furious look. Her acuity could be targeted elsewhere, not just on numbers, and now she’d drawn the poison of his silent self hate. Nothing he would ever speak aloud, and so she told it to him in all its darkness.

“Ah,” he said. “It appears you do know me. And what does that make you, Mia? That you could profess to love such a creature?”

“It makes me human.”

But he didn’t seem to hear her. “You want the truth?” At her nod, he smashed a kerosene lamp to the floor. “Fine, since you have no illusions to shatter. Out of pride, I suppose, I wanted to spare you this, but you see me clearer than I’d realized. I always knew you were too damned smart. They performed no experiments on Lexie. I did that to her.” In a flat voice, he related events that left Mia weak-kneed with regret.

No wonder. No wonder the guilt. No wonder he couldn’t stop. Deep down, he blamed himself, and suicide had already failed. Tears burned in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She would be stronger than that. She had to be, for his sake.

“Accidents happen,” she said quietly. “They happen to parents without any special ability. How do you know your gift had anything to do with it? Did she stop and look before she crossed the road?”

“She saw only me.”

“But if she had looked, perhaps she would’ve seen the car as well as the illusionary ice cream. I know you don’t have perfect control, but why in the world would you want to hide a car from her?”