All Tied Up: Pleasure Inn, Book 1 by Book All Tied Up Pleasure Inn Page A

her to meet his gaze. Gently, he wiped a tear from her cheek. “You don’t have to apologize. I’m the one who should be saying I’m sorry.”
    “Why? What do you mean? If I hadn’t gone back to my place, the attacker wouldn’t have found me, and you wouldn’t have practically gotten stabbed to death.”
    “And if I hadn’t kissed you…” He pulled her tighter to his side.
    The tiny ripples inside her started getting bigger.
    Great, now she was horny, on top of mad…and scared…and confused. God help her, she wanted him to make her forget. For a while. “I liked the kiss. I wanted more.”
    He nuzzled her hair. “So did I.”
    “Then why stop?” She smoothed a hand over his chest, mapping the line of the scar beneath his T-shirt. “I wasn’t complaining.”
    He caught her hand just as a fingertip found a hard nipple. His fingers clamped around her wrist like a vise. Rolling, he dragged her arm over her head and pinned her body beneath his.
    Ooooh, yes. She’d just pushed a button, a pretty lethal one, at that. For some crazy reason, the terror of the earlier attack made the physical contact with Talen that much more powerful. No, essential .
    She needed his touch, desperately. She needed to know she was alive. To be certain someone realized she existed. To feel another human being’s hands on her body, arms locked around her waist.
    Staring up into eyes that had gone dark and wild, she dragged in a deep breath. Above her was a man on the verge of losing control.
    She was in heaven.
    His heartbeat pounded so hard and fast she could feel it thumping against her breasts. And his breaths were so quick and shallow they puffed like soft gusts over her face. Her heart started racing too.
    “I don’t know what it is about you,” he whispered, his gaze jumping from her eyes to her mouth and then back to her eyes again.
    “I’ll take that as a compliment.” The heat swelling in her body was making her feel squirmy.
    Pulsing. Thrumming. Liquid heat.
    “It’s been so long since I’ve touched a woman like this, since I’ve dared. Or since anyone has touched me.”
    His words shocked her, and the hollow tone of his voice left her feeling empty. Yet the throbbing need swelling inside her didn’t ease. In fact, it increased until her face flamed.
    This man had more than a few secrets. He had lots of them, and God help her, she wanted to know every one.
    “Touch me, Talen. Please. I’m begging.”
    A long stretch of silence dragged between them, only somewhat softened by the sounds of their shallow breathing. It was agony and ecstasy both. To be so close and yet have him refuse to lay his hands on her.
    “Talen?”
    “Oh, may the gods forgive me.”
    Talen’s kiss was nothing like earlier. It was a hard, hungry possession. Tongue, teeth, lips. He tasted and took, conquered and seduced.
    Suddenly finding both arms pinned over her head, she returned every stroke and stab, every sigh and moan.
    The pounding ache between her legs intensified once again as flames of desire danced and twisted in her chest. She dragged her feet apart, allowing Talen’s hips to nestle between her thighs. More sweet torture.
    God yes, this was so good, so right. Talen was everything she’d ever wanted in a lover. Strong and powerful, sensual and attentive, a little mysterious. And also, in a strange and unexpected way, vulnerable.
    She had no idea what it would take to keep him around after all this craziness was over, but somehow she’d do it. This man, she wanted for more than a night or two. By revealing his weakness, by allowing her to see how desperately he wanted her, he had done what so many others had failed to do.
    He had already left a tiny mark on her heart.
    Burning up. So hot.
    Too much material between them, a torturous barrier.
    A whimper bubbled up from deep inside, slipped between her lips, to be swallowed up by Talen.
    How much longer would he torment her like this? Cruel bastard!

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