Hard Way by Katie Porter Page B

affections. The tempt and tease of something they hadn’t shared in too, too long.
    “You’re right,” she said, her voice strained. “I’m glad you didn’t condescend.”
    “Hm?”
    “Dumb-as-shit Dash.” Eyes darkly luminous, she met his gaze. “You didn’t try to play me like you do everyone else.”
    Dash frowned. A protest formed on his tongue, but it…faded. Left him completely. “So that was a good thing?”
    “Telling me the truth?” That tiny smile of hers was so much more endearing when there was actual humor behind it. “Yes, that was a good thing.”
    “Noted.”
    Again without asking, he slid his fingers along either side of her face and pushed the towel down, down, off. Her hair was all his. She didn’t normally wash it on weekdays, and he didn’t know why she had this time. A distraction? Wasting time so she could delay coming out and seeing him? He stroked wet, loose strands, then wound his fingers around and back until he interlaced them at her nape. The kiss he placed on her lips was as soft as each he’d danced up her arms.
    That was it. One touch of lips to lips. He tasted her surprised huff of exhaled breath before he straightened.
    “So, question number one. You ready?”
    She didn’t seem to know where to put her hands. They toyed with bits of terrycloth and smoothed along her thighs.
    With an amused grin, Dash took hold of her wrists again, but this time to guide her. He pulled her arms up so that they draped over his shoulders, almost around his neck. He held them there. He’d relinquish the feel of her heavy, wet hair in his hands as long as she was nearly holding him.
    “There,” he said. “Quit fidgeting. You’ll give yourself away.”
    She raised her brows. “Give myself…?”
    “My question or not, Sunny? I have two, remember.”
    “Go ahead.”
    His cure didn’t work. She was still fidgeting, but this time using the collar of his robe as her victim. Wow. He hadn’t seen her this flustered in ages. She’d always fought vehemently against outright conflicts. Hardass professors. Challenging colleagues.
    And Dash. On and off the sparring mat, in and out of the bedroom.
    Touching her, though? Slowly seducing her in the sweet, aching way he’d missed? That was undoing her. Him too. Through the dissipating steam, she looked at him with a heady mix of curiosity and wariness, hope and suspicion. Eyes so wide. Flawless. Dark, dark lashes and expressive brows. Her face was framed by thick tendrils of midnight hair.
    “You’re beautiful.”
    Shit.
    Apparently he still knew how to say it, if not when. Now it was a matter of whether she’d believe it.
    Her lips tipped into that perfectly frustrating, perfectly sexy smile. Restless fingers stilled in the crease between terrycloth and the back of his neck. “That wasn’t a question,” she said, almost teasing.
    “But it’s true.”
    Their gazes held. She didn’t brush him off, but she didn’t beam with happy confidence either. Whether she truly believed it would need to wait for another day.
    “Get on with it, Liam. It’s getting chilly in here.”
    Rather than thinking about how the chill would tighten her nipples, he cleared his throat. Took a breath. “Was I too rough?”
    “Now I suppose it’s my turn to keep from playing dumb as shit.”
    “Yup. You avoided the issue pretty well last night.” He shrugged, found her waist again. “I did too.”
    To notice a blush on his Sunny took some doing. She was golden. Finding a hint of pink on her cheeks meant watching for it, hoping to see it. Dash kept his smile hidden when he did.
    “I…” She shook her head. Her fingers closed so that she cupped the tendons between his neck and shoulders. Fully skin to skin now. “The zip ties don’t need to be that tight to make me feel…” Again she shook her head. Then she seemed to make a decision. “I like the feeling of being helpless. For it to sting some. To seem real. Maybe you can find a place in the middle