Page 15 of Hostile Cravings (Wicked Cravings #3)

Chapter Eight

ANGIE

I couldn’t think. My body was on fire, the flames still raking through me.

I could barely hold myself up and it had nothing to do with the ankle that was numb with the rapture my body was experiencing.

I’d never had a man take me the way Tyson just had, never had one own me the way he had, the way he now did.

That ownership had flared through me as he sent my first climax over the cliff, sending it spiraling to a place I couldn’t return from.

Having him inside of me, feeling how full he made me, how alive he made my body, had been pure ecstasy. But now, as he slipped from me, our eyes met and the reality of what we’d done hit us both. I saw it in his eyes, the flash of worry, the darkness that still sat there but had deepened.

He stepped from me, and losing his touch left me empty.

I heard his zipper, and I straightened up, pulling my bikini bottom back in place and realizing we’d been so caught up in the moment that he hadn’t even removed it.

It had been wet before, but he’d come so hard it had seeped around him and now was leaking into my bottom.

This was why I never let a man come inside of me, aside from the protective reasons.

But with Tyson, I had wanted it. I had needed it.

I was on the pill, and I knew from our conversation that he used protection, so I wasn’t worried about it, I’d simply wanted the closeness, the experience of him emptying inside of me and knowing I’d been the one he’d lost complete control with.

I lifted my bikini top from where it had fallen in the sink. Holding it up to look at where he’d ripped it from me.

“How am I supposed to go to the beach with this, jackass?” I said, using my usual brattiness to cover the mix of emotions that were going through me.

I didn’t know where this left us. Our bitterness toward each other had always defined our relationship, a bitterness that had started when I’d first met him and only grown over the years, leaving no room for the attraction it had shadowed.

His eyes evaluated me, the amber shining through as they softened.

“What?” I asked, still holding the top out in front of me.

I bit my lip, not sure what his look meant, suddenly self-conscious and uncomfortable with what we’d done.

“We can take this back, right? Pretend it didn’t happen?

” I wanted him to say no, but I wasn’t sure what that would do or how to handle it if he did.

Hearing him say yes, though, would have hurt entirely too much.

He lifted a brow, his sexy smirk returning, and he snatched the top from my hands.

“You’re not going to the beach this morning,” he said, his hand coming out and moving below my hair.

“And we’re not pretending this didn’t happen.

” He yanked me against him, and relief settled through me. “Unless that’s what you really want.”

I could hear the opening he was giving me, and under it, the quiet plea for me to say no. It was the same plea that had laced my question.

“No pretending,” I answered, and his mouth smashed into mine. Desperate and hungry, the power of it made me wobble. His large hands moved to my waist, and he lifted me, sitting me on the sink.

“Get off that damned ankle,” he grumbled.

“Is this where you plan to fuck me again?” I asked, as his hands reached to my bottoms and tore them off. “Hey! I liked this suit!”

“I’m sure you’ve got a pink one in there somewhere. Although you won’t be wearing it because no other man is going to be seeing this flesh.”

My heart soared at his statement of ownership. He stepped closer to me, pulling his phone from his pants.

I tilted my chin, questioning him with my eyes.

“Joey wants pictures. Let’s give him a picture. He lifted his camera, but I stopped him. Reaching up and tugging at the buttons on his shirt.

“Who wears a button-down on vacation on an island?” I mumbled.

“Me. I don’t do golf shirts and shorts, Anj.”

Where it had once irritated me when he shortened my name as if he was a close friend, now I recognized that my irritation had been over how the sound drifted down my spine like fingers softly brushing over my soul.

I fumbled with the buttons until he dropped the phone and shoved my hands out of the way, pulling it over his head.

I ran my hands up his chest, noting the strength below, the restraint in his muscles as he struggled not to ravage me.

His eyes dropped, taking in my body as I traced the tattoos on his chest.

“What is this?” he asked, his fingers skirting down my stomach and dipping to follow the path of my tattoo.

“Just a little something I picked up last year.”

His hazel eyes flashed with something I couldn’t read as he looked up from the thin green and black viper that ran down my pelvis, its venomous head pointing toward my clit. He hadn’t seen it before, his hand blocking it as his fingers had been working their magic.

“A viper?”

My breath hitched, my mind never piecing together why the reptile had been my choice. The nickname he’d so vehemently given me long ago had now become one that sent my insides flipping.

“Fuck,” he muttered, backing up and running his hands through his hair.

I didn’t know what to say, feeling vulnerable as I sat there naked on the sink, so my defensive attitude reacted. “It doesn’t mean anything, asshole. Not everything is about you. There were plenty of other guys before you and there will be plenty after. You’re not the only one who calls me viper.”

My words sounded bitter, the reality of what we’d done, his reaction to my tattoo and the subconscious meaning behind it stirring my anger. I hopped down, forgetting about my ankle, and bit back the cry as pain flared through the damned thing. He caught my reaction and lifted me back onto the sink.

“Damn it, Tyson, let me down so we can forget this ever happened.” I avoided looking at him, hating that he was seeing what I was only now seeing. That all this time, the animosity had covered my true emotions.

He forced my eyes back to his, inserting himself between my legs and yanking me against his pelvis with his other hand. “You said we weren’t pretending,” he said.

I tried looking away again, but he squeezed my chin.

“Did you mean it?” he asked.

“Mean what?”

I couldn’t unsee the hurt that sat in his eyes as he said, “That I’m not the only one who calls you viper?”

“It’s not a very nice nickname, you know,” I mumbled, dropping my eyes.

“Answer my question, Angela. ”

My eyes flew to him. He had never used my full name. No one but my father ever did.

“No,” I finally answered. “I’d never let anyone call me that but you, even if it isn’t very nice.”

His hold on my chin relaxed, his eyes lighting. “I call you that for a reason.”

A flutter ran through my stomach. “You do?”

He brushed his finger over my birthmark, then threaded his hand in my hair, gently this time.

“I do. The first time I saw you, you were wearing this leather jumper that was so tight I could make out every curve of your tight body. I thought it was wrong for me to be that hard for a girl who was barely legal, so I made some smart remark about cheap pleather. And you walked over to me, tossing your hair over your shoulder like you owned the place and I should bow down to you. Acting like you were thirty and not eighteen. Shit, you were so hot, and then you opened your mouth.”

“I remember that,” I said, leaning toward him. “You walked in like you were the shit, like everyone should fear you, and had me enthralled. You were sexy, and I hated how you smirked at me, like I was a kid?—”

“You were. Shit, Anj, I was almost thirty.”

“You insulted me, starting the war between us, so what? So you wouldn’t touch an eighteen-year-old?”

“Exactly. I have my morals.”

I threw my head back and laughed, his fingers tracing my neckline when I did. “Not many,” I teased.

“Fuck you,” he replied playfully. “And you were quick to dish it right back to me.”

“You were an old man, a sexy old man who insulted me. I wasn’t about to let you get away with that.”

“Of course you weren’t. So you said.” He yanked me closer, and I noticed he’d grown harder while we’d been talking. “A class- climbing jackass like me wouldn’t know expensive snakeskin if a viper bit him in the ass.”

“That’s why you called me viper all those years?”

He kissed my nose, my heart stirring at his words and the move.

“That’s why, little viper.”

Running my fingers along his jaw, I saw him again for the first time, my eyes open to the man I’d hated since that day, never knowing that every time he called me viper it was a term of endearment.

Never knowing that he’d wanted me that first day and kept himself from acting on it out of some chivalrous morals that I’d never given him credit for.

“Where does this leave us?” I asked, unsure where we went next.

“Stuck here in this room for at least the rest of the morning.”

I tilted my head, trying to figure out what he meant.

He draped his fingers down my chest, causing goosebumps to rise.

Skirting them over my nipple before rolling it between his thumb and his index finger, he said, “I plan to keep you busy the rest of the morning while I think about whether I want another man seeing this much skin on my wife.”

My heart soared through the barriers I’d placed before it, barriers built with words of animosity for too long.

“But first,” he grabbed his phone and held it behind me, “let’s send Joey a little reminder that his dick isn’t getting anywhere near you.”

His arm encircled my waist, his hand climbing into my hair and pulling my head back before he sucked my nipple into his mouth.

After a few seconds of taunting it, I heard the phone fall.

His other hand squeezed my ass, pushing me into his firmness.

I moaned. His teeth scraped over my nipple as I held onto him, sending my head falling back against the mirror.