Page 54 of It Happened on a Sunday

Sloane

For the second time in as many minutes, my stomach drops, only this time it’s as much from anticipation as it is from fear.

I force myself to look at the well-worn boots, the denim-clad legs, the form-fitting white T-shirt. But I pause there, because if I look any higher, I already know the eyes waiting to meet mine are going to be warm, melted chocolate.

Sly.

Sly is in my dressing room…and he looks as devastating as I am devastated.

All the defenses I’ve been stacking like bricks around my heart all day? Gone. Crumbled by a single look.

Even before he says in that dark, gravelly voice that never fails to send shivers of the very best kind down my spine, “Don’t you think we need to talk about this?”

I’m not sure if it’s his words or the look in his eyes, but my brain short-circuits. Just flat-out ceases to function. For a woman who’s spent almost a decade getting by on her wits alone, it feels like a betrayal.

And that’s before he starts walking toward me. Slowly. Deliberately. Like gravity itself—pulling me toward disaster one relentless step at a time.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” I whisper.

“Eighteen hours ago, you asked me to hold you until you fell asleep.” The words flow like warm syrup from lips I ache to taste. “Did you really think I’d walk away at the first little bump?”

“They were coming after you. They were using me to hurt you. I saw—” My voice breaks as that horrible press conference comes back to me.

“So you thought you’d take yourself out of the equation?

” He takes up where I left off. He’s closer now.

So close that I can feel the heat rolling off him in waves while the warm, safe scent of him wraps around me like a blanket.

“Let them come. Do you really think a bunch of reporters I don’t even know matter more to me than you? ”

“You don’t know what it’s like.”

“I don’t,” he agrees, his eyes finding mine. “I know I haven’t suffered the way you have—”

“That’s the point!” I insist as my heart takes up residence somewhere around the vicinity of my throat. “I don’t want you to suffer. I don’t want you to end up like me.”

“Strong? Brilliant? Powerful?” he fires back, though he still doesn’t touch me. “Gorgeous? Melodic? Kind—”

“That’s not fair.” I clench my fingers into fists to keep from reaching for him. “You know what I mean.”

“I do. But I already told you I’m not going to leave you alone in this, Sloane. Unless you want me to, that is.” He leans forward until his lips—his perfect, soft lips—are only inches from mine. “Do you want me to leave, corazón?”

My head spins. My breath catches in my throat. My heart beats out of control. And all I want is to touch him. And for him to touch me, even though it terrifies me.

“You shouldn’t be here.” I force the words out when what I really want is to ask him to stay.

“That’s not the same as not wanting me here.

” As if he can hear the need burning inside me, he lifts a hand to my face, his warm, calloused palm cupping my cheek while his fingers slowly brush against the careful disarray of my hair.

“Tell me you don’t want me, Sloane. Look me in the eye and tell me you want me to go, and I’ll never bother you again. ”

My eyes dart around the room, searching for something to grab onto, something to concentrate on, besides the long, lean heat of the passionate man standing in front of me.

I want him so badly it hurts, and all I’d have to do to put myself out of my misery is lean forward just a little bit and press my body against his.

But I don’t. I can’t. Not when any move on my part will set us both off and ruin all the time I’ve spent today trying to distance myself from him. From us. From the mess we’ve made.

Not for my sake but for Sly’s.

“I don’t—” My eyelids flutter shut as my voice breaks on the lie.

“Uh-uh,” he tells me gently as my shaky words hang in the air between us. “You have to look me in the eye when you say it.”

“I don’t want—” I manage to gasp out one more word this time. But my hands are on his chest, trying to push him away, even as my fingers twist in the soft cotton of his shirt to bring him closer.

I can’t look at him when I say it, can’t lie to his face.

His hands tangle in the ends of my hair and pull in a way that’s more coax than command until my eyes flutter open.

And then he’s there, right there, his deep brown eyes gazing into mine while the corner of his mouth tilts up in a half grin that I can feel in my core. “Third time’s the charm,” he whispers.

“I don’t want to hurt you!” I choke out. It’s the best I can do.

“Then don’t,” he answers, and just that easily, heat explodes between us, drenching me in fiery incandescence from the inside out.

Making me need, when I promised myself I’d never need again.

Making me weak, when I’ve fought so hard and so long against any weakness.

Sly knows it, too. I can see it in his blown-out pupils, hear it in the breaths bellowing in and out of his lungs. Feel it in the rapid rise and fall of his chest as it brushes against me.

Tension builds between us, an agony of need rampaging through my veins as I hang, frozen on the edge of a precipice, waiting for whatever comes next.

My hands clutch at his chest. My hips move restlessly against his own. And my mouth—my traitorous, tragic mouth whispers, “Please, Sly. Please—”

I don’t get to finish the plea, which is probably a good thing because at this point I don’t have a clue what I’ll ask for.

And even less of an idea what I’ll beg for.

I do know, though, that when Sly’s mouth slams down on mine, nothing has ever felt so right.

The rightness scares me more than anything, has my entire being screaming at me to step back, to get away, to be anywhere but here even as I arch against him, desperate to get closer.

I hate the mishmash of wants and needs warring inside me, the indecision of whether to run or wrap myself around him like a ribbon on the best present ever.

But this is hard. More, it’s terrifying.

Because if I let him stay, if I let him make love to me like I so desperately want, then I’m doing more than just fucking in my dressing room.

I’m jumping in with both feet.

But then he looks me in the eye and whispers, “I’ve got you, Sloane. I promise. I have you.”

Experience tells me not to believe him, but lord help me, I do. And just that easily, any thought of resistance melts away.

One kiss, I promise myself as I get swept under. One kiss and I’ll make him go.

Except, like everything else when it comes to Sly, things don’t go according to plan. But how can they when his mouth ravages mine, not in a dance but in a claiming that vanquishes my defenses before I even realize there’s a battle to be won…and lost?

“Sly,” I gasp out, my hands sliding to his shoulders in a last-ditch effort to maintain control—over myself or the situation, I don’t know.

But the truth is, I’ve long since lost it, even before Sly wraps his free hand around my waist and pulls me closer, head lolling back to bare my jugular until I don’t even have the illusion of control anymore.

And then he attacks, ravaging the sensitive skin of my neck, my throat, my collarbone with open-mouthed kisses and careful little scrapes of his teeth that make me whimper his name.

“Sly!” This time when I call it, it’s a plea for him to never, ever stop.

And he doesn’t.

Instead, he propels me backward until I’m pressed against the nearest wall.

“Tell me you want this.” He meets my plea with his own as his hands fist at my sides. “Tell me this is okay.”

“I want this,” I gasp out as I hitch a leg around his waist and pull him closer, my whole body threatening to erupt. “It’s okay.”

“Tell me you want me,” he whispers against my skin, pushing my dress up to my hips.

“I want you,” I cry, the words falling over us like rain on a wildfire—too late to stop the burn, too soon to know if we’ll survive the flames. “I need you.”

“I need you, too,” he grinds out as he grabs both my wrists in one big hand. He uses the other to reach down and rip the top of my fishnet tights and panties clean off my body. “I need you, Sloane.”

Seconds later, he’s on his knees, his mouth on the very heart of me.

“Sly!” One second I’m calling his name, and the next he’s hurtling me straight into the cosmos so fast and hard that I can barely remember my name, let alone why I thought this was a bad idea.

But Sly doesn’t stop there. Not even close.

Instead he slows things down until I feel like I’m going to implode. I rip my hands from his grip, clutch at his head, his shoulders, try to pull him back up so I can have him where I really need him.

But he just laughs, biting at my inner thigh as he slides his hands around to cup my ass. “That’s it, corazón. Tell me again how you don’t want to hurt me.”

“Fuck you,” I gasp out as I pull him closer, closer, closer.

And then his mouth is on me again and all I can think is that I was born for this. Born for him.

And maybe I was, because nothing in my life has ever come close to feeling this good. This right.

This fucking perfect.

It’s a dangerous thought, one that any other time would have me taking about twelve steps back. But that’s impossible now, not just because my back is against the wall but because Sly isn’t letting up for an instant.

Pleasure moves from peaks and valleys to one long, continuous roll that weakens my knees and has my entire body trembling.

It goes on and on and on until I can barely breathe, let alone stand, and then it goes on some more. After minutes that seem like millennia of soft, pulsating pleasure, Sly eventually sits back on his heels and looks up at me.