Page 141 of Just One Look

Show Your Heart

Walking home,taking it slow, because she was wearing heels. Ten minutes instead of five, her hand in his, the sway of her hips beside him, the intoxicating scent of her. She didn’t say anything, and he couldn’t. The darkness was rising in him, and it was winning.

It’s a break, and that’s all.

I have no plans to stay.

Opening the solid wood door in the brick gate and feeling the reverberations as the heavy thing slammed shut behind him. Webster barking from inside the house, low and sonorous, then stopping, because he knew, in that way dogs did, that it was the two of them. Elle turning to him, her coat open over the pink dress, her mouth open to say something.

He was the one falling back against the gate this time. Pulling her in by the waist, his hand in her hair. Grinding himself into her, his tongue in her mouth, her hand on his shoulder, gripping hard. Kissing her again, kissing her more, kissing her deeper, because she tasted like sugar and lemons, and she felt like darkness.

Or maybe that was him.

She was making some noise into his mouth, but she had a leg up at his waist for him to grab, so she wasn’t telling him no. He was hauling her into him, needing her closer. Needing more.

She got her mouth free and gasped, “Luka.” And he froze.

Slow down,he told himself.

I can’t.

Do it anyway.

She had both hands around his head now, though, and she was kissing him. Dark and dirty as you please, and her scent was all around him. In his head. In his body. Not just the bottled kind. The smell of her. Thefeelof her, like the sound of the surf, penetrating your bones.

Her mouth at his ear now, and she was whispering. He shouldn’t have been able to hear it over the roaring in his head, but he heard it fine.

“Take me inside,” she told him. “Put me wherever you need to. Show me everything you feel.”

Bloodyhell.

* * *

Halfof her wanted to say,Wait. What’s going on here?The other half, the half that was coming from a deeper, more primitive part of her brain, was saying,Please. I need it so bad from you.

That part was winning, because what she was getting from Luka wasn’t anger. It was hunger, and she wanted him to satisfy it with her body. Inside her. Over her. Everything.

He was pulling her into the house now. Webster at the door, his tail wagging hard, and Luka telling him,“Place,”in a voice so commanding, Elizabeth jumped, and Webster, after a few abortive attempts at disobeying, headed up the stairs and into the lounge. Dejectedly, his tail drooping, a sadly rejected dog who was completely unloved.

She was going to say, “Good job,” but he was kissing her again, shoving her coat off her shoulders, so she couldn’t. Backing her up to the stairs, then, fumbling behind her neck, undoing the fabric-covered button at the top of her dress and pulling the zipper down. His hand on her bare back, sliding down to her waist, then down to her bottom. Grabbing her by it, and the exact moment when he realized she was wearing a thong. And when he found the garters, too. She pulled her arms out of the dress so it fell around her waist, he pulled it off, and she kicked it aside.

“Fuck.”It was low, it was dirty, and now, she knew what it meant.I can’t stand it.So she turned around, her heart in her throat, and showed him the back.

It was straps. Many straps. A sort of upside-down T thing at the back of the pale-pink bra, made up of six or seven thin straps decorated with tiny, flat golden buckles. More straps and buckles on the waistband of the thong, too, a whole web of them.

And the garter belt, with even more buckles and straps, holding up stockings as sheer as cobwebs, their tops a wide band of lace. The flash she’d shown him, sliding onto that banquette.

The color was sweet. The style wasn’t.

She kept her back turned and looked at him over her shoulder. Half of her terrified, half so thrilled. Like swimming out into that swell, knowing you could be over your head so fast.

She didn’t have to worry that he didn’t like stockings. He liked stockings. His hands were there already, tracing over those straps. The bra. The thong. The garters, slow as you like, up and down the backs of her thighs, then coming around her from behind and cupping her breasts, sliding inside the low cups of the demibra. Pressing himself into her, his mouth at her neck, and then the hard rush as he pulled her hair up with one hand, used his grip to pull her head around, and started biting at her in earnest. Like he wanted toeather. Like he couldn’t get close enough. Like he couldn’t go far enough to slake that hunger.

Lord have mercy.

* * *

He was so farpast thinking. He was kissing her neck, biting her, sucking at her, his hand on the webbing of straps at her back again, then dropping down to feel those suspenders. He hadn’t even taken off his shoes, and he couldn’t worry about it, because he needed to do this first. He needed to watch.