Page 127 of Protecting What's Mine

Her gaze returned to him. “Yeah. They’re always there, lurking in the background.”

“How do we exorcise?” he joked. Then winced. Ty was right. He was hiding.

“Maybe we just move forward and leave them behind,” she mused.

“Sometimes it’s a tough choice,” he said, tucking a wavy piece of hair behind her ear. “Knowing when to abandon the past and when to build on it.”

She slid her hands up his chest, over his shoulders, and linked her fingers behind his neck. “I think you should forget about the past and kiss me right now.”

He backed her up slowly until she was pressed against the wall. Her breasts were flattened against his chest. His cock went hard between them, blood pulsing with the need to fuck his way inside her. “How’d you like me to kiss you, Dreamy?”

She wet her lips, and the pink tip of her tongue ignited a want that ached inside him.

“Kiss me like nothing else matters,” she whispered. Her green eyes were serious, pleading. And he was helpless to do anything but give her what she wanted.

41

The kiss changed from soft and sweet to something darker, needier, and Mack reveled in it. Linc crushed his mouth against hers, teeth scraping her lips until she surrendered, opening for him on a thready moan. He pinned her to the wall with his hips. His erection was hot and hard against her belly, and his hands were everywhere at once.

Tugging at her hair, digging into her hips, and then sliding under her sweatshirt, shoving layers out of the way to get to her electrified skin.

His tongue claimed her mouth like it was a distant mountain peak. Something to be conquered victoriously, triumphantly. She wanted him to claim the rest of her. To take it all until she had nothing left to give.

He broke the kiss and yanked her hoodie, then her t-shirt, over her head. Burying his face between her breasts, he let out a pained groan. His hips gave a shallow thrust against her that made the throb in her core thrum faster.

He needed this. Needed her. And she wanted to be needed like this.

She pushed him back just far enough to pull his shirt over his head, sank her teeth into the ink over his pec.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” she told him, dipping her tongue over his nipple.

“Fuck,” he breathed. “If you’re not okay with me taking you against this wall right now, I need you to say it, Mackenzie.”

The staccato beat of her heart thundered in her ears. A need so fierce, so base, clawed its way through her.

“Fuck me against this wall.”

He swore darkly as if she’d unleashed something in him. In one desperate motion, he’d dragged her shorts and underwear down her legs. She managed to free one foot before he was boosting her up and wrapping her legs around his hips. The boot made her feel off-balance, but Linc’s arms held her tight, and the brick braced her from behind.

“Thank God for gym shorts,” she whispered, reaching between them and freeing his cock.

He growled low in his throat when she gripped his shaft. Pressing her against the wall, he yanked her bra down under her breasts and greedily fastened his mouth to one nipple.

It hit her like lightning. Her entire system was alive and on fire. Those decadent, desperate pulls at her breast, the marble hard dick in her grip that was just an inch away from where she needed it to be.

“We don’t have a condom,” she breathed.

He let out a litany of curses against her breast and then dragged his teeth over her pebbled nipple.

She let out a little gasp. “I’m good if you’re good.”

He released her breast with an audible pop. “Yeah?”

There was so much she could see in those blue eyes. So much more than simple, uncomplicated lust. Letting him in, trusting him, meant something. It did to her, too. “Yeah.”

“I’ve never—”

“Me neither,” she admitted. “But I want you like that. Nothing between us.”