Page 6

Axel

A better man might turn around and leave, give the girl some space to breathe. He would honor her privacy and find some way to atone for his sins. He would repent for touching someone he never should have laid his hands on. But I’m not a better man, and I’m not leaving Brooke, not like this.

Forbidden.

I pace the floor of her living room, worrying my hair as the word rolls around my mind.

Brooke Kane is beautiful inside and out.

When I first met her, she was a shy little girl who never left her father’s side.

I met Brooke when she was only ten and already knew her way around an engine.

Anything her father did, Brooke was right there eager to help.

She had this spark in her eye that lit up when she smiled, and even when she grew into a beautiful young woman, she held onto it.

But it went out when her father died last year.

I wanted to see that spark again, so I held back when she began to act out, allowed her to do whatever she wanted—within reason—in hopes that she would find her spark again.

She was supposed to go to college and fall in love with some stupid boy her age.

Maybe he could make her eyes to light up the way they used to.

Someone as warm and bright as her shouldn’t be bound to someone like me.

Rough around the edges and jaded, I’m not the person for her.

She deserves better than me. Brooke Kane deserves the world.

“Am I not allowed to want you? To fall in love with you?”

I stop in front of the door—the wrong door.

I should be reaching for the one that leads out of her apartment, but instead, I find myself standing outside her bedroom.

An honorable man would leave like she asked and apologize for what happened once she’s calmed down, but I can’t bring myself to leave her like this.

Nothing, not a bullet or a knife, hurts worse than seeing Brooke’s tears and knowing I caused them.

Fuck this!

I turn the knob and push, expecting to find the door locked, but it opens. Brooke is lying on her bed under the covers, facing the wall, and I notice her curl her shoulders inward when I step into the room.

“If you are here to apologize, I don’t want to hear it,” she hisses, tugging the covers over her bare shoulder, and I find my mind racing with the knowledge that she’s naked under those sheets.

Those small, soft tits are hidden from my view, but I remember exactly how they felt against my skin.

God, she was so perfect in my arms minutes ago; we fit like a puzzle, or maybe that was just wistful thinking.

“You deserve better—”

“I’m old enough to decide what I deserve!” she interrupts, sitting up and turning to face me. The covers slip down her shoulder and pool around her waist, exposing her tits, and my semi-erect cock hardens to full mast in seconds.

“God,” I rasp, taking her in. She looks like a fucking dream, and I am helpless to do anything but stare.

She flushes and scrambles to cover up, but I must make a sound because she stops.

“We should talk.” It’s the right thing to do.

I have to fix things with Brooke, apologize for giving in to my baser needs.

I need to say something to remind her that I will always protect her no matter what.

What she feels for me is not love. She thinks she wants me, when in reality she’s just grieving and turning to the one man besides her father who has always been there for her.

“Are you just going to stand there and look at me?”

My eyes shift to her face and those gorgeous gray eyes that are identical to Kane’s, but different too. Her’s are softer, more open. Beautiful. “What happened back there was…”

“If you are about to say that it was a mistake, you should leave like I told you to,” Brooke says, pushing back the covers.

I can tell it takes a great deal of courage and a lot of forced bravado to do.

She’s naked, and I damn near choke on air when she climbs out of bed and starts toward me.

I don’t take my eyes off her body until she stops in front of me.

A foot shorter, she has to look up to meet my gaze.

She brings her hands up to touch me, tracing the planes of my chest with her delicate fingers, and I track the movement, heart hammering in my chest as she slowly chips at my willpower.

“If you regret it, why are you still here?”

Because she’s a drug.

And I’m addicted. Capturing the moon and all the stars would be easier than giving up Brooke. I’ve been taking her in small doses over for nearly a year, wanting and craving her from a distance, and tonight, I just had my first taste of euphoria. How the fuck can I walk away from that?

“I can’t seem to convince myself to do the right thing,” I say honestly, running the backs of my fingers over her cheek. She shudders, her eyelids fluttering from the move. My eyes drop to her erect nipples, and it’s hard to ignore her reactions to such simple caresses.

“This is the right thing,” she insists when I trail the back of my hand down her jaw to neck. Her breath hitches when I circle a nipple with my finger. “How can it be wrong when it feels so right?”

I feel it. Whatever willpower I was grasping onto slips from my grasp. I have none left, I realize. Not enough of it was there to begin with, but at least then, I could trick myself into believing that I would let another man touch Brooke. I would have buried them before I let anyone else have her.

Mine.

Goddamnit, she’s mine!

Her lips part with a gasp when I pinch her beaded nipple between my knuckles then lean in to capture the sound with my mouth.

Brooke whimpers, wrapping her arms around my shoulders as she opens up for me, and I realize that I am done fighting this—done fighting my feelings for her.

Our mouths brush with terrifying desperation.

They’re soft, her lips, and I taste the cocktail she had tonight.

I should have figured that even her lips would be addictive.

With a possessive growl, I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her naked body against mine, kissing her with the intensity of a starved man. It’s wet and feral… Desperate!

Mine.

My lips are locked on hers when I pick her up, and she moans, wrapping her thighs around my waist. She gasps against my lips when I press her to the wall, tongue fucking her mouth and exploring every inch.

I give her everything. I’m hard as a rock, but how could I not be?

I’m always hard when it comes to this sexy girl, and the feel of her soft naked body against mine only intensifies that feeling.

“Stop me, baby,” I say hoarsely against her lips, hoping she comes to her sense and puts an end to this. Praying to any higher power that might exist that she doesn’t.

“I don’t want to,” she whispers, the sound morphing into a moan when I thumb her nipples, drinking in her flushed expression. God, she looks like an angel. Someone a man like myself does not deserve to be in the same room with let alone touch. “Please. Don’t stop.”

My mouth slams back down on hers, tunneling my fingers into her hair and angling her head to the side, and I thrust my tongue between her soft lips. Fuck, I need her under me now! In bed, taking my cock in that tight, virgin pussy.

Our lips are still locked together, breathing each other in as I carry her to the bed.

We tumble down together, but I manage to pry myself away long enough to strip, tearing at my clothes like a feral beast. Her fingers reach between us to help, eyes glazed over with need as she tugs impatiently at my belt.

I manage to rip off my shirt then help her with the pants, my mouth back down on hers as I kick off my jeans and boxer briefs.

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” I say thickly, trailing my hand up her rip cage and cupping her tit, rolling her nipple with my thumb.

“I can’t walk away. How could I?” She cries out when I squeeze her nipple between my fingers, her back arching off the bed with a loud moan.

I lean in and brush my lips over her chin, licking a path down her neck and losing myself in her softness, drowning in her sweet floral scent—jasmine with notes of something velvety and warm.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined kissing every inch of you.

” I swipe my tongue over a nipple, watching her lips part on a cry and her eyes squeeze shut.

“Y-you wanted me,” she pants.

“Like air.” And isn’t that the honest truth.

I lick at the nipple again before wrapping my mouth around the bud sucking.

She cries out, tunneling her fingers into my hair and holding me tight against her as I suck on the tight bead, drawing it between my lips and flicking it with my tongue before shifting to the other size to repeat the action.

Brooke is trembling when I draw back. “I tried to picture how you would look with my face between your legs, licking at that hot pussy and getting you all wet and ready for my cock. How your tits would shake as I buried my tongue between your folds, body writhing as I tasted every inch of your pink heaven.”

“Oh God!”

“I don’t have to imagine anymore,” I rasp against her skin, possessiveness roaring through me as I trail my right hand over her hip and part her legs. I bite back a groan when I find her wet and dripping between her thighs.

“Axel,” she whimpers my name when I tease my middle finger along the seam of her sex slowly until her feminine lips part for me. She cries out when my finger finds her clit. I stroke the swelling bud gently, drinking in her reaction to my touch.

She’s beautiful.

Her hair is fanned out on the pillow, her cheeks flushed pink, mouth parted, and those gorgeous pale gray eyes unfocused and dark with desire. Only I get to see her like this. Only I will ever see her like this!

Mine!