| Body |
Chapter 1
Amelia's POV
"Hello, Amelia," the smooth baritone says over the phone, and my eyes go wide immediately. My pulse quickens as my brain produces a face to match the voice almost instantly.
It is the one face I had tried so much to get over - the one face that makes my heart beat erratically.
"Who is this?" I say, unable to keep the trembling out of my voice as I woefully pretend not to recognize his voice.
"Tsk tsk tsk. You don't recognize my voice? That's too bad, Amelia," he says. I can hear the disappointment and slight amusement in his low, smooth baritone. It makes my pulse jump. It makes my mouth dry, even as I moisten my li-ps with my tongue.
Ashley, my roommate and best friend, is watching me with her brows furrowed into a question mark across the room. I look away from her, cupping the phone closer to my ear.
"What do you want, Mr. Tanner?" I whisper harshly. What could he be calling me about at this time of the night? It is 10 p.m. on a random Tuesday. We haven't spoken in three years since the funeral of my mom. I wanted nothing to do with him. I have successfully run away, hiding from him, hoping he would not be able to reach me.
"I thought we agreed on you addressing me by just Linc." His voice cuts into me, but I can't pull the phone away from my ear.
I am drawn, and yet my brain yells at me to just drop the call and block this new number. But I don't listen because he will just call me again. He will always find me, or I always allow myself to be found.
Ashley, having sensed my need for privacy, stepped out of the room already.
"Mr. Tanner," I take a deep, shaky breath to steady my nerves so I don't sound like a scared, squeaky mouse over the phone, "Why are you calling me at this time of the night with a strange number?" I fail; I bite down on my lower li-p in muffled anger.
It's been so long since I heard his voice, his deep baritone voice that sends swarms of butterflies in my lower belly.
"Because you blocked all my other numbers and cut everyone else off," he snaps. Though there is still that hint of amusement in his voice, like he is enjoying toying with my emotions like this. He knows what he's doing; he always does, and I swear on my life he could literally picture me shaking for him.
"Yes, and?" I say with a brow raise like he can see me, hoping I'm doing a good work at acting unaffected and unbothered as though I hadn't mastur-bated an hour ago with his half-na-ked picture I saved on my phone from social media account.
Hell yes! You can say I'm stalking him, too. God! Seeing him shirtless, his shorts hanging lower beneath his hi-p brought waves of forbidden feelings I never knew existed within me.
"Ames, darling, you worry me," Linc Tanner, my stepfather breathes into the phone, and heat rises to my face at that danm nickname. That nickname coming out from his forbidden li-ps, capable of making my toes curl, my knees bend before him, taking all of him deep into my throat.
"Don't call me that!" I yell, cutting him short. My face is going red. I hate the way my body reacts to him. Every part of me awakens at the sound of his voice. It terrifies me; it excites me.
"I will call you what I want," he replies calmly and dangerously low and then continues in the same calm tone like I am not huffing and puffing over the phone at him, "It has been three years, and I needed to know how you were doing. I haven't been able to stop thinking about you," He pauses like he is rethinking his choice of words, and I hold my breath, refusing to think too much about the fact that he just said he hasn't been able to stop thinking about me, "Wondering how you were coping," he adds finally.
I exhale.
The sudden vulnerability in his voice drives a sharp sting directly to my heart. It hurts for a second, and then I pull my defensive walls up again, guarding that traitorous organ called the heart.
"It is not in your place to worry about me. I am not your responsibility. I am doing perfectly fine on my own," I bite back, but deep down a surge of joy was gradually brimming.
He obviously has not called me to talk about my shortcomings in the way I handled the aftermath of my mother's funeral three years ago.
That is why I had his numbers blocked. I know Linc Tanner is rich enough to find me within days, but I hoped that common sense would tell him not to bother me regardless, and he didn't.
"You know that is not true. I am your guardian; of course, it is in my place to worry about you," Linc says, his smooth baritone pierces me like a lash. I imagine him pulling his hand through his thick wavy jet-black hair in quiet frustration.
It is one of the things I noticed about him immediately when I was first introduced to him four years ago. That thick midnight dark hair. For his age, it was ridiculous for his hair to still be that youthful looking, that mouthwatering, the hottest man I have ever set my eyes on.
But that was Linc Tanner.
A walking contradiction of a man.
Chapter 2
I snap myself to reality when I realize I have started trailing off into memories I have tagged forbidden. this"So, what do you want now, stepfather?"
I hear his light chuckle, and I can't help the flutter in my belly from absorbing the rich sound. I can almost smell him. I remember what he smelled like. God! it's imprinted in my brain.
It is embarrassing, but I can admit that I look for that scent in every man I have gone out with since, but to no success. It belonged to Linc Tanner alone. Just like my silly heart. Mint, dark coffee, something dark and mysterious thrown in the mix and a whiff of something floral and yet overwhelmingly masculine.
I used to smell him in the house before he even got to the room I was in, with my mom on his arm, dark onyx eyes seeking mine like a storm.
"I kind of prefer Mr. Tanner to that stepfather title. Makes me feel old, and the way you say it adds a perverted undertone to it," he says after a moment. His tone is light; it is a rebuff he has used several times before when I used to call him that as a sort of childish rebellion to the dismay of my mother who insisted I call him by his name or worse, dad.
"Whatever," I snap. I hate having to think about my mother or the period during that summer before I left for college when I had to stay with them, and it was low-key the worst few weeks of my life in that house.
"Still that temper. It is good to know you haven't changed much, Ames darling," Linc says with a light chuckle.
But he is wrong. At least I hope so. I hope I have changed enough.
But with the way my heart flutters every time he calls me that nickname in that rich baritone of his, I can't be sure I have changed much, and it is embarrassing.
"I need you to tell me why you have called, Linc. Cut the whole thing about you worrying about me and all that bullshiit. I know you have eyes on me. I have seen her. What do you want?" My anger comes back to shield my foolish heart; it wraps around my che-st like a vice.
Whatever he has been paying the woman following me for the past three years should be halved. She is terrible at her job. She doesn't even try to be hidden.
"Okay. Okay. Sheathe your claws, tigress," Linc says. There is no chuckling this time. He doesn't even try to deny it. It makes me angrier, but I bite my tongue. Once I hear what he is calling for, we will talk about that danm female bodyguard.
"I need you to come back home for your break tomorrow. Your plane tickets are ready, everything is set in place," Linc says, his voice dangerously set and rigid, my mouth opens and closes.
Again, I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. I am beyond dumbfounded. Not at the fact that he knows the exact timing of my summer break, but the finality and air of authority of his tone.
"What!" Finally, I scream into the phone.
"What the fck are you talking about?! I am not coming back! You better say you're joking right now!" I scream into the phone. Courtesy be danmed. I don't care if Ashley can hear me. I don't care if I am being rude.
He has lost his mind if he thinks he can just command me to come back to New York out of the blue like this. After three whole years of no contact! Though I was the one that initiated the no-contact rule, that is beside the point.
"You are and you will," Linc says and the calmness in his voice threatens to push me to the edge. He has no rights! Have I not made this clear enough!
"I don't know how to say this nicely, Mr. Tanner, but I genuinely do not want anything to do with you. My mother is dead. She is not here anymore. I am not obligated to feel related to you because we are not related. I am not coming back to New York, and that is final," I say, breathing heavily.
My eyes narrow on the floral pattern of my quilt, and I feel like I could go crazy with the way my heart is racing, flashes of forbidden memories running through my mind.
Mental snapshots of Linc walking out of the luxurious infinity pool on the rooftop of his mansion and his immaculate figure, toned wide shoulders, long muscular legs like tree trunks, chiseled torso, me hiding behind the lounge door, watching him like a creep, the water dripping down his hairy front body, snaking into his navel, down his briefs with that noticeable bulge, and his dark eyes catching mine immediately like he knew I was there all along, watching him.
"Amelia. Listen to me," Linc's domineering voice cuts into me, and I rip my focus away from those danm memories.
That summer is cursed. I can't think of that time without feeling a heap of guilt and the sense of awakening into something bigger than myself, in those stolen glances, fantasies, and sleepless nights where I imagined what it would be like to be the one sharing Linc's bed instead of my mother. I felt treacherous even though me and my mother and I had never been particularly close.
"No! I am not coming back, and you can't make me!" I yell.
"Amelia!" Linc's annoyed voice snaps me to attention. I bite my tongue. Squeezing the phone in my hand.
I grit my teeth in annoyance. I didn't have any specific plans for the holiday, though I was thinking about my internship options.
Since it is my sophomore year, I am supposed to spend my summer break interning at any reputable architectural company that will take me.
"It is something your mother wanted," Linc says, his voice going back to calm and collected.
Of course. She would still continue to mess up my life even when she is no longer here.
Chapter 3
It is aggravating, all the complex feelings she evokes in me. Our relationship wasn't the typical mother-daughter bond. Because she wasn't the typical mother by any means.
Kathryn Dimitri was a socialite through and through. She was glamorous and loud and enjoyed going to dinner parties, soirees, any excuse to have fun and drink champagne, flirting with the throng of men who were always sniffing around her.
It always stung when people noted how different we looked. They always looked at her elegant auburn bold beauty and my muted blonde prettiness and concluded I paled in comparison, just like my skin.
Mother always threw her head back with a delightful laugh when those men paid her compliments at my expense.
That was one of the reasons why I hated spending time at home. With her. She always made me feel like an unwanted attachment to her person. An attachment that never quite measured up.
Sometimes, I think to myself that my attraction to Linc was a rebellion. It was a cowardly one because I never acted on any of my fantasies, but it was a rebellion nonetheless, and it felt good.
When just three months into college, enjoying my freedom from her and that suffocating mansion where I had to hide my blushing face whenever Linc was in the room, I got the call that she had died in a car accident all the way in Paris on her way to another of her glamorous parties, I felt a wave of grief so huge, so encompassing and utterly confusing that my world paused.
I went through the funeral in a muted daze. I faintly remember Linc holding me as I finally broke down and cried on the third night when I wanted to return to college. Wanted to escape.
The reassuring way he held me. Tenderly. Like I was too fragile and could break apart against his huge body. I got on the plane and arrived back in college, and I could still smell his scent on me. I didn't wash the dress I wore for weeks.
"She wanted you to intern at my firm. She wanted me to keep an eye on you. To take care of you and safeguard your future. You like to act tough, but you really have no one else in this world, and that makes me feel empathetic towards you. You can view me as this big bad monster stepfather and I don't care, but I do care about you, and I wouldn't sit back and watch you struggle when I could do something about it. Amelia, please. It would be for just three months. Come to New York. Come home," Linc says, the genuine sincerity in his voice bites at me.
I blink back, furious tears, feeling the anger dissipating into that warm feeling I hate feeling towards him because it felt wrong.
"Ames..." He says gently when I don't reply. I am too busy pushing back the lump in my throat.
He knows he has touched a nerve because he is right. I am truly alone in this world. All of my mother's connections and circle of friends and even families, nobody gave a danm about me after the funeral.
My late dad has family in Portugal, but we were not really close before he died. With my mom gone too, I was left alone, and it didn't hit as hard because before she died, I always felt alone, shuffling from boarding school to college, we never bonded in any special way. I was always alone in my little world.
But in moments like this, when someone like Linc who knew me, knew my mother and I, reminds me how utterly alone I am, it breaks my heart.
"Okay. I will come back to New York." My heart flutters at my resignation because I know there is nothing I could possibly do about it. I accept it.
I guess I have to go back to fighting my forbidden attraction to my stepfather. For just three months. I can survive that long without doing anything I might regret. I hope.
*******
Linc Tanner's POV:
The golden blonde full-grown woman seated in front of me is not the soft-spoken, shy eighteen-year-old Amelia I remember. I am taken aback by how much she has grown, that eyes that could make a grown man weak, that full mouth that I eager to taste, but I manage to keep my face expressionless.
She is stunning. When she walked in a minute ago, I couldn't take my eyes off her, my greedy eyes taking in every detail of her womanly curves. It made me tingle for all the wrong reasons.
She is currently glaring at me from her position on the chair in front of my desk.
I tell myself I have kept an eye on her over the years because of a sort of loyalty to Kathryn, but in reality, I just couldn't bear not knowing how Amelia was doing, couldn't bear thinking about her being in the arms of another man, moaning and crying out his name instead of mine.
She is a brave, strong girl, but I couldn't just let her go. My body couldn't let her go. She made my heart ache. I'm most definitely proud of her just thinking of her out there, all on her own. She reminds me of myself at the same age, hustling against all odds to make a name for myself.
"Why did you come here directly?" I ask, breaking the ice between us. It has been three years, and we didn't even exchange a smile. She is on guard towards me, and I am walking on eggshells, trying not to upset her.
"I figured we should get to it immediately," Amelia says. The softness of her voice is gone, replaced by a sharp edge that is confident and so womanly. I shake my head to ward off any more misleading thoughts.
"Oh c'mon, Amelia. I asked that they chauffeur you to the house." I thought she would appreciate the rest. But here she is, glaring at me.
"Do you stay alone?" She asks, catching me off guard.
"Yes," I say, cautiously. Her boldness and the way she is holding my eyes are making me feel uneasy. I don't remember her being this confident.
I used to find her extreme shyness amusing then. Interesting.
Now I find her confidence highly attractive. Erotic.
Fvck! Linc. Goddammit! Control yourself.
Chapter 4
We have some history between us from that one summer three years ago before she ran away to college. But I am proud of myself for keeping things in control when she was just an eighteen-year-old rebellious teen.
Now that she is all grown, I can't promise that I would be able to control myself much. This woman sitting across from me could bring any man to his knees, and I don't fvcking care falling on my knees in front of her as her legs open up for me, taking in the scent of her arousal, tasting her. Merely looking at her, I know she tastes like pure sugar.
"Then I am not staying in that house. You have to get a place for me," she says, not adding the unspoken part. That she doesn't want to stay alone with me.
"It is a big house, Amelia." I tried to clear my voice, It is a mansion, but I understand if she doesn't want to stay with me. I guess that could be weird. Without Kathryn in the midst, what would we do with each other? I don't want to dwell on that train of thought.
"I don't care." She folds her arms over her front body, and my eyes get drawn to her che-st. I want to peel my eyes away, but I am powerless against her quietly confident feminine aura.
She is wearing a pale blue sundress with a black sweater over it, but the pale blue of the dress makes her eyes stand out so clearly, she radiates like a beam of sunlight sitting across from me.
She used to be pale, but her complexion has matured with a golden tint that teases down her long graceful neck into her deep-V line.
I yank my eyes up to meet hers; thankfully, she is looking out the window. I note the multiple piercings in her ears, and a chuckle escapes me as I imagine the fit that Kathryn would have thrown if she could see her.
"What is so funny?" she snaps, turning to fix me with her startling blue eyes.
"Nothing. I will have someone look for a place for you that is close to the firm. Fine?"
"Yes. Thank you."
I don't mention that she would stay in the house with me until we find a place. It is unnecessary; she knows.
"Come, let me show you around," I say, getting up, eager to move around before finding myself distracted, watching her like a aroused freak.
I walk to her side to take her hand; she ignores me and tries to get up on her own. She takes a step forward, and it all happens too fast. She trips on her feet in front of me, falling backward with her eyes wide in terror.
I shooot forward, grabbing her by her slim waist instead of her outstretched hand. I pull her forward until she is stable on her feet; our bodies collide, and I hear the soft gasp leave her full li-ps. A headiness clouds my thoughts.
Her body is intoxicatingly soft pressed against me like this. My primal reaction startles me as all the blood rushes southward. Our faces are inches from each other; her large doe-like eyes blink up at me, and her rosy li-ps are slightly open. It takes all of my self-control to not just crash my mouth to hers and taste them.
God knows how badly I have always wanted that.
"Why do you not want to stay at the house with me?" I ask, ripping my eyes away from her tempting li-ps to look into her eyes. They hold mine with a mixture of fear, anticipation, and defiance. The combination makes my blood rush faster.
"You know why," Amelia breathes, so close, so overwhelmingly stunning.
Soft and dangerous. Grown and lethal. She overshadows my common sense, even at just eighteen. I only managed to stay away because of Kathryn, her mother. But now, three hard years later, she is in my arms, and there are no hindrances.
I hold onto her waist tightly; she doesn't resist my touch, but she is not exactly leaning into me. She is frozen in place, and I get the feeling that if I let go, she would run. I can't lose her again.
Danming all consequences, I lean in; my vision narrows in on the most perfect pair of li-ps I have ever seen, the whole world quietens with a hush.
Chapter 5
Amelia's POV
"Mr. Tanner, I have the reports..." A cheery voice interrupts the moment.
"Oh! I am sorry." The woman's surprised, high-pitched voice intrudes on the madness that is my lust-filled brain and snaps me out of my reverie.
His strong arm around my waist loosens its grip, and I take the opportunity to move away from the furnace of the man, my heart thundering at what almost happened. I didn't even hear the door open.
His firm li-ps only grazed mine before the interruption, but I feel like it was more with the way my heart is beating fast.
I have not been here longer than an hour, and I have already found myself in his arms. We almost kissed.
And I hoped to survive three whole months with him without doing anything I might regret?
That seems like such a practical joke now. Linc is forbidden, a no-go area, he's fire, if I get too close, he would burn me.
Seeing Linc's trim, muscled figure in his form-fitting grey suit, his devastatingly handsome, resistant-to-aging face with those dark, piercing onyx eyes has reminded me just how easily my body gives in to him.
His quiet, effective charm has reminded me why I ran. Why that summer really tough for me. Fighting this forbidden attraction to my middle-aged stepfather, who is forty-one while I am just twenty-one.
He is literally old enough to be my father. But yet he pulls me. And I am powerless once he pins me with those eyes. I am weak. My body surrenders without much resistance.
"Drop them on the desk," he says, his dark eyes still trained on me, his back to the woman frozen at the door glaring at me with such venom it scares me. I move further away.
I need to escape him. But I know it is futile. Linc would find me. This attraction between us feels inevitable now. There is a quiet countdown ringing like a third heartbeat between us.
Coming back was a mistake. Linc Tanner is not the kind of man one forgets. Or moves on from. I still feel the same way as I did three years ago, if not stronger. And now there is one less excuse as to why we shouldn't give in to this dark desire.
"Uhm, sir, it needs your signature so I can send it back to..."
"Charlotte, drop them on the desk!" Linc raised voice startles me and the woman, who quickly drops the files and hurries out. Linc doesn't turn away from me. He keeps his eyes on me, watching me like a hunter hunting his prey.
I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry. Naked hunger is present in the depth of those shimmery dark eyes, and I have to clentch my fists together to gain some control over my senses. This is all shades of wrong. And yet so right. So necessary.
It is official, I have lost my danm mind.
How the hel are we going to sleep in the same house tonight without something forbidden happening between us? I can almost picture it, and it makes my pulse race faster.
"Um. I should go." I say when I reach the door. Where am I going? I have no idea but I know I have to get away from this office right now before I find myself climbing my stepfather like a tree right here in his office.
I know the nak-ed hunger in his eyes reflects mine. I am just as aroused. Just as willing to be reckless. Caution was thrown to the wind as soon as I agreed to come back.
"Okay." His usually smooth baritone comes out cracked, he pauses and clears his throat, he starts walking towards me and my heart skips a beat, but then he turns to the left, towards his desk and I blink back my disappointment.
"Take a tour of the firm. Choose whatever department you want to intern at. Then we can go to dinner." His mouth is a set line as he settles at his desk like he wasn't just about to kiss me a moment ago.
"Dinner?" I croak, still visibly shaken up by what almost happened between us. I still feel the weight of his strong arm wound tightly around my waist. The possessiveness of his hold. The way his eyes narrowed in on my face before he leaned in to me for the kiss. It all makes me feel heady.
"Yes. I made a reservation." He says looking up to meet my eyes, I hold his gaze.
"I don't feel up to that." I say, looking away first as his eyes bore into me. One day, I will wi-n our spontaneous silent staring battle.
"What? Let me guess, you are not hungry?" He asks with a small chuckle. It brings flashbacks of that summer three years ago when I used to deny being hungry so I could stay away from him and my mother. Only to sneak back to the kitchen at midnight to raid the fridge for leftovers.
Linc caught me several times and the embarrassment still feels so heavy right now with the way he is watching me. Mischievous amusement shining in his eyes.
"Fvck off." I snap. I can't stand his teasing in moments like this. I hate that he knows me all too well.
"Now, now, Ames darling. I don't appreciate that tone." He says but his voice is still teasing and light. I can't believe we almost kissed just a moment ago and here he is, teasing. He confuses me. And somehow, that seems to be the allure. Other than the fact that he is my fcking stepfather.
"Whatever. I am not going out to dinner with you." I cross my arms, his eyes follow the motion and heat rises up my cheeks. A moment passes between us. An impasse.
"Okay, we will eat at home. I'll call my private chef." He says at last. I can't argue with that, so I just nod in passive agreement and push the door behind my back so I can escape the office. Escape his impossible charm.
*******
"So, which department are you going to intern at?" Linc says, wiping his mouth with a triangle shaped napkin. The table is being cleared by the chef's assistants, I nod my appreciation to them for a great home dining experience. Linc doesn't even acknowledge them.
"I don't know yet." I say because I truly don't. His firm is so large. So multifaceted. I have so many options but I have narrowed it down to either the creative designing or engineering departments since I have majored in both at college.
"Okay. Take your time." He says. I refuse to allow myself feel the impact of his smooth baritone as it washes over me across the dining table.
"Yeah." I should probably add my thanks but I don't. The staff finishes clearing out the table and they leave immediately, leaving us alone to our awkwardness. I swallow.
The soft light of the overhead chandelier is cast directly on my face and I feel like he is watching me closely. His eyes, those dreamy but predatory eyes watches my every move.
I could literally feel like he was looking at me to expose me, to expose my deepest secrets, secrets I would kil to have them concealed, but with Linc, just one move from him, his mouth on me and his hand in-between my legs, my entire being will open up to him on it's own accord, and when his fire burns me, my secrets will be revealed.
Chapter 6
Linc had the house restructured, and so it doesn't hold much sentiment for me. I was slightly shocked when I first got in, but now it has ebbed. The mansion is like a luxurious minimalist hotel. Oddly, I felt comfortable and at ease. But I know I can't stay here for too long. I simply can't.
"Um, so, about the apartment you would rent for me. How is that coming along?" I say, enunciating my words carefully. I see a tic in his jaw, and I swallow.
I remember the way he asked me why I didn't want to stay with him as he held me in his arms earlier in his office. The nak=ed vulnerability in his eyes. The way he was looking at me, it scares me, hypnotize me and locks me in.
"You just told me a few hours ago." He says, interlacing his svelte fingers on the table as he leans forward. I can't read the expression on his face, whether it is annoyance or amusement.
"Yeah. But it is something that you can sort out in a really short time. Aren't you like a billionaire or something?" That was why Mom was besotted with him. Linc Tanner has been in Forbes.
His architectural firm has worked on top multi-billion dollar projects across the country. He is dark and mysterious and a hot forty-one-year-old.
"Yes, I am a billionaire." He says, with a smirk.
"You are avoiding my question." The house has gone quiet. All the bright lighting has been switched for dimmer ones. I am sure all the staff have left. It is just us now.
Coming to this realization opens me up to my forbidden thoughts about being alone with Linc. Wild things that had invaded my dreams for so long, just me and him alone in the house, starring at each other, reaching out to each other, eating out each other.
"What if I simply don't want to get you an apartment? What if I don't want you to stay away from me? Why the he-ll would you be staying in some apartment when I have a mansion here you can stay in?" His smirk is gone, and he is pinning me to the spot with his dark eyes. My pulse starts racing. My mouth goes dry.
"That is not what you promised!" I yell, getting out of my seat.
What the heck does he mean he doesn't want me to stay away from him?
"Ames, Ames darling. Sit down." He says, his voice is oddly calm and controlled. It only makes me angrier, and I flip my middle finger at him as I turn around to walk away.
I don't hear him walking up to me till he grabs my wrist and spins me around to face him. The motion pulls my body too close, so we are inches away from each other. Twice in just one day, my breath escapes me in an audible gasp.
"Why the he-ll are you so stubborn? It is kiling me keeping my hands to myself already, and you have to go and push me." He hisses under his breath at me, but I hear him clearly because we are very close. The expansive kitchen peels away from my vision. The house. The soft lights.
Everything. All I can see is Linc, and up close, he is stunning. He's dangerous, he overwhelms me, he could literally set me on fire with thst forbidden mouth of his.
I don't have any power when he is this close. My knees go weak. I forget my anger.
"I can't stay here with you." I say quietly, my voice trembling. His hand holding my wrist is like a brand on my skin.
Am I agreeing this accommodation thing? The house is huge. We can steer clear of each other for the duration of the three months.
The firm is huge too. I can spend my internship there, and we will never run into each other. Nobody even has to know about our connection if I keep quiet about it.
But the way my body involuntarily leans towards him, the way my belly erupts with liquid fire every time he looks down at my face, I just know. I couldn't possibly stay here alone with him without giving in and doing something I would surely regret.
"Why?" He asks, his face a closed-off mask, his li-ps set in a tight line. Our faces are just inches apart from each other, my back is pressing against the hard edge of the polished wood of the dinner table, but I don't register the discomfort.
There are too many sensations to be felt standing this close to Linc Tanner, that pain is temporary.
"What do you mean, 'why?'" I throw back at him, breathing as regularly as I can, but my breaths come out choppy and raspy. I need to move away from him.
"Because I don't understand it, Ames." He snaps, his grip on my wrist tightens. I wince, and then he looks at his hand like he didn’t realize he has been holding onto me all this while. He lets me go.
"Okay, but why won't you let me go?" I pull my chin up at him, our li-ps barely inches apart now. I meant it as a defiant move, but one look from him and I regret it, but I don't back down.
One look at my li-ps I shake.
One look at my face accessing me, I'm soaked.
"This is why." Linc covers the distance between us, and my world erupts in bright scattered lights as he claims my mouth.
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