Larger Than Life by Alison Kent (read the beginning after the end novel .txt) 📕

one of the windows, at what she had no idea. That side of the house faced nothing but wide open spaces. Maybe the emptiness was what he was looking at. Maybe he was feeling cooped up, wanting to fly. It was a good thing she'd never thought seriously about tying him down.

All she wanted was the relief he could give her body, a fulfillment more intense than anything she could give herself, more complete than what he'd shown her this afternoon.

That was all she wanted. She certainly didn't want the emotional sensations tugging at the strings of her heart.

He never turned when she closed the door and started across the room. He didn't say a word. He didn't move. The same light that brightened the room caressed his body; she saw details she'd never before seen. The dimpled skin on his side beneath his bandaged rib cage. A gouge of flesh missing from the bulge of his calf muscle. More damage from the life she didn't want him to tell her about.

She didn't want to know. She didn't want to care. She didn't want the involvement she knew she was walking into. All she wanted was to touch him. Her socks shushed over the floor, the sound barely louder than an indrawn breath as she moved to stand at his back. He hadn't looked at her once, yet she knew he was aware of her presence. The tension in his body rolled off in waves.

She settled her hands at his hips, her fingers curling into the waistband of the gray sweat shorts that matched hers. Though the air in the room was cool, his skin was toasty warm. He wasn't feverish, his temperature not enough to cause concern, simply enough to tempt her.

And so she slid her arms around him, her hands up his torso, her fingers through the fine dusting of hair covering his belly and chest on either side of his bound ribs. She was gentle with her touch, remembering his bruises, feeling the rough scabs covering his healing scrapes.

He was taller than she was, and she couldn't see beyond his body to follow his gaze through the window. So she pressed her cheek to the center of his back, nuzzled against him, and breathed him in.

He shuddered as she held him, and she eased away a bit, not wanting to hurt him more than she had if that was the cause of his response. He assured her it wasn't when he moved his hands from the window frame, found both her wrists, and pulled her close again. She smiled against his skin, turned to kiss the indentation of his spine.

His gooseflesh tickled her; she was so pleased that he wanted her near, and that once he had her where he wanted her, he loosened his hold, threaded their fingers together, and pressed their one big fist to the center of his chest where his heart pounded more fiercely than hers.

He made this so easy, made it so hard. Made her want to open more than her body—a feat no man before him had ever accomplished. Past experiences, previous men had been nothing more than physical encounters. Those, she'd closed her mind and summarily enjoyed.

What Mick offered her that no one had before was as complicated as it was simple. She couldn't stop to break it down. She only knew she felt safe. Safe and secure and protected. Trusted. Believed. He hadn't laughed over her paranoia. He'd asked for facts so he could clear away her worries and fears.

She pulled her hands from his and slid her fingers to his shoulders, massaging tiny circles there, walking her fingertips along the slope to his neck, rubbing her knuckles softly against the base of his skull. She loved touching him. Didn't think she'd ever get enough.

With one index finger, she outlined the tribal decoration cupping his neck. "Tell me about your tattoo."

He shook his head and pulled her around in front of him. His eyes sparkled like silver coins in the moonlight. "I don't want to talk. Not about my tattoo, or your barn, or which one of us has been living a lie longer than the other and owes the biggest round of apologies."

"Then what do you want?" she asked coyly.

He answered with a pirate's plundering grin and a growled, "Everything that's mine."

Thirteen

"Does that include me?" she asked, thinking she liked the idea of being claimed as a pirate's booty. Especially with this man doing the plundering. "Or are you still worried I'm not going to give you back your gun?"

"Screw the bloody gun. I've got a half dozen others." He hooked an elbow around her neck, pulled her flush to his body. "But you, Nevada Case, are one of a kind."

The way he looked into her eyes as he said it, the way it rolled off his tongue, as if he didn't know an endearment more precious, had never seen her in a light that revealed what this one did, she didn't even mind him using her full name. In fact, she kind of liked it. Liked, too, the idea of him owning that part of her, if nothing more.

She reached up and ran her fingertips over the patch of hair beneath his lower lip. "I think you're pretty special, too."

He pulled the elastic band from her hair. "Which is it, then? Pretty or special?"

She grinned. "A whole lot of both."

"Hmm. I'm not sure I've ever been called pretty," he said, spreading her hair out across her shoulders and admiring his handiwork. "Why don't you wear your hair down?"

"Because it gets in the way of everything," she said, loving the way he played with the strands, combing his fingers through the thick unruly waves. She closed her eyes, leaned back her head. "Do you know how good that feels?"

"Tell me," he nearly grunted.

"Well, my nipples are hard, if that says anything," she said, and felt herself blushing. Like she was some virginal schoolgirl.