“You knew what you were doing.”
“I did.” She smiled. “Now, show me that you know what you’re doing.”
She opened her legs, wrapping them around me. I slid inside her. The pier groaned where I gripped it.
“Did you think I wouldn’t catch you?”
“I hoped you would,” she panted. Tara dropped her mouth to my earlobe and nipped. I had the sudden, insane urge to bite her back. Leave a mark so she couldn’t hide that I claimed her.
Resisting my beastly impulse, I dropped her feet into the sand and pulled out of her. She clung to my neck, a pouty look on her face.
“Turn around.”
I moved her until she was draped over one of the support beams of the pier. I wasn’t as gentle as I should have been when I rammed back into her, but the noises she made didn’t discourage my ferocity.
That animal need to possess her won out, mostly because her core was clenching around me and she was moaning so loudly that everyone on the Gulf Coast was going to hear her.
“Did you think—” My hips pumped faster and faster. “I wouldn’t make you mine?” Then I cupped her neck and pinned her back against my chest, biting down on her shoulder.
“Harder,” she moaned. “Bite harder.”
I obliged her.
Tara shuddered. Her legs gave out. I caught her, sheathing myself deep and growling as I filled her. For a breath, the world was black and white, save for the beautiful flushed color of Tara’s skin. I nuzzled the side of her neck, kissing beneath her ear and everywhere I could reach. Even spent, I still wanted more.
There was something about her. Enthralling. Magnetic. I was insatiable and I couldn’t explain it.
There was too much…everything. The sensations where our bodies connected, the luscious scent of her.
I shouldn’t want anything from her now. But I did.
Tara leaned back and dropped her arms around my shoulders, steadying herself as I continued throbbing inside her.
Now was the time to remind her that I wasn’t a nice guy. That I never promised more than this.
Time to walk away.
My feet didn’t move.
I slipped from inside her and Tara turned, a smug, satisfied smile on her face. She kissed my bottom lip, just a peck, and said plainly, “I’m not yours. I don’t belong to anyone.”
Then she readjusted her skirt and started walking down the beach. I watched, frozen in place, as she climbed the stairs and disappeared into the bar parking lot.
I wanted to follow her, the beast in me desperate to chase her down again. To catch her.
To hunt her.
No, that was wrong. I didn’thuntwomen the way the beast liked to hunt.
I wanted to tell myself it was only because that was the best sex I’d had all year.
Even as I thought it, my chest rumbled with a growl and I almost jumped in my truck and drove home to talk to Eli. To confess everything to him.
But my brother wouldn’t know what to do, other than worry about me.
I crossed the beach and retrieved my pants, trying to decide what to do. The sun was cresting the horizon before I deemed it safe to wander back to my truck. Once inside I sat dazed on the driver’s side.
Maybe Saul was right. Maybe it was time to grow up and come home.