Not quite what he’d expected.
“It’s possible I didn’t thinkthisthrough,” she murmured. After a moment.
During which he didn’t take a single breath.
The blood his brain needed for forming words rapidly defected to his nether regions and his hands were now sliding up beneath her shirt of their own accord, because what sane man wouldn’t do that?
Oh God.
The place where their groins met was about a thousand degrees. His brain might as well be pudding. Everything else on him was hard and getting harder by the second.
And for a moment they just breathed. And he could feel, almost could taste her breath, and then his lips brushed against hers, and the soft give of them almost did him in.
Someone moaned softly.
Maybe they both did.
Oh, dear God. He swallowed and tipped his forehead against hers.
“Glory... I’m on duty and I’m an off... off... icer... of the law...”
He stopped his hands from traveling upward any farther than her waist with a control that felt wildly unnatural, bordering on the absurd. The silk of her skin was the most decadent thing his senses had ever known.
She shifted a little again, quite deliberately. Lust drove a spike right down through him. He heard the catch in her throat, too. He wanted to shove his hands down into the tempting gap in the waistband of her jeans and cup her cool smooth ass and grind her against him, his mouth on hers, until they both came explosively and loudly, like rabid, sex-starved teenagers. He suspected it would take mere seconds, even through their clothes, the way he was feeling now.
Sweat actually began to bead his temples.
“That’s not your gun, Eli,” she whispered.
An inordinate amount of time seemed to pass before he could get a sound out.
“Nope.” His voice was about two octaves lower and his answer was more a gasp than a word.
And for a few seconds they didn’t say a thing.
He had what he’d always wanted: Glory in his arms. But what kind of man would he be if he took advantage of her right now, when she was drunk and hurting?
A smart one!his penis informed him.
His brain and his very soul knew, damn them anyway, better.
“Glory.” His voice was a rasp. He cleared it. His breathing was ragged, but he got the words out. “You’ve had a shitty day and you’re hurting and you want to feel better and God knows sex will accomplish that and God knows I want that, too. But I just... I know you’ll hate me and yourself for it tomorrow. These aren’t the right reasons.”
He could feel her stop breathing because his hands were still on her.
Her eyes narrowed assessingly.
And then she spoke. “I think you’rescared.” She all but hissed it.
He froze. It was the last thing he expected to hear, about the worst thing anyone could say to him, and the best way to light his temper on fire.
Glory knew how to fight dirty.
“Watch it, Glory.” His tone was all even, flat warning.
As far as she was concerned he’d just layered more hurt and rejection over her hurt and rejection.
“You’re scared. Of losing control. Of beingbaaaaad,” she mocked. “Of peoplethinkingyou might be bad. You do all that thinking so you don’t have to ever take a chance. I mean, you’ve got your laws, officer, to tell you what to do and what not to do. What else do you need? Chicken.”