Make Me Sin

40

Trying not to faint becomes my top priority. “I . . . um . . .”

He takes my chin in his hand, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Invite me in.”

God, he’s hot. Smoking, crackling hot, and also incredibly intimidating. I can’t tell what expression he’s wearing. It fluctuates somewhere between murder spree and kid on Christmas morning. When I lick my lips again, he watches the motion of my mouth and tongue with an almost predatory look, his eyes flashing in the shadows.

I whisper, “Come in.”

His lids briefly close, then his eyes go right back to roasting me alive. Satisfied, he nods, brushes past me, and goes directly to my bed, where he stands looking down at the rumpled sheets. In one swift motion, he pulls the hoodie off over his head, and drops it to the floor.

He’s not wearing a shirt underneath.

Now I’m gaping at his ripped, tattooed, naked upper body. Someone turned on the heat, because it flashes over me like I just stepped out of an air-conditioned room into a tropical rainforest. He looks over at me.

“Get in bed.”

Normally I’m not one to take commands from men. Or from anyone else, for that matter. But A.J.’s voice weaves a wicked spell over me, one I feel helpless to resist. Oddly, irrationally, I trust him. So that takes care of my brain. As for my ovaries, they’re partying like it’s 1999. Parts of me I didn’t even know I had are clenching, aching, nervously twitching in anticipation.

Never before has a man had such an effect on my body. If he told me to jump out the window at this point, I’d seriously consider it.

I climb into bed, sit against the headboard with my knees drawn up, and pull the sheets up to my chin. Wide-eyed and breathless, I stare at him. My mind goes a million miles per hour. Starlight and lightning bolts fly through my veins.

Shucking off his boots, he holds my gaze. Without removing his jeans, he slowly peels back the sheets. He slides in bed next to me, and, with one arm wrapped around my waist, pulls me from my sitting position until I’m lying flat on my back next to him. He whispers, “Roll on your right side.”

I do. He slides an arm beneath my head, tightens the other one around my body, pulls his knees up behind mine, puts his face into my hair, and inhales. A delicate shudder runs through his chest.

We’re spooning. Holy Jesus, A.J. is spooning me.

I can’t breathe. I’m having some kind of cardiac event.

“Take a breath,” he murmurs against the back of my neck. My lungs obey him. After a minute or two I can feel my toes again.

I’m too wired to say anything. My thoughts are too scattered. All I can do is lie in my bed with his arms around me, and feel.

And lord, do I.

I’m aware of everything, from the way the material of his jeans feels against the backs of my bare legs, to the way his warm breath stirs the hair on the nape of my neck. I feel my pulse in my throat. I feel his breathing, his chest rising and falling against my shoulder blades, the heat and solidity of his body, flush against mine.

I feel his erection, straining against his zipper, digging hard into my bottom.

But he makes no move to do anything other than lie with me, and breathe me in. After a while, I get past the sheer shock of the situation, and begin to relax.

His lips moving against my skin, A.J. says, “Good.”

I want to ask questions. I want to grill him about why he’s here, what he wants from me, and what the hell happened between us at his home, but I don’t. I understand instinctively that we’re on his timetable. This is his game, and, if I want it to go further, I have to play by his rules.

The Spanish Inquisition isn’t in those rules.

The arm he’s thrown over my body is heavy, but the weight is pleasant. Though the bedroom light isn’t on, there’s a bit of illumination from the living room, and I can see the tattoos on his forearm and knuckles. Hesitantly, I touch his hand. When he doesn’t react, I slowly trace the outline of a small tattoo with the tip of my finger.

It’s a flower. On one of the petals is the letter A.

“What’s your mother’s name?”

My finger freezes. He’s asking about my mother? “Elizabeth.”

He doesn’t wait a nanosecond to ask his next question. “Your father?”

“Thomas.”

“You have a middle name?”

“Anne. With an e.”

“And your brother is Jamie.”

“Yes. James.” I know A.J. saw him at my shop, but he was never introduced as my brother. Or introduced at all, for that matter.

“Any other siblings?”

“No.”

“Grandparents living?”

“Two. My mom’s mom. She’s a British countess. Countess Chloe Harris of Wakefield, West Yorkshire. I was named after her.”

He pauses. “That explains a lot, Princess. The other one?”

“My dad’s dad, Walter.” I tell him the luau pig story about why I don’t eat meat. There’s an even longer pause.

“I’m a vegetarian, too.”

There are no words to convey my astonishment. While I’m busy putting my eyes back into my head, he adds thoughtfully, “I read Diet for a New America by the Baskin-Robbins ice cream heir when I was seventeen. I’ll never forget the stories about how slaughterhouses treat the animals. How they die. I never touched meat again. I couldn’t bear to think of being part of all that suffering.”