Can't Touch This (Can't Touch This #1)

He balanced on one leg, ripping off a sneaker before doing the same with the other. His socks flew off too. “Do you want to be?”

I cocked my hip, tapping my finger against my lips in serious fashion. “Hmm, that’s a loaded question. What terms and conditions does such a title come with?”

Tearing his t-shirt off, he looked me up and down. “For starters, you get me.” He boldly unbuckled and stripped his jeans and boxer-briefs off in one go. Fisting his cock—already standing tall and at attention—he murmured, “You get this any time you want.”

“Well, that’s very tempting.” I tilted my chin, allowing the sunshine and jokes to warm me inside and out. “But I reckon I could have that any time I wanted without being your girlfriend.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you calling me easy?”

I giggled. “Hey, if the description fits.”

Ryder growled. “Woman, I’m anything but easy. Ask my brother.”

“Ah, yes. The brother I might upgrade to.” I squinted in the bushes. “Is he around by any chance? I might get him to dish the dirt on you, seeing as you’re asking for such a big commitment.”

Prowling toward me, Ryder watched beneath a lowered brow. “He’ll be here in two weeks. You can ask him then.”

“Two weeks?” I sighed dramatically. “That’s a long time. I don’t know if this ‘arrangement’ between us will last that long.”

I took a step back as Ryder lashed out and grabbed my wrist. My heart winged as he jerked me into his naked chest. His lips slammed against mine as his hands tangled possessively in my hair.

Our tongues clashed, our mouths connected, and our breathing switched from rational to completely erratic.

By the time he pulled away, I swayed on the riverbank as my pussy throbbed. I’d slept with this man once but it hadn’t taken my edge off. It’d done nothing to damper my desire for him.

If anything, it had added more firewood to an already out-of-control inferno.

Cupping my nape, Ryder whispered against my mouth, “If you think two weeks is a long time, I pity you.”

“Pity me?” I blinked, trying to understand.

A tell-tale smirk twitched his lips. “Yes. I pity you because you really have no idea what you’ve just done.”

I shivered as his touch dropped from my nape, down my arm, to grab my fingers. Never breaking eye contact, he pulled my hand forward and ever so slowly wrapped my palm around his hot, hard cock. “Two weeks is a single heartbeat to me, Vesper. The moment you turned up at my house last night was the moment you became mine.”

He groaned as I clutched his erection.

“You mean, you’re going all alpha on me, after all? I’m yours now?” I jerked up and down, stroking the soft velvet of his skin. “If I’m yours, what does that make you?”

“Yours, of course.” His head fell backward as I continued to stroke him. “I’ve been yours for months. My cock, my thoughts…” He wrapped an arm round my shoulders, embracing me hard as he shuddered. “…all yours since I walked into your practice.”

I trembled as my hand continued to pump up and down. His touch trickled down my spine, moving to my front to cup my breast. Our hearts relocated into every fingertip, pounding with lust and togetherness.

I couldn’t deny hearing him say he was mine made me wet, wet, wet. But hearing what he didn’t say—hearing the message his thumping heart blared—made me happy and afraid at the same time.

That same feeling of more from last night came back, head-butting away our jokes and making every moan and whisper loaded with emotion.

Where had such intensity come from? How did we slow it down? How did we give our minds time to catch up with what our hearts and bodies had already agreed was the perfect solution?

My head lolled as Ryder’s mouth found the base of my neck and collarbone. “Fuck, Vesper. Two weeks is nothing. I want a thousand two weeks with you. I want—” He cut himself off, his tongue lapping and teeth nipping at my skin.

I didn’t ask him to finish.

I knew what he wouldn’t say.

I want you forever.

Forever.