Reborn by Nicole Camden Page B

the door while she stroked his ass through his jeans. He dropped them twice, cursing, and she laughed, delighted. He’d made her forget her worry about the strange man with the Las Vegas card, about the mistake she’d made pretending with Paul, about everything except this big, sexy man who wasn’t about to fall head over heels for her pretty face. He was as gorgeous as she was, if not more so, which was a novel experience for her to say the least.
    He finally got the door open, gripped her elbow, and hauled her inside. She let him, enjoying the caveman routine, confident that he was still willing to follow her lead . . . for now, anyway.
    He shut the door behind them, still holding her elbow. She stepped away in the cool dark of his entryway. The house seemed new, as opposed to Mary’s smaller 1950s version, with curved entryways leading to an open-floor plan and high ceilings. When she turned to face him, the only light came from behind him, the porch light shining through two long, narrow windows alongside the door. The light looked blue and cast his face into deep shadow.
    He looked . . . conflicted. His body was tensed, waiting and watching like a man about to cross a clearing who knew there were hunters in the woods. He wanted her, he wanted her badly, but he didn’t like it, and he didn’t usually let a woman call the shots— so why was he letting her?
    Lille pulled the cuffs and the cock ring out of her purse and then set the purse down in the entryway. His eyes lit on the toys she’d brought out, but he didn’t say anything.
    “Why’re you doing this?” Lille hesitated to ask such a question. She knew why she was doing it—because it made her forget, because it was fun, because she felt in control and powerful. A line from a Smashing Pumpkins song rolled through her head, I’m so easy tonight.
    “Are we talking again?” he growled, and stripped off his shirt, dropping it on the ground next to a pair of flip-flops and a plastic-covered newspaper.
    “No.” She shook her head. “Fuck it.”
    “That’s right,” he agreed. “You’re going to fuck it.” He slid one hand into her hair and gripped, just gripped, a world of frustration raising the tendons of those beautiful wrists. She turned her head; she had to work at it, pulling her own hair, but she finally managed to kiss his tattooed wrist, right on the open pages of the book.
    She watched him the whole time, saw his eyes darken like a shark’s, and when she knew . . . knew that his control had broken, she bit him on the wrist, hard enough to hurt, hard enough that he cursed, but he didn’t let her go.
    “Take me to your bedroom.” She whispered it, soft and low, the slow purr of a dangerous creature, a deadly one, but irresistible nonetheless.
    He pulled away, catching one of her hands and tugging her into the main living area, which was lit only by the light of the moon, and down a short hallway to the right that had two doors on either side and one door at the end. It was open, but too dark to see anything.
    Lille didn’t like the way it felt to hold his hand as they walked in the dark; it wasn’t unpleasant—far from it. His hand was warm and calloused; it swallowed hers completely. It made her feel safe and kind of soft inside . . . vulnerable. She was having none of that.
    She pulled her hand away.
    He glanced behind him, but she angled her chin, directing him to proceed.
    She admired his muscled back as he walked. It was strange; she had thought of him as older, but as he walked, she realized that he had the shoulders of a younger man, or at least younger than she’d believed him to be. A giant mermaid covered his back; she had the same face as the statue of the one in the store. She was lying back, her head resting near his left hip, the long tendrils curling toward his right hip bone, over the top of his buttocks and down his right hip and part of his thigh. Her tail curved downward near his right shoulder blade,