Taste by BJ Harvey Page A

shut under the power of his foot, and then walked forward, taking me with him until my back hit the wall.
    My hands gripped his shoulders and my nails dug into his shirt. They were pulled loose before he laced our fingers together and pressed them into the wall beside my head. Barrett devoured my mouth, setting my entire body ablaze. With his thigh wedged high between my legs, he pushed harder against me until we had full hip to chest contact.
    It wasn’t a soft or anywhere near gentle exchange—it was the physical manifestation of the raw, carnal need exploding between us. As he held my body prisoner, he set out to take everything he wanted from my mouth. Unable to stop myself, I surrendered, and our tongues began the battle for supremacy.
    My anger returned in full force and I bit his bottom lip and pushed him back. “No, Barrett. There’s nothing you could say to me that will make this okay anymore.” Everything he’d done and said to me over the past two days flashed in my mind and I shoved him back further. “You lied to me. You used me!”
    “I can’t tell you about it, any of it.” He took a deep breath before he leveled me with a somber stare. “I’m sorry, Lys. I just can’t tell you anything right now, but I had to see you.”
    “You took your time for someone who found me so easily the first time.”
    “I’ve been waiting. When you didn’t answer my calls, I knew you needed time.”
    “How very thoughtful of you,” I scathed.
    When he spoke next his voice was gentle. “The only way to tell you how I feel is to show you.”
    A scathing laugh escapes me. “You think I’d still want to sleep with you after hearing you say you’re a ‘rent a cock’?”
    “I’m not being paid to fuck you, Lys,” he retorts sternly on a growl.
    “I wouldn’t know, would I? There must be something you need from me, and Gavin told you to do whatever you had to do. That means me, right?” I threw my arms out wildly in front of my body. My voice was full of spite and resentment, only shaking on the last word. I swallowed back the hard lump in my throat that threatened to choke me.
    “Alyssa,” he groaned. He ran his fingers through his hair and tilted his head to the side. “I never meant to hurt you. I want you. Just you.” His heated glare pinned me to the spot. His deep blue eyes were not hiding anything. It was as if he wanted me to see his sincerity.
    I was lost for words. Everything I had imagined saying to him if I ever saw him again escaped me. My body had been set alight by the taste of his mouth and the thrum of lust coursing through my veins. I subconsciously licked along my bottom lip and in the blink of an eye he took a step forward, pressed me back against the wall and cupped my jaw. His body was hard against mine and his tongue traced the same trail mine had just taken.
    Unable to stop it, my body melted. Something in him snapped and he growled loud and rough into my mouth. Needing more, and losing all semblance of self-control, I bent my leg up and pushed us off the wall, wrenching my hands free from his. He went for my wrists again but I beat him to the punch, grabbing hold of his shirt before I ripped it open and used my two hands on his chest to push him onto the bed.
    Following him down, I moved my legs to straddle his hips. My robe fell open and my back arched as he fisted his hand in my hair. He tilted my head to the side and his mouth trailed along my neck to kiss his way roughly down my chest. His free hand ran up my side to cup one breast as he lifted it to his mouth and wrapped his lips around my hard nipple.
    Having his mouth on me was infinitesimally better than I had imagined, and my head fell back as I moaned, “Barrett . . .” Then he scraped his teeth against my sensitive peak as he released his mouth, and I cried out.
    “Fucking beautiful,” he said, before he gave my other nipple the same torturous treatment. I looked down and watched his face as he worshipped my