“I so needed this,” I tell Rebel as I take a drink of the icy cold bottle of draft. “This,” I say, holding up a book from the stack of books I’m working to pack into a box, “I could have done without.”
“Shut up and drink your beer,” Rebel says with a half-cocked smile.
I scoff, feigning offence. “You know, if I wanted to be verbally abused, I could have just hooked up with one of those yuppies from the club.”
Setting aside a plate and a giant wad of newspaper, Rebel strides over and crouches down in front of me. His dark, granite gaze holds mine, causing moist heat to coil between my legs, as he gently lifts the bottle from my fingers and sets it aside. “And instead you hooked up with this yuppie,” he drawls.
I swallow hard, my gaze dropping to his lush, full lips. “Guess I got lucky, huh?”
“I don’t know about lucky, but you’re about to be.” Placing his hands flat on the floor, Rebel advances, forcing me to lie back on the hard wood floor as he continues to crawl over me. When he’s settled, his heavy weight pressing down on top of mine, he grows quiet. I feel his fingers skim the side of my face, his eyes watching the movement. It’s the spot that Florence smacked me. I capture a spark of anger flare to life behind those midnight orbs, and I no longer have to guess what he’s thinking.
“I’m okay,” I whisper.
“I hate that she did that,” he says, his lips curling with disgust. “If I didn’t like her before, I hate her now. She went too far.”
“She’s in love. Love makes people crazy sometimes.”
Rebel’s eyes cut back to mine, his fierce and full of determination. “I don’t care what she is. That’s no excuse. I’ve tried to be nice to her. I’ve cut her a lot of slack, but I can see now that she’s out of control. What she did to you was the last straw.”
He’s so earnest with his words. For the first time, I can actually feel the truth. It’s in my head as much as it’s in my heart. It creates a burning sensation in the center of my chest and then spreads out, becoming a whole-body tingle of electricity that makes my insides feel warm and full. Dawning washes over me as I stare into his obsidian gaze. This man really does love me, doesn’t he?
“This is real, isn’t it?” I ask, my voice a mere whisper.
Rebel’s black brows pinch together, shadowing his eyes. “What’s real?”
“Us. This. You really want to be with me, don’t you?”
Slowly, the lines on Rebel’s face smooth out and his hands come up to cup my face. “You’re only now realizing this?” he asks in disbelief. “How many times do I have to tell you that I want you for you to get it?”
I shrug as best as I can with my body pinned to the floor beneath his. “One more time would be good.”
One side of his mouth curls up in a devastatingly sexy grin that absolutely does it for me. Everything about this man gets to me. “I want you, Josephine,” he says firmly. “You. Not Florence. Not the girl from accounting. Not Mrs. Fielding down the hall. Only you.”
“Who’s Mrs. Fielding?” I ask, somewhat alarmed. There are other women I have to worry about now?
“She’s a seventy-two year old widow whose arthritic hands have a tendency to slip sometimes when I’m helping her into the elevator and just happen to grab a handful of my ass.”
My mouth drops open, forming an O. “Oh, my God. No way.”
“You act surprised. Is it really that unbelievable that a woman would want to feel my ass?”
“No, not at all.” I shake my head emphatically. “It’s a very nice ass.”
“Damn right it is.”
Running my hands down his back, I feel the heat and pressure of his body begin to relax me. To ground me. “So we’re together? Like dating?”
“Baby, we’ve never not been together.” His rough voice travels through his chest, which is touching mine, sending vibrations straight into me that travel unimpeded to my core.
My nose scrunches. “I’m pretty sure that’s not true.”
“Remember when I said that I claimed you the first day I saw you? Ever since then, no matter what mountains and valleys we’ve traveled, you’ve been mine. Always have been, pussycat. That’s one thing that’s never changed.”
God, I love when he calls me that. It used to be a simple word used for all of the dancers at Mirage, but coming from Rebel, it’s so much more. It’s a reminder of how much he owns me, commands my body and mind with a single word.
“What about Florence? Where does she factor into all of this?” As much as I’d like to feel as if I’m the only woman in his life, I can’t help feeling like with her still hanging around, whatever Rebel and I have together is being built on quicksand.
“She’s irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what’s right here,” Rebel says, his voice rough as he bends his head down to plant a tender kiss on my lips. “And here,” he adds, pressing his hips into mine. He lifts my shirt, exposing my stomach and then my bare breasts. Covering one straining mound, he murmurs, “And here.”
“My boob?” I joke.
“No, what’s buried beneath it. What you feel for me, what I know you feel for me, is something Florence only thinks she feels. She’s attached to the idea of me.”
“How can you know that? You can’t see inside her heart.”
“I know,” Rebel says softly as he bends his head down and nuzzles the side of my neck, “because she doesn’t really know me. There have only been three women in my life that I ever let get that close. One is my mother and the other is living somewhere on the other side of the world with a family of her own.”
My eyes drift closed as Rebel works his way down my body, his firm, greedy lips making a tantalizing path across my sensitized skin. I don’t have to guess who the third woman is. He’s said as much to me before. I just can’t understand what makes me so different. So special. “Why me?” I groan, lifting my arms to cover my face. I scrub it with my palms in frustration. “I’m just a stripper and Florence is...she’s...”
Stopping his ministrations, Rebel lifts his head from my stomach and peers up at me through the dark fringe of his thick, black lashes. “Co-owner to the company you work for. Yes, I know what she is, but that doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“So you don’t find her attractive?”
“I don’t find her unattractive,” he replies. “But that’s just the surface. Anyone can dress up a façade with a little paint and some nice landscaping, but that doesn’t fix the rotting structure underneath.”
“So you’re saying I have a good structure.” Tilting my head so I can see his face better, I run my fingers through his hair. It’s softer now that he’s let it grow out a bit, just long enough to poke out between my fingers.
“You, pussycat, have a fantastic structure,” he growls. Angling his face down, he nips my belly playfully. “I don’t want you worrying about her anymore. She’s nothing to me. I was never in love with her, and I never will be.”
Staring into his eyes, I feel their intensity burn straight to the core. He doesn’t have to say the words directly for me to know what he’s saying. He loves me. I know that. I feel it. “What are we going to do about her? She’s not just going to go away.”
“You let me worry about that.”
“How—”
“Shhh.” Pressing his finger over my lips, Rebel silences me. “No more talking tonight. For the next few hours, the only words I want to hear come out of your mouth are ‘Oh,’ ‘God,’ and ‘Rebel.’”
Rebel sets to work peeling my clothes from my body in a painfully slow dance that leaves me aching and trembling with need by the time I’m finally naked. Cupping my mound, he releases a rough, primal growl when he finds me wet and ready for him.
“Brace yourself, pussycat. I’m going to eat you out like it’s my fucking job.”