Saving Liberty (Kissing #6) (21 page)

He held my gaze for a moment, then shook his head and looked away. “Doesn’t matter what it was,” The Irish was thick in his voice, now.

“It
does!”

“It doesn’t!” He took my hands and squeezed, then sighed. “I’m not someone who can do…”—he indicated me and him—”
this.”
And he turned, pulling roughly away from me, and opened the door.

“I don’t want you to go,” I said. I wrapped my arms around me, suddenly cold.

He hesitated on the threshold. “I’ll be right outside the door,” he said. And he was gone.

I leaned against the door and stared at the white-painted wood, not seeing it. I saw
him,
outside, standing there staring back at me, hands folded behind his back.

The feelings were too strong, out of control.
This can’t go on.

I was right. The next day, those feelings exploded.

Kian

Fuck.
I strode down the hallway towards the residence, slamming my feet down as if each step was a curse screamed at the top of my lungs. But no matter how hard I stamped, the soft carpet absorbed the noise. I was powerless.

It was the next day and I’d spent all morning in a Secret Service briefing with Miller. The President was due to give a speech at the Museum of Natural History that night: not a big event, but it still needed a lot of planning. Miller didn’t bother to hide his anger at having been overruled by the President—he wanted me
gone
for hitting a senator
and he let me know it, treating me like an idiot pupil for the entire three hour briefing:
have you got that, O’Harra? O’Harra, is that clear?
And instead of taking a swing at him, I’d had to suck it up and stay calm. I was on my last warning and Emily needed me now more than ever.

Emily.

I hadn’t been able to get her out of my head since that first day I met her, but now it was much, much worse. It wasn’t just the raw, hot lust anymore: Camp David and her nightmare and now being the only one she’d told about Kerrigan... we were getting closer and closer. She was opening up to me and part of me wanted her to, even as the rest of me screamed that I was being a moron, because I couldn’t do the same for her.

I’d dreamed from the start of grabbing her and kissing her, tearing her clothes off and burying myself deep inside her. That, I understood. But
this
... I was addicted to listening to her voice, smelling her scent, I was addicted to just
looking
at her, drinking her in in big thirsty gulps from the second she opened her bedroom door to the second it closed. I wanted to
be
with her, had crazy dreams of running away together, not just keeping her safe but being happy together. As if I was a regular guy, who could have all that.

More than anything else, I wanted to be that guy. Not some rich guy who could shower her with millions, not the sort of guy her mom wanted her to marry. Just a regular,
unfucked
guy who could have a life with her. The rage had started the instant I’d left her room, a slow twisting that I knew would build and build. I’d barely slept and then had to suffer Miller’s patronizing briefing. Now the anger was spinning at hurricane speed, a white-hot monster that was slowly shredding what was left of my self control. Walking it off was
not
working.

I thought of those big green eyes looking up at me, begging me to stay. I thought of the feel of her against me when we’d sat on her bed. I thought of the silk of her hair between my fingertips.

I’d never felt this way about
any
woman. But it always came back to the same thing: I couldn’t have her. I wanted to scream, but this was the White House: I couldn’t do so much as a growl.
Goddammit!

I couldn’t go to her in this state: I’d do something stupid. I veered off and went to the little break room at the entrance to the residence, where agents can grab a coffee. I grabbed a mug, put it under the spout, mashed the button for
black coffee
and listened to the grind and hiss and—

I grabbed the mug and hurled it at the wall. There was an almighty crash as it shattered. Shards of white bone china printed with the black Secret Service logo rained down. The coffee machine hissed angrily as it shot coffee into the drip tray.

I heard a Secret Service agent run in behind me. “What the
fuck?”
he asked.

I turned and glared at him. “I dropped a mug,” I said in a voice that told him not to argue.

He backed out of the room.

Fuck.
I was almost panting with anger, completely out of control. The rage was spinning so fast that everything was a blur.
What the hell am I going to do?
I couldn’t be near her anymore. If I so much as saw her, let alone touched her, I’d be lost. But what was I meant to do: call in sick? She needed me.

I marched down the hallway towards her room. A couple of other agents were coming the other way, but they sidestepped and pressed themselves back against the wall as I stormed past. And then I was at her door. I reached for the handle. Jesus, my hand was shaking.

I can’t do this.

I have to do this.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
You’ve done it before:
when she’d emerged from the pool at Camp David, her skin slippery-wet; when I’d felt her lithe hips under my palms, teaching her self-defense; when she’d stood there in that red dress in the garden, wide-eyed as I’d torn Senator Giggs away from her, and I’d just wanted to kiss the hell out of her….

I opened my eyes. I could do this. It wouldn’t be so bad: it was the middle of the day, we weren’t going to
do
anything, she might not even need anything right now and I could go away and calm down—

I knocked and heard her soft Texas voice tell me to come in. I opened the door wide, looking at the floor as I entered to give me an extra few seconds to get myself together, and—

I looked up to find her standing there half-naked.

She was in a shimmering blue evening gown, on at the front, but the back was unzipped all the way down to the top of her ass. She was facing away from me and all I could focus on was the long, elegant curve of her naked back.

There was a single thread of my self-control left, hair-thin but strong. The sight of her back made it glow red hot like an overloaded wire. “I...
knocked,”
I growled.

“It’s okay.” I finally looked up into her face. She was looking back over her shoulder at me and I could see it in her eyes: she was as desperate as I was.

Step away. Leave the room.

“I can’t get the zipper,” she said, turning to show me. “I need both hands to hold the damn thing up.” She showed me the loose fabric that formed the front of the thing. She was right: if she let go, the whole thing was just going to fall around her hips. And she wasn’t wearing a bra....

I stepped closer. She lifted her hair up out of the way, exposing the bare skin of her neck. Suddenly, I could smell her, that scent that drove me crazy, warm skin and the wind whipping across huge, open plains. She smelled like freedom, tempting me from my prison. My head spun. The rage—at my situation, at myself—super-heated my lust.

I looked down at the zipper. Now I was closer, I could see right down inside the dress. I could see the white lace waistband of her panties. The thread of self control glowed hotter, turning white.

I grabbed the tiny zipper between finger and thumb, feeling like a giant trying to dress a doll. The damn thing wouldn’t move. I stepped closer still and now my lips were inches from her bare neck. I jerked the zipper again. “It’s stuck,” I said. It was a struggle to get the words out. And I was so close to her, each angry little explosion of air blew across the nape of her neck. I could see the tiny hairs there standing up as she stiffened, her elegant back flexing. God, she was beautiful.

“Try undoing it a little, then go back up,” she said. Her own voice sounded as tight as mine, but that was impossible: she couldn’t be as turned on as I was because I was ready to melt through the floor.

I saw now that the zipper wasn’t all the way undone—not quite. It started about two inches lower, right over her ass.

I gently pulled it downward. It stuck at first but then came free, rasping right down to its stop, and now—

Now I could see her ass: the cheeks firm beneath their covering of tight white cotton. I took two long breaths, staring at that ass. I wasn’t sure my hand was ever going to obey my instructions to move, but, eventually, it did. The zipper rose... but the dress started to lift and bunch. I’d have to hold it in place.

I swallowed and tried to grab the fabric over her ass, but it was tight, outlining every glorious curve of her. The backs of my fingers had to stroke across that firm flesh once, twice, before I finally got some of the cloth trapped and I heard her breathing hitch each time. My self-control was almost melted through, now, only seconds to go. I held the dress there and tugged the zipper upward and the dress came together all... the way... to the top.

I let go and stepped back, barely able to breathe. There. I’d done it. I’d held back.

“Thanks,” she said. And turned around.

Until that second, I hadn’t seen the front. A low vee-shaped neckline left the tops of her breasts exposed, tan and ripe and, as she let her hair fall down her back and her green eyes looked up at me—

The thread of my self-control snapped clean in two.

She saw it in my eyes a split second before it happened. Her mouth had just enough time to open in shock, her eyes open wide.

And then I was kissing her.

Emily

I’d been wanting him to kiss me for so long that, at first, I couldn’t believe it was actually happening.
This isn’t real. He’s going to pull away—

And then his lips met mine and there was absolutely no doubt.
None.
His kiss had weeks of pent-up longing behind it. I could
feel
every time he’d looked at me and held back, every hour he’d stood outside my door, every step we’d taken side-by-side. It had all been stretching back a bowstring, loading it with power, and now all of it was unleashed. This wasn’t going to stop. Neither of us could have stopped it even if we’d wanted to.

Kian’s lips were savage on mine. That full, soft lower lip was as dreamily perfect as I’d always imagined it, stroking at me, brushing me in a way that sent tremors right down my body. But at the same time it was fast and urgent, his head twisting to follow mine, our lips slowly parting, panting into each other’s mouths. It was raw, burning lust and deep emotion twisted into one. Knowing how much he wanted me sent a rush of heat straight down to my groin; knowing how much he
needed
me made every bit of tight, aching worry in my chest detonate and form a warm, swelling glow.

I rocked back on my heels... would have fallen if he hadn’t slipped his arm around my waist. The kiss moved and changed, every new touch of his lips awakening new nerve endings, filling me up with pink, sweet pleasure shot through with crackling lust. I grabbed for him, found his shoulders and clung on. Somewhere in the distance I thought,
so
this
is what kissing’s meant to be like.