Fire and Ice - Anne Stuart [51]
But she was tired of being bullied. “Go ahead and strangle me if you want to so damned badly.”
There was an odd light in his eyes as they looked into hers, and she realized he’d taken out his contacts. She was looking into dark brown eyes, with no artifice between them. “That’s not what you’re tempting me to do, Ji-chan,” he said.
He brought his body up against hers, hip to hip, belly to belly, his hard chest against her corseted torso, and it was like a strange, hot embrace, with his hands still against the wall, trapping her there. She looked into his eyes, hoping he thought she was fearless, but she could feel her mouth tremble slightly, and she couldn’t keep it still.
Her heart was pounding, as well, hard and fast. And she could feel his heart, hard and fast, too, and she wondered what the hell was going on.
And then he kissed her.
12
It wasn’t the kind of kiss she’d expected. For two years she’d thought about what it would be like to kiss Reno, for two years she’d imagined something out of a romance novel.
The reality was a shock. His open mouth covered hers, and he slowly, deliberately, ground his pelvis against her.
They were the same height. She could feel the explicit bulge of him through his pants, through the layers of her petticoats, and his mouth was hard, almost brutal. He was kissing her as if he hated her, and she put up her hands and shoved, hard.
He was immovable. He lifted his head, though, and her mouth felt bruised, swollen.
“Why are you kissing me?” Her voice was husky, and she could feel inexplicable tears form in her eyes. She blinked them away, angry.
“I don’t know.” He hadn’t moved—his hips were still pinning hers to the wall. “Do you want to fuck?”
She tried to kick him then, but he must have sensed her movement, and he wrapped one leg around hers, further imprisoning her. “No,” she said, furious.
“Don’t pretend, Ji-chan. You’ve got a crush on me. I’m about to fulfill your dreams.” His voice was breathless, mocking.
“You’re about to get kneed in the balls, and then you won’t be fulfilling anyone’s dreams, not even your own,” she snapped.
“You know I’m not going to let you do that. You know you can’t do anything unless I let you. I’ll ask you again—do you want to fuck?”
“I don’t know why you’re asking me,” she said bitterly. “We’ve already established the fact that you’re not interested, and—”
“Does this feel like I’m not interested?” he said, pushing against her.
“So you’re perverted enough to get turned on by women dressing in little girls’ clothes. It has nothing to do with me.”
“So take them off and we’ll see if I’m still turned on,” he suggested reasonably.
She looked into his eyes, at the tattooed tears beneath them. “Reno,” she said in a calm voice, “if you’re so bored, then go out and get laid. I’m sure you’ll find someone who’s interested.”
“You’re interested,” he said. And then he released her just as suddenly as he had caught her, and he grinned. “No, you’re right. You’re not my type. Besides, I have a healthy respect for Taka, and he’d kill me if I fucked you.”
“Would you stop with all the ‘fuck’ talk!” she said, exasperated. “It’s called making love.”
“Jilly, I don’t make love. I fuck.”
“Not me.”
He tilted his head to one side, watching her. “Want to bet?” And pulling her back into his arms, he put his mouth on hers once more.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been kissed before. When she was seventeen, she’d decided, in the spirit of scientific discovery, to explore making out, and she’d found her Advanced Physics tutor to be up to the task. She’d learned to use her tongue, her teeth, how to tease, how to demand, how to suck gently, and while the whole experiment had been rather wet and sloppy, it left her with a better understanding of what people were doing when they were grinding their faces together.
Wrong. Reno didn’t kiss the way Jeffrey did, or anything like the rudimentary kisses Duke had given her during their miserable, botched coupling. He