A Little Less Conversation by Rhyannon Byrd

yet . Goddamn it, he wasn’t ready to let her go.
    Mark took another long, intimate taste of her tender folds, then raised his head to find her looking at him in the moonlight, big brown eyes so wide, they reflected the hanging pearl of the moon behind him. He imagined that he could witness his own harsh reflection trapped there in those luminous depths, the sharp angles of his face tight with self-disgust for wanting things he couldn’t have.
    She pulled her lower lip through her teeth and leaned forward, her slim fingers once again moving over the long, distended ridge of his cock as it struggled for release. He tried but couldn’t stop the rough growl that broke through his clenched teeth as she stroked him, squeezing him through the soft denim, her sweet rhythm telling him that she didn’t know a whole hell of a lot about touching a man, but was more than ready to learn. God, but it tempted him to take her. Just rip his fly open and sink into that fist-tight, velvety heat, giving her exactly what she’d asked for.
    He could have her. Right now. It’d be so outrageously fucking easy—but he couldn’t do it.
    “No,” he muttered, stumbling back to his feet, feeling his expression pull tight with tension and myriad unnamed emotions that he couldn’t put a face to. “Not like this, damn it.”
    “ Mark .” His name slipped from her lips on the ragged edges of a moan, her chest rising and falling with the rapid pace of her breath as her hands struggled to right her skirt and cover the glistening, exposed folds of her pussy, while her eyes blinked up at him, wide and questioning. “Please talk to me,” she panted in a throaty plea, and the sound of her voice twisted him up, his own lungs burning with the harshness of his breathing. “I don’t understand why— I mean, was what I asked for so wrong? Why are you so angry?”
    “If I am, what’s it matter to you?” he grated out of a rough throat growing dryer by the second, while her sweet, sexy taste still filled his mouth, tripling the pain in his dick. “I may not be willing to fuck you, but you got what you wanted. You needed to come, and you did,” he grunted, wiping his mouth with his shoulder, then ripping the fingers of his left hand through his windblown hair so roughly that it stung. “Harder than you ever have before, I’d be willing to bet. In fact, you were easy, Mel. Even easier than what I’m used to, and that’s really saying something, sweetheart.”
    She jerked as if he’d physically struck her. “Damn it, Mark! Why are you being so ugly?”
    “Ugly?” He gave a short laugh, the dull sound completely without humor, and shook his head at her obvious naïveté. “You wanted to get down and dirty and come, and I came through for you. But if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay the hell away from me, Melanie, because next time I won’t be able to stop myself from giving you exactly what you’re asking for. And unless you’re a hell of a lot wilder than you look, I don’t think you’d care for the experience.”
    * * * * *
    Reality was slow to return as Melanie slumped there, propped against the chilly wall at her back, the salty air cool and calming as it caressed the naked heat of her still flushed, mostly exposed skin. With sluggish movements, she forced her muscles to work, pushing the hem of her skirt farther down, until it covered her knees. God only knew what had happened to her panties. Mel sure as hell didn’t.
    Jaysus , she thought, that man should come with a warning label. Hazard: sexual overload may fry your brain cells. Thankfully, she still possessed a few capable of triggering thought, and it was only moments later that she fully realized she’d just let him walk away from her after issuing that infuriating set-down.
    Allowing him to have the last word, and a rude one at that!
    Damn it, she wasn’t going to stand for it. Her ego might take some serious bruising, but she was tough. Tougher than people