by Naima Simone
Forgive me, wavered on his tongue. But he didn’t utter it. Placing the onus of his bad behavior on her wasn’t worthy of either of them.
“Morning,” he murmured, making his presence known. She spun around on a gasp, coffee spilling over the rim of the cup, splashing on the hand that hadn’t been cradling her belly. “Shit,” he hissed, rushing forward and nabbing the cup from her, placing it behind them on the counter. Cradling her hand and circling her wrist, he tugged her over to the sink and twisted the cold-water faucet. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he muttered, easing her hand under the rushing water. She flinched at the first contact, but didn’t pull away from him. He swept a thumb over the reddened area. “I’m sorry.”
She stiffened against him and, using her uninjured hand, switched off the water.
“I’m fine. It barely stings.” Sydney moved as if to ease away, but he shifted forward, his continued hold on her hand and his chest against her back trapping her in place.
Closing his eyes, he lowered his head, pressed his cheek to her mass of curls. Inhaled the chocolate and citrus scent that had become an obsession for him. If possible, she went even more rigid, her spine ramrod straight and unyielding.
Lips grazing the slightly pointed top of her ear, he whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“I heard you,” she said, tone as cold as the water that had just doused her hand. “Can you let me loose now? I need to dry my hand.”
For a second, he remained standing behind her, crowding her. But then, he did as she requested, and leaned a hip against the counter’s edge as she crossed the kitchen. She grabbed a dish towel and dabbed her skin, not glancing at him once.
“I’m going to head back to my cottage to make sure I didn’t leave anything. And I’ll probably stay over there to work on the grant for a while.”
“You’re leaving.” Though he’d calmly uttered the statement, inside he felt anything but. Panic, not unlike what had chased him out of the house the night before, raced through him. The primal, instinctive core of him roared not to let her walk out the door. Not to let her walk away from him.
God, he was such a hypocrite.
“No,” she said, setting down the towel but still not looking at him. “I think we just need some space.”
“And if I say I don’t want or need space?”
That brought her spinning around, hands clutching the counter at her hips. He forced himself to keep his gaze on her beautiful but furious face and not dip to the breasts he’d bared and kissed just a week ago. But, goddamn, it was a battle. Her body called to him like the loveliest but deadliest siren’s song. Even as he wanted to soothe the anger—the awful hurt—that darkened her eyes, he longed to crash against her like those doomed sailors, and drown in her.
“Did you give me that choice last night?” she asked, the demand low but throbbing with the pain he’d inflicted.
His gut twisted.
“No, baby girl. I didn’t,” he murmured.
“I’m not an idiot, and I’m not insensitive,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. Like a valve had popped under extreme pressure, she unloaded on him, holding nothing back. “I get why yesterday would’ve been rough for you. I even get why you would’ve needed time alone to cope with unexpected feelings that might’ve overwhelmed you. I would’ve told you all of that if you had. Just. Talked to. Me.” She shook her head. “But you didn’t, Cole. Instead, you ran out of here like a cornered animal. And I was your jailer. Like I had forced you to be here. To be with me.” Her voice trembled, then cracked and so did his resolve not to touch her until they talked. His heart lodged in his throat as he moved toward her, but she slammed up a hand. “No. Don’t touch me. You asked me to marry you. You asked me to move in here. You stood up there in front of this whole town and pledged yourself to me. I didn’t force you. I didn’t guilt you. All I did was trust you.”
“Sydney.” His fingers curled and uncurled at his side. Fuck, he needed to touch her. To hold her. To try and take away the pain he’d caused.
“You said you wanted me, but last night you couldn’t even look at me. Like I disgusted you...disappointed you,” she whispered. “I’m so tired, Cole. So tired of seeing that look on the faces of people I care about. I can’t do it anymore. I won’t.” She shook her head again, more vehemently, eyes squeezing shut. “I won’t.”
“Sydney, please,” he pleaded. “Please, let me touch you.” He didn’t wait for her answer. He couldn’t remain still any longer. Not when she was so tormented. As a man, he couldn’t do it. “Let me hold you.”
He crossed the last few feet separating them and cupped her face, tilting her head back. But she didn’t open her eyes, didn’t look at him. And he needed that, too. A part of him acknowledged how he seemed to be making this about his needs, his wants. But he found when it came to her, he was a selfish bastard. He craved her voice, her scent, her company and now, her kiss. Her body. The blessed oblivion they promised him.
Jesus, did he crave that.
And only she could give it to him.
“I’m sorry.” He swept his thumbs across her cheekbones then pressed his lips over the left one. “I’m so sorry, baby girl,” he repeated against her skin.
“You hurt me.” Her hands slid up between them, settled against his chest. But instead of shoving him away, her fingers fisted in his T-shirt, tugging it down. As if it, and he, were the only things keeping her on her feet.
“I know I did.” He caressed the tender skin just below her eyes. “Look at me. Please.” Relief and a deep, rumbling satisfaction barreled through him when she complied and revealed those beautiful eyes to him. “I know I hurt you,” he reiterated. “But my worst sin is walking out that door and leaving you here thinking I regretted you...that I didn’t want you. Because, baby girl, nothing could be further from the truth. Last night was about me, not you. And I should’ve explained that before abandoning you on our wedding night. I owed you that, not just as my new wife, but as my friend.” He lowered his head, brushed his lips across the corner of her mouth. “As the man who last kissed you, brought this gorgeous body pleasure.” He gave the other corner a kiss. “I’m so sorry, Sydney. Let me show you how much I still want you.”
How much I still need you.
But he didn’t utter those damning words. They sounded too close to something more than lust.
Because this could be nothing more than that.
He was good as long as he didn’t allow his emotions to become involved in this...arrangement. As long as he didn’t cross that line, he wouldn’t collapse under the fear that haunted him. Because if he did, and he lost her like he’d lost Tonia, there wouldn’t be a coming back from that dark abyss for him. He’d managed it once, by the grace of God. But he suspected even God’s grace had limits. Or his heart did. He wouldn’t make it. The pain would destroy his mind, and he couldn’t suffer that agony again. He was fucking terrified of it, and he couldn’t go through it again.
He wouldn’t.
So, yes, he’d married Sydney. He’d grant her and her child security. But he couldn’t love her. Or the baby whose heartbeat he could still hear.
If he remembered that one rule, then they would all be safe, content. Maybe even happy.
With that goal firmly entrenched in his mind, he grazed her chin with the edge of his teeth. Soothed it with a whisper of a kiss.
“Will you, baby girl?” he asked, lifting his gaze to hers. “Let me take the hurt away. For both of us.”
Her nod was imperceptible, but he caught it. The relief screamed almost as loud as the lust. The groan barely breached his throat before he took her mouth. And the now familiar taste of her swept over his tongue, flooded his senses. Another hungry sound escaped him, as he feasted on her like a long-starved man. He shifted a hand, thrusting his fingers through the curls that drove him wild—the curls that had caressed his chest, his abdomen, h
is thighs in his dirtiest dreams. He fisted them as he did in those dreams, tugging her head back so he could have deeper access. And he lowered the other hand to her jaw, pressing his thumb just under her bottom lip, applying pressure to open her mouth wider to him. Give him more of her. Always more with this woman. Never enough.
She rose on her toes, offering him all that he demanded. And then she took in return. Curled her tongue around his, sucked hard so he felt the pull of it in his dick. Licked the roof of his mouth so the wet, luxuriant caress resulted in a twin, phantom stroke over his abdomen. Lightly bit his lip, and his nipples tingled with that hint of pain and so much pleasure.
Wrenching his mouth away from hers, he circled her wrist and yanked it away from his shirt. His chest heaving on his ragged breaths, he led her out of the kitchen.
Or started to.
She tugged on his hold, and dismay punched a hole in his gut. But before he could ask her what was wrong, she flung her arms around his neck, crushed her body to his and opened her mouth against the base of his throat. He shuddered, his arms automatically wrapping around her.
“No,” she panted. “Don’t stop kissing me.”
Unable to resist that request, he dipped his head and parted her lips with his tongue. Tasting her again. And like before, he became lost in it, devouring her in a raw, explicit demonstration of what he wanted from her, wanted to do to her. Grabbing a hold of the scraps of his control, he moaned, tearing his mouth away from her.
“Baby girl, if we don’t stop right now, we won’t make it to the bedroom.” He delivered the warning against her cheek.
“That’s fine.” She tried to capture his mouth again, but he lifted his head, meeting her pleasure-darkened eyes. But glimpsing uncertainty in their depths.
“What’s wrong?” He cupped the back of her neck. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
She sank her teeth into her bottom lip, and he barely restrained himself from licking the curve.
“Sydney,” he urged, squeezing her nape.
She huffed out a breath, and he would’ve smiled at the irritated sound if her lashes hadn’t lowered, hiding. “I just don’t want you to change your mind,” she admitted. “In the time it takes for us to get from the kitchen to the bedroom, if you start to think...”
She trailed off, but he caught her meaning. He released a rough chuckle. When her brow wrinkled in a frown, he planted a kiss in the middle of the vee.
“I’m not going to change my mind,” he assured her. When she still didn’t meet his eyes, he clasped one of her hands and drew it down between them. Pressed it over the thick, throbbing length of his cock. Her gaze crashed to his, the heat there like an incinerator to his skin. Without breaking their visual showdown, she curled her fingers around him, squeezing. His hips punched forward, grinding his erection into her grip. This time, it was him who closed his eyes and muttered a soft curse. “No damn way I’m changing my mind,” he repeated. “But you’re pregnant and this is our first time together. I’m not fucking you on the kitchen table. At least not the first time,” he rumbled, removing her hand and circling her wrist.
Not giving her time to object again, he guided her from the room, not stopping until they reached his bedroom.
Where she belongs.
The words ricocheted off his skull, but he mercilessly smothered them. Being married, having access to one another, wasn’t the same as belonging, he reminded himself. Even as he reclaimed her mouth and plundered it.
She whimpered, surrendering to him. Trusting him with her body. No, she might not have said the words, but the way she tilted her head back, opened for him, melted against him... He didn’t need the words when her body did all the talking. She didn’t—and shouldn’t—entrust her heart to him, but her pleasure, her inhibitions? There was no safer place than with him.
And it was that thought that forced his hands to gentle, his mouth to slow. Each thrust and lick and twist of his tongue was a lesson in savoring, in teasing, in worshipping. He might not have acknowledged it until this moment, but he’d been yearning for this since the moment she’d turned to him on that hill behind the church. Weeks. He’d been alive for weeks, brought to life by hunger, by desire for this woman.
So yeah, he would savor.
He stroked his hands down her neck, pausing to cradle her throat and rub his thumbs up and down the front of the elegant column. Her pulse galloped under his touch, and he lowered his head, pressing his lips there, soothing her heartbeat, assuring it that he was only there to give pleasure, not cause harm.
Or maybe he was projecting. Maybe a part of him yearned to ask Sydney for that same assurance.
He shook his head, attempting to dislodge the foolish and terrifying thought.
“What?” Sydney murmured, trailing the backs of her fingers down his cheek. “What’s wrong, Cole?”
He lifted his head, met the warm concern that mingled with the desire in her eyes. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. Not a lie. Slowly, he skimmed his hands down her torso and gripped the hem of her top. “Let me see all of you.”
He’d seen and touched her breasts the week before, but this was different. Then, they could still turn around and walk away. Now, with this step taken, there would be no going back. It wasn’t a step he would take without her permission. Without her being fully in.
She nodded, her gaze unwavering. “Yes.”
Only then did he drag the shirt up and toss it aside. Only then did he go to his knees, placing a reverent kiss in the middle of her chest and one on her rounded belly. He slipped fingers under the waist of her shorts and drew them down her thighs, leaving her completely naked before him. Sitting back on his heels, he stared at her, his heart thundering, the raucous beat filling his head.
Exquisite.
She was exquisite.
Her hands twitched at her sides then started to rise, presumably to hide herself from him. Murmuring something that sounded strangled in his throat, he cuffed her wrists, preventing the movement. He didn’t speak. Couldn’t. Because she stole his breath.
Dark-tipped, full breasts that almost filled his hands—his palms itched with the memory of their weight, texture and sensitivity. The barest dip of a waist that he ached to trace with his tongue. The swollen, beautiful belly that was still on the smaller side but would continue to grow as the months passed. Fear of that time, of what would come after flickered in his chest, but he locked it away, let the pure wonder of her fill him instead. Round hips that a dark part of him hungered to see marked by his fingers. The thick, toned legs that he wanted wrapped around his waist, so he could experience their strength firsthand.
The wet, plump folds of her sex. His hold on her tightened as he stared at the dark thatch of hair that couldn’t hide the moisture gleaming on her flesh and upper thighs. His mouth watered. He wanted to dip his head and taste her—feast on her—so bad his jaw throbbed, his throat worked.
“I’m trying.” Damn, was that his voice? The harsh tone resembled an animal’s snarl. “I’m trying hard not to dive into you. To take you like a man instead of the starved thing I’ve become. To handle you gently, like you deserve, instead of hard, rough. Instead of fucking you until my dick cries for mercy. Until your screams of pleasure are all I hear, and you come so hard, you break for me. Fuck, Sydney. I want you to break for me.”
“What if I deserve gentle and hard and rough?” Fingers lightly stroked his short hair, and for the first time in two years, he fleetingly wished he hadn’t cut it. Right now, he would’ve loved having those clever, delicate fingers pulling on the strands, feeling pinpricks of pleasure/pain skate across his scalp. “Don’t hold back with me,” she urged, her nails scratching him, and he grunted with the bite of it, not too proud to beg for more. “You won’t hurt me because you’re you. I trust you to take care of me. Of us both.”
Was he worthy of that trust? He couldn
’t answer that. But here, kneeling before this goddess of a woman, he wanted to be. In this—the exchange of passion—he vowed to be.
“Do what you want. Use me, Cole.”
She parted her legs.
Oh fuck.
He squeezed his eyes shut, as if shutting out the erotic sight of her would somehow cool the agony of controlling his baser needs. But her scent—damp, heavy, sweet with that hint of spice. He snapped.
With impatient hands, he gripped her hips, quickly guided her to the floor, arranging her so she reclined on her hands, knees bent and open. Then he dove between her thighs. One, long, greedy lick—from her fluttering entrance, between her swollen folds and up to the pulsing, engorged button cresting the top.
Goddamn. That first taste. Like a hit of the most potent and highly addicting drug. The scent was rich, heady, like he was sampling the undiluted flavor of her—Sydney. Pure Sydney. And he was already hooked. And he took. And took. And took. With short, teasing laps. Long, greedy sucks. Messy strokes. Hard flicks and merciless rubs.
Her cries rained down on him and her legs shook around his head. Palming her inner thighs and spreading her wider, he dove lower, thrusting his tongue into that channel where his cock wept to be. Groaning as her sex spasmed around him, he released one thigh to grip his erection, squeezing through the sweatpants. Pleasure blasted up his spine like a rocket, and for a moment, he feared he would go over without even burying himself inside the flesh he tormented and worshipped.
A glance up her torso, and for a moment, he was enraptured. Sprawled on her elbows, head thrown back, chest heaving, hips twisting and bucking, she embodied sex. A carnal, pagan goddess manifested right here in his bedroom.
Her tortured groan snapped him out of his stupor, and he returned his attention to her slick flesh. Dipping his head again, he lapped at her clit, circling the distended button. Lower, he mimicked the movement with his fingers over the entrance to her body then slowly pushed them inside her. She shuddered and cried out, her back arching high, thrusting her breasts toward the ceiling. That sound, the evidence of her pleasure, the eager grasping of her sex around his fingers... With a moan, he finger-fucked her, the heel of his palm bumping against her folds, her moisture coating his skin.
