He nodded.
Licking her dry lips, she said, “Ronnie showed up at my apartment with a ring—”
Justus made a quiet, strangled sound.
“—and asked me to marry him.”
She stared intently, willing him to say something—to react—but he just raised his head and stared back with hard, gleaming eyes.
The only other signs of emotion she could detect were the insistent throbbing of his jaw and two patches of color that appeared over his cheeks.
Until a crooked smile twisted his mouth. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense.”
“I told him no.”
His eyes narrowed with open suspicion. “What?”
“You heard me.”
Silence mushroomed between them.
He rubbed his knees, and she noticed how tight his arm muscles were. How the tendons stood out on the backs of his hands.
“Say something,” she softly pleaded.
“Why’d you say no?” he demanded, his voice harsh enough to strip the skin off her flesh. “Isn’t this your whole little dream come true? Isn’t this what you’ve been waiting your entire life for? A proposal from your golden boy?”
She flinched but told him the truth. “Yes.”
“Then why?”
Staring into all his unvarnished fury, Angela searched for a hopeful sign to cling to.
This was good, wasn’t it?
Justus wouldn’t be so angry if he felt nothing for her, would he?
“Because I don’t love Ronnie,” she said quietly. “I realized today I never did.”
Whoa. Wrong thing to stay.
Cords began to thrum in his neck, and a single vein grooved down the middle of his forehead. Then he barked out a bitter laugh.
“The sidewalks are just littered with men you don’t love, aren’t they—”
“No—”
“Aren’t they?” he roared.
“No,” she said evenly, even though she felt like a sapling bent double by the wind’s force. “Just Ronnie.”
He snorted and, still resting his elbows on his knees, put his face in his hands and rubbed it as though he wanted to obliterate his features. She longed to squeeze his shoulder, but didn’t want to lose any limbs.
Waiting for him to finally raise his head again was one of the hardest things she ever did, but she managed it. He was calmer now, she realized. Dry-eyed, even though he kept his gaze shuttered from her prying eyes.
“Well,” he said quietly. “You’d better tell me what you mean, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Pressing a hand to her belly, she tried to calm her roiling nerves and harness her thoughts. “When I saw Ronnie today—when he proposed—I kept thinking I didn’t know what I’d ever seen in him. I didn’t know why I ever thought I loved him.”
Justus said nothing.
“And I kept thinking how different he was from you—”
“Because he’s a doctor and wears suits and I don’t, you mean.”
“Oh my God,” she said sadly, a light bulb going off over her head. “I don’t know whose self-esteem is lower. Mine for thinking you could never love a woman like me, or yours for thinking I’d never want a man like you.”
He slowly turned and stared her in the face, giving her a painful glimpse of his abject misery and, beneath that, his unwilling hope.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m slow and occasionally blind, but I’m not stupid.” She took a deep breath. “It means I can see that you’re strong and honest, but he’s not. You’re loyal, but he’s not. When you set your mind to something—when you do something—you give every part of yourself, but he doesn’t. You don’t actually think I value the suit more than the man, do you?”
“I don’t know what to think. All I know is that I asked the woman I love to marry me. She could’ve said yes, but she broke my heart instead.”
“I’m sorry,” she said helplessly.
“Why did you do it?”
Yes, Angela, why?
Hot emotion burned her throat, making her voice hoarse. “You’re the best man I’ve ever met. In every way. You’re a million times the man Ronnie is.” She shrugged, trying not to cry. “Why would you want me when he didn’t?”
That dark gaze pinned her to the spot. “You’re all I want. You’re all I’ve ever wanted. Why don’t you know that?”
So much for not crying. A couple tears splashed to her cheeks and she wiped them away with a shaky laugh.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s that blindness I was just talking about.”
“I’ll have to do a better job showing you how I feel.”
“You?”
“Good point.” Unsmiling, he brought her hand to his lips so he could kiss the backs of her fingers. “You could start now.”
“I love you,” she told him, and freeing the words from their cage was an unspeakable relief. “I love you.”
His eyes rolled closed and she felt his mouth curl against the back of her hand. “So you’re not moving to D.C. Are you?”
“Oh, God, no. I don’t know how I thought I was going to do that anyway. Every time I packed another box was like ripping out a piece of my heart. I have to stay here with you and Maya. We don’t have to get married, but I just—”
“Now you’re talking nonsense.”
He grabbed her hips and hauled her across his lap so her legs stretched out along the sofa, clamped his arms around her, buried his face in her neck, and breathed her in, shuddering.
She cried out in surprise and joy, clinging to his strong body. “Do you know how much I missed you?”
“Do you believe I love you?” He pulled back enough to look into her face. “Do you trust me enough to know I’d never hurt you like he did?”
Despite everything that’d just happened, she hesitated.
Frowning, he grabbed her upper arms and shook her. “Believe it. Believe it.”
And then, to her surprise, something in her heart budded and quickly blossomed. When he looked at her like that—as if he were the lucky one for holding such a goddess in his arms—she felt ridiculous for questioning his feelings.
“Maybe if you told me again...?”
“I love you.” Holding her face, he fervently kissed her forehead, eyes, and cheeks. “Love you, love you, love you.”
By the time his lips found her mouth, she’d forgotten all about fears and doubts. Moaning into the kiss, she opened, surrendering everything—body and soul this time, not just body—to Justus.
“God, I need you.” She yanked at his polo shirt, ripping it off over his head so she could get to the warmth of his skin. Licked his throat and nipped his ear. Scraped her nails over his back and shoulders. “I need you now.”
His need was as primitive and uncontrollable as hers. He kissed her hard and deep, pulling on her hair to tilt her head the way he needed it and nipping and sucking with absolute abandon. She urged him on and demanded more, even when she tasted the faint tang of blood.
He ran his hands under her tank top, sweeping it and her hoodie off in one swift motion. Then he found the valley between her breasts and dove in, nuzzling and squeezing.
With a triumphant laugh, she let her head fall back and arched forward, offering everything to him.
Until, much to her dismay, he stopped.
“Wait,” he said, raising his head.
Wait?
Yeah, no.
She grabbed his hand and flattened it against her breast. Justus’s glittering eyes unfocused, and he rubbed his palm over her nipple until she whimpered shamelessly. He caught her mouth for another frantic kiss before shoving her away again, this time pushing her off his lap and standing up.
“I said wait.”
Shuddering with the effort to control her desire, Angela smoothed her wild hair, crossed her arms over her chest, and tried to focus. “What is it?”
He circled the coffee table, treating her to a tantalizing view of a bulgi
ng erection.
Her mouth went dry.
“We’re not making love until I make sure we’re on the same page—”
“We are, Justus!”
“—and we’re both clear about what we’re doing.” Frowning, he patted his pants pockets, front and back. “Damn it! I gave it back to my father.”
Angela shifted impatiently and wondered, with her lust-clouded brain, what could possibly be so important. She rose up on her knees, stretched out her arms, and beckoned him with her best siren’s smile.
“Come here.”
“No,” he said flatly. “I wanted to give you that ring.”
“The ring?”
Belatedly coming up to speed, she grabbed her purse from the chair and dumped it out on the coffee table. Her wallet, compact, and lipstick went flying while sunglasses and pens skittered across the table and fell to the floor.
Angela found the jewelry box, snatched it up with a trembling hand, and thrust it at Justus.
“Here.”
Justus took it, looking bewildered. “Do you keep a supply on hand, or...?”
“It’s your mother’s ring. Your father left it with me today.”
“Ah, shit,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Do I need to know?”
Angela couldn’t control her impatience, not with the insistent ache deep between her thighs.
“Justus.” Her voice dropped to a husky murmur she barely recognized as her own. “I’m soaking wet for you. Is there any way we can speed this up?”
His jaw dropped. He swallowed hard, then nimbly dropped to one knee.
“Angela, will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Galvanized, he took the ring out of the box, shoved it onto her finger—she noticed only that it was big and seemed to fit—threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and surged to his feet. Dangling precariously, she shrieked and clung to his round butt, enjoying the play of his muscles beneath her fingers. He hurried into his dark bedroom and laid her on the bed, which was the approximate size of a tennis court.
Before she knew what was happening, he’d slid her warm-up pants, bra, and panties off. His pants and boxer briefs were next. Clamping his hands on her hips, he dragged her to the edge of the bed so her legs hung over the side—she loved it when he played the caveman and slung her around like a sack of wheat!—then slid away and knelt.
“Spread your legs for me.”
“Oh, God.”
Moaning, she did as she was told.
He settled her calves over his shoulders and didn’t bother teasing her this time. Instead, he zeroed in on the hard little nub that was the center of her existence and scraped it gently with his teeth. Her body jackknifed. He tightened his grip on her hips. She tightened her grip on his head. He went to work while she arched, writhed, and mewled like a noisy kitten. She came almost immediately, bucking and crying his name while he milked her dry of pleasure.
Justus lingered where he was for a few seconds, nuzzling her sex and kissing her thighs.
Finally, he rose and settled his heavy body atop hers. She welcomed him eagerly, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his hips.
“I missed you,” he told her between urgent kisses. “Don’t ever do that to me again, Angela. You almost killed me. I felt dead without you.”
“Shhh. Don’t say that.”
He caught both her hands in one of his, pinned them to the bed over her head, and held her in place. Then he took his penis with his free hand and rubbed it insistently against her engorged sex.
She made a strangled sound.
“I hated you.” He stroked and circled her sex. “Hated you.”
“Justus, please,” she begged, pumping her hips against him. “I need you. Right now.”
Leaning over her, he teased her with a light kiss. Angela strained to reach him, to catch his elusive lips, but he levered up on his elbow and stayed out of reach. Her body, no longer recognizable as her own, thrashed with impatience. Having just experienced a climax that by rights should’ve torn her body in two, she’d expected her body’s raging fever to burn off a little.
It hadn’t. If anything, it burned even brighter.
“Please fuck me, Justus. Please.”
“There’s that dirty mouth again. Love that.”
He stroked over her again. Her eyes rolled closed as her entire being focused on the pleasure. She widened her legs and angled her hips, but he kept her waiting.
“Don’t you think I should punish you, Duchess?”
She was his sex toy, and she may as well admit it. On this night, in the complete darkness, there was only the sound of his voice and the feeling of his heavy body, now growing damp with sweat, pressing her down against his cool sheets. In the dark, she could say anything. The dark would protect her if she admitted what she’d hidden in the deepest corners of her heart.
“No,” she said. “It was punishment enough not to see you every day. To see how much you hated me. And I was dead, too. It was just as bad for me.”
Justus went wild, releasing her hands, flipping onto his back, and urging her to straddle him. “Tell me.”
“I love you.” She lowered herself, inch by inch, onto his engorged length, giving her body time to accommodate him and the pleasure he brought. Heaven. He was heaven for her. “I love you. You know I do.”
His hands found her hips, anchoring her in place as he slowly began to move, grinding against her. “Show me.”
She did.
Clutching the headboard for leverage, she took up his rhythm and rode him. Then she leaned back the other way and held his ankles, circling her hips until—
“Justus!”
Ecstasy was still rippling through her when Justus rolled her beneath him and took her fast and hard, his hips working relentlessly. She wrapped her thighs around his waist and absorbed every thrust until finally he threw his head back and said her name.
Over and over again.
When he’d ridden it out, he cradled her in his arms so she could rest her head against his damp chest.
Heaven.
The last thing she heard as she drifted off to sleep was his voice, still husky with emotion.
“I’ve always loved you, Duchess. I always will.”
Angela wakened to the faint sunlight streaming in through Justus’s shades. His body, emitting heat like a radiator, was molded tightly to her from behind, his arms linked around her waist in a death grip. How either of them had slept like this, she had no idea. It just worked. Her body was deliciously sore, her limbs heavy.
She really could get used to this, she thought, smiling drowsily.
He shifted and nuzzled her nape. “How do you like the ring?” he asked in his morning voice, which was incredibly husky and sexy.
The ring! With all the excitement and other activities last night, she hadn’t had time to study it like she wanted. She snatched her hand out from under the covers and held it up for inspection—
“Oh my God!” The most glorious ruby and diamond ring she’d ever seen swallowed most of her finger. She angled her hand so that the sunlight hit it just right and shot rainbows to the walls and ceiling. “Have you been stealing from Elizabeth Taylor again?”
He smiled against her neck. “I take it you don’t want a plain diamond instead.”
She threw her right hand over her left to protect it, and clutched both hands to her chest. “Don’t you touch this ring!”
He chuckled.
Deciding the ring was safe, she cautiously uncovered her hand and studied it again. “I’ve never seen anything like this. I’m not sure I should wear it. Maybe it should stay in a safe, or—”
He took her hand and kissed it. “It’s staying right here. It needs to be worn. And why’re you acting like you’ve never seen it before? Didn’t you look at it when my father gave it to you?”
“No. I didn’t want to see it.”
A muffled thump down the hall reminded them they weren
’t entirely alone.
Dropping her hand, Angela jerked away from Justus and turned to face him before smoothing her hair. “Maya. We can’t let her see us like this.”
Looking supremely unconcerned, he stretched, causing a cascade of rippling muscles across his chest and arms. “Sure we can. We’re getting married. We share a bed. She’ll get used to it.”
Angela snatched the sheet up. “Not like this! We’re naked!”
Frowning, Justus took his time about sliding out of bed, opening a drawer, and pulling on some pajama bottoms. “You can use my robe in the bathroom. But I’m telling her you’re here. Hurry up.”
With a nervous shriek, Angela scurried into the bathroom. She’d barely shut the door when she heard the flap of linens, as if Justus had thrown the duvet over the bed, and Justus’s voice.
“Hey, little girl,” he said brightly. “Did you sleep good?”
“Yeah. Can I have some Sugar Smacks?”
Angela heard Justus chuckle as she slid on his navy silk robe. “I thought you told me yesterday sugary cereals weren’t a healthy breakfast.”
Angela almost laughed. She’d thought Maya never listened to a thing she said, but maybe a couple of things here and there had accidentally sunk into her little brain.
“Well,” Maya said thoughtfully, “this one time won’t hurt.”
Angela hurriedly turned on the water to brush her teeth with one of his extra toothbrushes. As she expected, Maya’s sharp ears heard.
“Who’s in there, Uncle Justus?”
Justus paused. “I have some really exciting news for you, little girl.”
Maya clapped her hands and Angela heard the squeak of bedsprings as she bounced up and down. “What is it?”
“I’m getting married.”
“Yay!” More clapping. “Can I be the flower girl?”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.”
Angela rinsed her mouth and hurriedly brushed her hair with Justus’s brush.
“Who is it?” Maya asked.
Angela took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped out into the bedroom. “Me.”
Maya sat on the duvet with her back against the pillows while Justus sat near her feet. When Maya heard the door, her head swiveled around and she gaped at Angela as if she’d seen Santa Claus in the flesh.
Risk (It's Complicated Book 2) Page 35
