by Dani Collins
Suddenly she was on her back, his big body over her, his hand cradling her jaw as he looked into her eyes.
“I’m supposed to be doing this properly.” He found a condom and applied it.
“I can’t wait.” She hurried him, guiding him to where she wanted him.
He rolled, pulling her atop him. “Take what you want,” he said grittily. “Then I’ll do it my way.”
She rose on her knees to impale herself, riding him to a swift peak, breasts teased by his wicked hands the whole way. But she was hungry, hungry, hungry and kept moving even as she was shuddering and lost in the ecstasy of climax. She wanted to gorge herself on him and kept going until she was clenched in the vise of orgasm a second time, this one even stronger and more satisfying than the first.
Only then did she melt onto him, all his hard muscle a hot ceramic containing explosive chemicals.
“Thank you,” she murmured as she splayed herself on him.
“Oh, no, my beauty. That was for me and it was amazing. Now, though, now I’ll give you something to be thankful for.” He rolled so she was beneath him again, then slid away to kiss and nibble and lick, all the way down her front. He sucked at her nipples in turn, taking his time, and sighed his hot breath across her navel before threatening a bite of each hip and blew softly across her mound.
She writhed on the covers and her heel caught. He made a noise of sympathy, as if she was injured, and rose to his knees. He took off her shoes with great care, pressing his mouth to her ankles and biting gently against her calf. His fingertips teased behind her knees and he scraped his stubble against her inner thigh.
As the heat of anticipation built in her core, he sent her a wicked smile and rolled her over. His teeth nipped her buttock and his mouth opened in her lower back, the nerve bundles there so sensitized to his caress that she cried out, while goose bumps raced across her whole body and heat flooded into her buttocks and loins.
With a firm touch, he parted her thighs, making her gasp at the audacity of it. Then he was toying with her moist folds while pressing kisses to her back. Her scalp tingled and she couldn’t speak, she was held in such a paroxysm of pleasure.
“I could do this forever,” he said hotly against her nape. “Touch you, taste you.” He settled over her, hot shaft branding the crease of her buttocks.
For long minutes, he braced himself over her like that, shifting and letting her feel his weight, his hot skin, imprinting his scent on her like an animal. Maybe it was a move of dominance, but it felt like something else. None of that strength and power was meant to hurt her, he seemed to be saying. He was reminding her she could trust him.
Her hips lifted of their own accord.
When he rose enough to let her roll onto her back and kissed her tenderly, she opened like a blossom, taking him between her legs, accepting the length of him with one smooth sink of his hips against hers.
She was lost in the miasma of sexual bliss, then. Caressing him, moaning with joy at each thrust, licking into his mouth, holding nothing back. Offering herself without reserve.
“Look at me.” He stopped moving to smooth her hair from her perspiration-soaked temple.
She could hardly open her eyes. When she did, the intimacy was almost too much to bear. He held her on a precipice so fine and sharp she was ready to scream, body pulsing and aching for release.
His eyes glowed with fierce possessiveness. He knew he held her in the very palm of his hand, all of her given over to him without conditions. His voice was drugged and smoky, hypnotic.
“It’s time. Come with me now.”
He began to move in heavy, purposeful thrusts. A fresh wave of pleasure, mightier and more all-encompassing, engulfed her. As it broke and curled over her, he shouted his culmination.
They tumbled to the bottom, clinging to the other as the world shattered around them.
* * *
The phone jangled her from a deep sleep, making her gasp awake to the realization she was not alone in bed.
Travis was spooned so tightly to her, her skin pulled painfully as he shifted to reach past her and pick up the receiver before it could ring again.
“Sanders.” His voice was gritty and sensual enough to curl her toes.
They’d done their best to rewrite the Kama Sutra last night, then fell asleep wrapped around each other. It had been greedy and gratifying, conversation limited to what they liked and wanted. She felt like she was his again, the way she had when they’d been married. His lover, his wife, his woman.
Careful, Imogen.
Whoever was on the line was female. Imogen didn’t try to make out what she was saying. She was caught between a desire to fall back asleep and put off facing reality, and a flood of sensual memory that made her want to squiggle her butt into Travis’s growing arousal.
She was tired and achy, but still bathed in sexual satisfaction, wanting only to snuggle back into his arms and stay there.
“We’ll see you then.” He hung up and let his hand land on her hip in a light smack that was cushioned by the covers. “Mother will be downstairs in thirty minutes.”
“Okay, you were right. Breakfast was a dumb idea,” she conceded, pulling the sheet over her head. “Enjoy your I-told-you-so.”
He didn’t say anything and didn’t move. His hand was still resting on her hip and his chest grazed her back. He didn’t even nudge himself against her butt, just let his swelling sex rest against the softness of her cheeks.
“Are you mad?” she asked.
“I’d rather stay in bed, so, yeah. I’m put out.”
She lowered the sheet and made herself look at him.
Here was the man she had fallen so hard for, undeniably masculine with his stubble and short, spiky lashes and that air of smug animal pride as his gaze hung up on her mouth.
“Or are you asking if I’m mad that you put out? Hell, no. Last night was fantastic.”
“Nice.” She jabbed her elbow into his chest.
He captured her beneath him and gave one warning scrape of his stubbled chin against her smooth one, then planted a firm kiss on her lips.
“Shower,” he declared, shoving himself off her and dragging most of the covers with him so they fell off the side and onto the floor. “Separately, or we won’t leave this room for a week.” He walked naked into the bathroom.
* * *
Travis wasn’t carrying a grudge against his mother, despite what Imogen had accused last night. He had been angry when her infidelity was exposed. Of course he was. One minute, his family life had been stable and his parents’ marriage—to his eyes—had been loving. Then overnight his mother’s cheating had come to light and everything had blown up.
She’d moved out and all the little ways she had run their lives, things that Travis had taken for granted, were over. He’d not only had to take responsibility for himself, but his father had been a wreck, turning to the bottle in a way so distressing, Travis had worried about leaving him alone while he was at school.
As a result, he had resisted leaving his father to visit his mother, only going when he absolutely had to. She’d been living with her new lover anyway, so it had been beyond uncomfortable to join her. He’d been old enough to decide where he went and for how long and, yes, he had probably been punishing her by avoiding her.
The distance in their relationship had stuck through his last years of high school. When he left for university, he had developed a full enough life; he simply didn’t have time for anything but his own ambitions. He’d checked in with his father quite often, but only because Henry had taken up with his office janitor, Gwyn’s mom. It had been a strange enough romance he’d wanted to keep an eye on it, but mending fences with his own mother hadn’t been a priority. Once his career had started in earnest and he moved to New York, he’d made do with calling her a few times a year.
Had her
actions in his impressionable teen years left him thinking all women were inconstant? Perhaps. It was certainly another reason he’d been convinced his marriage to Imogen was unlikely to last.
Did he hate and blame his mother for that? Want to punish her for it? No. They simply didn’t have a lot to talk about.
But as he sat down with her, he noticed for the first time in more than a decade that she was aging. There were lines cut into her natural beauty. He wondered uncomfortably if Imogen was right. Maybe he’d been unfair to Eliza, avoiding her this long.
He let Imogen carry the conversation, even though there was a certain danger in letting her speak for them as a couple. He was especially conflicted because he’d spent the last several hours trying to meld their bodies into one. They were a couple, but a temporary one.
That word temporary caused a tightness in him he didn’t want to examine.
The women wound down from their agreeable comments on what a nice party it had been, how the weather had cooperated and what a versatile and accommodating band had been found for the occasion.
His mother cut him a wary glance before broaching the real purpose of their meeting. “I didn’t even know Travis had been married.”
“No one did,” Imogen assured her with a sheepish wrinkle of her nose. “We were young. I was very young. Just turned twenty. No one should embark on a lifetime commitment before they’re twenty-five, if you want my older and wiser opinion.”
“How old are you now?”
“Twenty-four,” Imogen said cheekily.
His mother’s mouth trembled between a rueful smile and something more delicately pointed. When she spoke, he thought it might be more for his benefit than Imogen’s. “Perhaps that’s why my marriage didn’t work. That, and the age difference between us.”
Travis narrowed his eyes, tempted to dismiss it as his mother taking advantage of the situation to make excuses for her behavior, but even though he knew full well she was eighteen years younger than his father, he had never stood back and examined that gap in the context of how it might have affected their marriage.
“Was Henry as ambitious as Travis?” Imogen asked. “I found that part hard. I was trying to do my own thing, having zero success, while he was knocking it out of the park.” Imogen touched his arm. “I don’t say that as blame. I was excited for you, but with things as they were with Dad, I found it hard to watch you excel at every turn while I was stuck in one place.”
He had stopped asking Imogen about her work when she had said very tersely that her father had had to cut her piece on him. At the time, her lack of explanations had awakened his suspicions that she had interviewed him to ensnare him. He’d decided she wasn’t being completely honest with him and, as it turned out, she had been hiding something, just not what he had imagined.
“Henry was a very big deal,” his mother was saying with a wistful sort of awe. “People were begging him to go into politics. We used to joke that I was his trophy wife.” Her humor turned more poignant. “In some ways, I was. He was at a point in his life he was ready for a brood of children, but he was so busy conquering the landscape he rarely had time for the son he had. I found motherhood quite overwhelming and tried to be happy as a homemaker, supporting Henry, but I felt as though my best years were passing me by.” She glanced at Travis again, pleading for understanding. “I didn’t lack ambition. I hadn’t had a chance to fulfill it.”
Travis looked into his coffee. His mother had gone on to open a string of boutiques, doing quite well for herself. She had never asked for his help with it. Aside from the odd job around the house, she’d never asked him for anything.
“I felt quite isolated while Henry was pulled in so many directions. It was hard to believe he loved me when his attention was never on me. It wasn’t until I’d hurt him so badly he couldn’t forgive me that I realized how deep his feelings really were.”
“But he’s forgiven you,” Imogen hurried to say. “You were dancing last night. I saw you. It was lovely to watch. You moved well together.”
His mother smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She was still looking at Travis, gauging his reaction. Seeking a capitulation of sorts from him.
“Infidelity is a deal breaker. If all we’d had wrong between us was my immaturity, I would try again, even this late in the day.” Her voice was a little stronger, carrying the tone of maternal wisdom one ignored at their own peril.
An acquaintance approached their table, forcing them to change the subject, and the rest of the meal passed innocuously. Toward the end, however, Imogen seemed to deliberately excuse herself to the powder room, leaving him to have a private word with his mother.
“I like her,” she said with a warm smile.
When he didn’t say anything, her smile faded.
“Travis, if it’s my fault you can’t open your heart—”
“It’s not,” he cut in. Maybe her actions had colored the way he had approached his marriage, contributing to its failure, but... “I don’t understand what marriage is even for,” he stated with acerbic challenge. “Don’t say ‘children’ when you just told me you felt held back by motherhood. It’s not a lifetime commitment. We’ve both proven that’s not true. So why bother with it? It’s a social construct that serves no purpose.” He set down his mug. His coffee left a bitter taste in the back of his throat.
She was taken aback, blinking once, twice, then said with faint astonishment, “I wasn’t talking about marriage. I was talking about love.”
“Also temporary,” he stated flatly. If such a thing existed at all.
His mother gasped a protest, but she had stepped out on his father because she hadn’t believed he loved her. He had, but not enough to keep her faithful. His father had gone on to love someone else, proving Travis’s point that the heart was fickle.
Imogen might not be as self-interested and bloodless as he’d thought her, but she hadn’t loved him when they married. Not enough to be honest with him. She didn’t love him now.
They were finding common ground, though, and he didn’t want that jeopardized.
“We’re in a good place, Mother. Don’t mess with it.”
“Are you?” she asked stiffly. “Your father thought that about us and look how that turned out.”
* * *
Imogen returned to find Travis glaring at his mother, not nearly in the space of reconciliation she had hoped to see between them. It left her feeling defensive for forcing the meeting. Now they had to pack up and move to Henry’s for Christmas Eve and morning.
At least the children provided a buffer and a distraction. It wasn’t until they had been put down for the night that things became a little awkward.
Vito was liberally pouring wine with his family’s label and they were all sitting around the winking tree, mellow after a lovely dinner, when Gwyn asked Imogen if she was missing out on celebrating with her own family.
“No one left.” She explained that she had lost her mother and sister quite young and her father this year.
“Your first Christmas without him. I’m so sorry.”
“We didn’t celebrate,” she dismissed easily. “This has been really lovely. Thank you for including me.”
They all looked at her the way other people did when she said she didn’t celebrate, like they were trying to tell if it was a religious choice or something.
“Not at all?” Gwyn asked.
“I put up a tree a few times, but...” She shrugged off how futile that had been, sipping her wine, aware of Travis staring at her.
When they went to bed a short while later, he said, “Your father didn’t even give you Christmas gifts?”
She paused in undressing. “Please don’t spoil what’s been a really nice evening.” She stepped out of her skirt and folded it lengthwise, adding with some anxiety, “And please don’t feel like you have to surprise me with a g
ift tomorrow to make up for that. It would upset me.”
“Why?”
“Because it would be charity.”
He took her into his arms, making it impossible for her to keep unbuttoning her blouse. “I hate him, you know.”
“Please don’t waste your energy.”
“If you insist.”
He kissed her and made love to her tenderly, then woke her with a coffee topped with whipped cream and sprinkled with chocolate shavings.
“The minion is awake and begging to open her gifts. Do you want to open this here or downstairs?” He set her coffee on the night table and held out a small box wrapped in gold with a glittering ribbon.
“I told you—” She sat up to admonish him.
“They looked so good on you, I kept them. I was going to give it to you anyway.” He dabbed his finger on her whipped cream and touched it to her nose. “Say ‘thank you.’”
“Really?” She rubbed it away with the back of her wrist, but her avaricious fingers were already closing on the box, itching to tear it open. He had insanely good taste in jewelry and she was already grieving the loss after giving back last night’s pendant and earrings. They were so pretty.
“Yes, really. Merry Christmas.”
For the first time in more than a dozen years, it was. As emotion clogged up her throat, turning her voice husky, she leaned forward to kiss him. “Thank you.”
* * *
Imogen had spent the last four years blaming herself for the breakdown of their marriage. Travis had been so disparaging in their final conversations, first angry about the credit card, then agreeing immediately that, yes, divorce was a great idea. She had been convinced she’d brought nothing to their relationship.
By the time she’d had a lawyer request the settlement Travis had promised in their prenup, he’d barely been speaking to her. She’d felt small and rejected, unworthy of his love in the first place. It was hardly a surprise he hadn’t wanted to stay married to her. Given her relationship with her father at the time, it had been her default to take the blame for Travis not being in love with her.
