Harlequin Presents--June 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Dani Collins

  Clare’s smile put the moonlight to shame. “You think so?”

  Dev nodded, feeling a sudden stab of such overpowering grief mixed in with this new feeling of joy. “Yes. She’d have especially liked how often you keep me on my toes.”

  She smiled. “You miss her a lot.”

  He shrugged. “Yes, each year, I miss her more.”

  “She sounds like a wonderful woman.”

  “She was. She...had the knack of seeing through to a person’s heart. And finding something to love in everyone.”

  “Will you tell me more about her?”

  His chest rose and fell as Dev considered this woman...his wife. She always wanted more. More of life. More of herself. More of him. “I will. But some other time. Not tonight.” He beckoned her closer. “Tonight is about you and me, Clare. Only you and me.” Now that he’d made peace with that fact, the slumbering need in him had risen keenly to the surface.

  Why had he even been fighting this so much?

  She blushed prettily, even as she demanded he give her what she wanted. “I have a wedding present for you.”

  Dev felt like he had been knocked over the head. Although he didn’t know why he should be so surprised. She’d already told him that she wasn’t going to pretend this was a cold, dry business arrangement.

  “I have nothing for you.”

  She clearly wasn’t disappointed by that. “I didn’t expect you to get me anything. I saw this when I went shopping with Angelina and it made me think of you. Don’t worry, Dev. I know what I want from you.”

  He raised a brow, unashamedly eating her alive with his eyes. He could see the shadow of her nipples through the nightgown, the slightly rounded shape of her belly when it was plastered to her body by the friendly breeze, and a darker shadow at the apex of her thighs. “I should tell you, Clare, that I don’t have either the patience or the inclination to be overly gentle tonight.”

  She swallowed and he saw the flutter of her pulse at her neck. “I never asked you to be gentle with me. It’s your own fault if you catered to me. But then, that’s what you do, don’t you?”

  He frowned. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “That night, I didn’t ask you to be gentle with me. I didn’t tell you that it was my first time. It was what I needed and you simply gave it to me. That’s who you are, Dev. Why fight it?”

  “And here I thought you dwelled in reality, Clare.”

  She was hurt by that. He’d only meant to pierce the false image of him she was building in her head. Because he sure as hell couldn’t be that man.

  But instead of backing down, she covered the distance between them. Now she stood close enough that he could smell the lily of the valley on her. The taut buds of her nipples taunted him. “We all need a dose of cold reality most days, I agree. But as I realized recently, a little dreaming never hurt anyone. In fact, it was the thing that sustained me through so many difficult years.”

  When he opened his mouth, she pressed her palm to his lips. “It’s okay. I don’t want to argue tonight. I have other plans—devious plans,” she said with a naughty grin.

  Lust kicked through him. “I should very much like to be part of your plans, Clare.”

  In one easy movement, he picked her up and brought her onto the bed. She landed on her knees, on the duvet, his legs still buried beneath it. The scent of her skin enveloped him and he breathed it in, like a junkie.

  He took the square package with the neat bow and was about to toss it aside when she grabbed it and held it up to him.

  * * *

  “So that’s how it’s going to be, huh?” he said, burying his face in her neck. The uproar that had begun in his chest hours earlier calmed at the feel of her soft curves in his hands.

  “I want you, Dev. I want to spend tonight with you. More than anything in the world. But...”

  He pulled back and smiled. “Okay. I guess it’s true what they say about marriage, huh?”

  Her eyes widened and she played along. The twitch of her mouth made his heart swell in his chest. “What do they say about marriage, Dev?”

  “That the sex dries up and your wife rules you.”

  “Hey,” she said, swatting him on the shoulder.

  Dev took the wrapped package from her hands. “All right, fine. If this is what it takes...”

  Her teeth digging into her lower lip, she looked at him from under her lashes.

  Curiosity took over and he ripped the wrapping off.

  To find a cardboard box in his hand—an audiobook of an autobiography of a black American athlete who’d found success despite numerous obstacles. Dev had been sent an autographed copy by the gentleman. It was the one book he didn’t have in audio.

  So of course, he hadn’t read it.

  Dev stared at it for what felt like interminable seconds, alarm coursing down his spine. Tension burst into life around them, replacing all the desire and humor that he’d felt so drunk on.

  He looked up to find Clare watching him.

  He had no idea what she saw in his face. A nervous laugh escaped her mouth. “I noticed that you don’t have the audiobook for this title.”

  “When?” he said. Because he had to say something to cut the awkwardness. Because to say nothing at all would betray his shock.

  “Oh, I told you, I loved that library of yours. It’s so well categorized that it wasn’t hard to see that this one was missing.”

  “Yeah, I meant to get it.”

  “Are you angry, Dev?” Her mouth was pinched, her eyes wide. “I didn’t do it to pry. Like I said, that library...it was like a part of you. I thought I...”

  “No, you aren’t prying,” he said, stunned by how perceptive she was. He rubbed a hand over his face. “And I’m not angry.” But there was something in his tone that even he couldn’t identify.

  Was it still just shock that had him struggling to form thoughts and sentences? Only Derek knew. It had been him who’d insisted that Dev get diagnosed. That it wasn’t too late. Never too late. And of course the therapist that Dev had gone to after he’d been diagnosed knew. Not even Diya had guessed or asked.

  “It’s not something I ever discuss,” he said, his voice hoarse. “If I’d had the diagnosis of dyslexia as a child, then it might have been different.”

  If he thought she’d nod and agree and close the subject, he was wrong.

  Clare frowned, her palms on his bare shoulders, grounding him.

  “In fact, your success, your company...you’re the symbol of what one can accomplish despite being wired differently.”

  “Before you ask, no, I’m not ashamed of being dyslexic, Clare.”

  He felt that maybe he should have moderated his curt tone, but right now, the last thing he felt like doing was pacifying her or anybody else for that matter. He had always struggled alone in his life. Nothing was ever going to change that.

  “I didn’t think you were, Dev.”

  “I wasn’t diagnosed until very late. Not until I was seventeen.”

  “But you come from such an affluent, educated family.”

  He laughed then, and it was the hollowest sound he’d ever heard. “You want the whole sorry story then?”

  She nodded, still touching him. Still anchoring him.

  “I was a very...rambunctious kid. As Deedi tells it—that’s my older sister—I was slow to speak. My mother apparently schlepped me around to a lot of speech therapists. So it was decided at a very early age that of the four of us, I wasn’t the brightest bulb.”

  “Who decided that?” Clare asked with such a fierce scowl that Dev rubbed his fingers against her brow.

  “My father. But Mama wouldn’t listen to him. She tried her best to help me sit down and focus. And I tried. For her, I tried so hard. But letters and words were nothing but a jumble to me. The more I tried to p
in them down, the more they escaped me.

  “So I started cutting classes. I started paying a friend to do my work for me. I manipulated Diya into doing my homework. I cheated as much as I could. Anything and everything to not disappoint Mama. Anything to avoid telling her the truth. Because the one thing I couldn’t do was bring myself to admit that I just couldn’t read. That all the books she bought me...she might as well have asked me to walk to the moon.

  “After a while, all my schemes were found out. Diya got into big trouble. My friend was forever banished from seeing me. I begged Papa to not have him expelled from school. That it was all my fault. That I had manipulated them all into helping me. Mama was crushed. I’ve never felt as low as I did that day when she realized I’d been cheating when she’d thought I’d been getting better.”

  “Oh, Dev. I’m so sorry.”

  “I hadn’t wanted to disappoint her. And I ended up crushing her. Betraying her faith in me.”

  “Then?”

  It felt as if there were shards stuck in his throat. “She still tried. I got expelled from three different private schools for getting into trouble. She tried private tutoring and every other option out there. I’d hear them arguing at night. Hear him call me useless and stupid and her fighting with him to not call her baby boy that. Arguing that academic success wasn’t everything. That she’d spend her life helping me if that’s what it took. Papa was furious with me. I think more than that, it scared him. He couldn’t see why one of his children wasn’t like the other three. He couldn’t fathom that his son was such a loser. That I resented him and argued with him and gave him attitude at every turn didn’t help our relationship, either.”

  “But you were a kid, Dev. Just a kid. We shouldn’t have to make allowances for adults and their feelings.” Dev held her, hearing the pain he’d once felt echoing in her voice.

  “Please tell me he didn’t abuse you to your face,” Clare whispered against his shoulder. “Please tell me your mother stopped him.”

  Dev shook his head. “He didn’t call me a dumb loser, no. That was one of the names I called myself. He called me lazy, incompetent. A rogue who didn’t appreciate the privileges he had. A boy who was good for nothing. Then when I was twelve, Mama died.”

  Clare’s arms were around his neck now, her own trembling.

  Dev pressed his palms to her back, glad to have her here. “The worst part is over, sweetheart.”

  She pulled back and glared at him. “How can you be so cavalier about this, Dev?”

  “Because I can’t let it be more, Clare. It’s taken me years to not think of myself as a failure. Hours of therapy to realize that my brain’s just wired differently. That not being able to read—something my mother loved to do with me—didn’t mean the world of books wasn’t cut off for me. Whenever I thought about the past, I had to develop a degree of emotional separation from it. Or I’d have ruined my life with my own hands.”

  “What did your father do then? After she died.”

  “He packed me off to military school barely a week later. Diya told me Deedi and Bhai had a huge fight with him about it, but he wouldn’t listen to anyone. His grief found an outlet in me, I think. And I was happy to leave a place that no longer held the one person who’d loved me unconditionally.”

  “You haven’t been back there since, have you?”

  Dev looked into her eyes and shook his head. “No. And the thought of going back now is painful. But for Diya... I have to.”

  “How was the military school?”

  “In retrospect, it was the best place for me. It was rigorous and disciplined and when night came, I was simply too exhausted to think of my shortcomings. I met Derek there. And one of the coaches found something to nurture in the both of us. The rest is history.”

  “You’re a testament to—”

  Dev pressed his finger to her lips. “I don’t want praise, sweetheart.”

  She nodded, and he smiled. “I want the wedding night that I was promised. No, that you demanded that I give you. I want you to look at me as you always do.”

  “You think hearing this has changed how I see you?” she asked with a frown.

  “Does it?”

  “Of course not, you arrogant man. It only makes me want to jump your bones even more. There, is that what you want to hear?”

  “Yes,” Dev said, before dipping his mouth to hers.

  It shouldn’t have made a difference that she knew about his childhood. About the difficulties he’d had to overcome. Some he still lived with to this day.

  But as Dev swept his tongue into her welcoming mouth, as he filled his hungry hands with her curves and kissed her harder and deeper, he felt as if for the first time in his life, someone knew who he was. What he’d achieved to get here. He felt...whole. Even though he hadn’t realized what he’d been missing.

  Hands wrapping around her slender shoulders, he gathered her closer to him.

  “Yes, please. God, yes, Dev. Now,” she replied. The throaty need in her voice undid Dev just a little bit more.

  The taste of her skin under his tongue felt like peace and joy and contentment like he had never known before.

  She was trembling as he nipped and kissed his way from her neck to the soft, silky smooth skin of her jaw. He couldn’t touch her enough. Couldn’t taste her enough. He licked the delicate lobe of her ear.

  She shuddered, a long moan rasping out of her throat and pressed herself against him. Her breasts crushed against his chest, her lips sought his. Dev devoured her mouth as if he was a drowning man. As if the taste of her could bring him back to shuddering life from the cold, sterile reality he’d existed in for so many years.

  Suddenly his life before she’d come barging into it felt...flat, one-dimensional. A glittering mockery of the real thing.

  Dev had no idea who pushed the duvet out from between them. He had no idea if he was the one who pulled up the flimsy little thing that she was wearing and threw it off. He didn’t know if she demanded, or he had created a space between his thighs for her.

  But as their frenzied kiss deepened, he filled his hands with the slight weight of her breasts. She straddled his hips, moving up and over him, until she was exactly where she wanted to be.

  He nipped her lower lip when she rubbed herself against his hardness, and then flicked his tongue over it. Her fingers sneaked into his hair and tugged imperiously.

  “Inside me, now, Dev,” she whispered frantically.

  He suddenly hesitated.

  She moved his head so she could see into his eyes, her own feverish with desire. “You said you had no inclination to be slow or gentle tonight. I find that I’m desperate for hard and fast tonight. So how about you make good on your promise?”

  Filling his hands with her slender hips, Dev lifted her up. She moaned as he lowered his thumb to her core. Slowly, he drew it down, down, down until his thumb was notched at the entrance of her sex. Her dampness drenched him. His erection lengthened further as she wound herself around him like a vine, thrusting her pelvis into his hand.

  “I love how greedy you are, sweetheart,” he whispered, dipping his finger in and out of her, feeling anticipation bunch his muscles rock hard.

  “You make me like this. Only you,” she whispered, her face buried in his shoulder.

  Dev took another few seconds teasing her out, though it felt like an eternity. With his other palm, he stroked the warm, damp planes of her body. Rubbed the tight knot of her nipple between his fingers. Up on her knees, she thrust into his hand with a frantic urgency that made his throat dry.

  Her eyes closed, her neck thrown back, she was lost in sensation. “Do you like this?” he growled, wanting to hear her voice.

  “Faster, Dev. Damn it, give me what I want. Please.”

  He laughed, and she opened those blue eyes and bent to kiss him. Hard and rough, winding him up
even more.

  “I love it when you laugh,” she said, and Dev felt like he was drenched in her shy smile.

  He flicked at her sensitive bud gently and felt her responsive shudder. She moved forward and back, her breasts rubbing against his chest, pleasure painting her face a lovely pink. He tormented her for little while more, loving her moans and whispers that told him she was getting closer to ecstasy.

  Just when she was hovering right on the edge of the abyss, he pulled back to quickly sheathe himself.

  Lifting her with one hand on her buttock, Dev took his shaft in the other and slowly, carefully, slid himself inside her soft, wet heat.

  She was incredibly snug around him, and he thought he might have died a little with sheer pleasure.

  Her long, guttural moan mingled with his.

  Her blue eyes deepened into a darker color, glittering with raw pleasure. She brought his palm to her left breast and sighed.

  Dev kneaded her breast obediently, the tip of her nipple pressing into his palm. He didn’t move his hips for long minutes. He didn’t want to move, even though his body was screaming for release. He intended to savor this moment.

  He kissed her brow and tasted the dampness from her skin.

  Her gaze held his, shining so brightly that Dev wanted to look away.

  But he forced himself to hold it. To see this woman who was a fighter just like him.

  “You feel like you’re inside me, all the way to here,” she moaned, and then she threw her arms around his neck and held him tight.

  Dev started to build their pace with slow, deep thrusts. He had a feeling he was never going to get enough of her. That one fine morning, he was going to wake up to find she’d changed him forever.

  She matched his rhythm perfectly, bearing down when he thrust up, meeting him stroke for stroke. He glided his palms all over her silky back, following the curve of her hips, and chasing a drop of sweat trailing down her cleavage, before moving to take the begging tip of her dark pink nipple into his mouth. He bit back a groan as she shuddered as she approached her own peak.

  And when she was close again, this time he pushed her over the edge with his fingers.