Chapter Ten #2
“Physically, I can tell that you did, but this morning you’re upset. I want to know if you regret it.”
She looked down. “No. It was a gift to myself. Because I wanted you. Because I have wanted you.”
Satisfaction gripped him low and hard.
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
“Do I look pleased with myself?”
“You do. I’m still kind of mad at you.”
“But you wanted me.”
She looked away. And he wanted...he wanted something he didn’t have a name for. He wanted to feel connected to her again. As he had last night. When they had made love.
He moved to the edge of the bed, and pressed his knee down on the mattress, then he leaned in and cupped her cheek with his hand. She didn’t move away from him. So he leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips.
She whimpered, and went pliant against him. “Alex,” she breathed.
“Very good,” he whispered. And then she arched against him.
He knew that she liked this. That she craved his praise, but the truth was, he wanted to give it to her. Nothing and no one had ever been his. And she could be. His perfect, beautiful wife. She could belong to him.
The idea of that was intoxicating. She could be his perfect one, adored and kept safe by him. He wanted to give her everything she wanted, to lavish her with jewels and designer dresses, to give her food and beautiful shelter and trips to anywhere in the world she wanted to go.
He had never had anyone to take care of him; it was true. But he had also never had anyone to take care of, and the idea of Verity being his in this way was...
Now that he had taken hold of the idea he couldn’t let it go.
He wanted her. Needed her. Craved her like a drug in his system.
He had never wanted another person like this. Sex for him had always been a practicality, as he had said to Verity. Something like being hungry and making sure that he could be satiated.
But there had never been an emotional component, and now there was this, and he was drowning in it. The depth of it. The possibility of it.
He stripped the blankets away from her, took her coffee out of her hand and set the cup on the nightstand.
Then he stripped himself naked and kissed her lips, her neck, down the gorgeous swell of her breasts, down her stomach, to the curls between her legs.
She was addicting. Incredible. He could never get enough of this; he was certain of it. It had altered him fundamentally on some level inside of him he hadn’t known existed. And he wanted more. He craved more.
He licked her until she was screaming, until she cried out his name. Then he kissed her inner thigh, pulled away from her and grabbed her chin, tilting her face up toward him. “I want you to do the same for me.”
She lowered her eyes, her lashes fanning out over her cheeks. Demure, beautiful. “I don’t know how.”
“I don’t need you to have skill. I simply need you to be who you are. I want you, I don’t want generic pleasure. You, your mouth, your body, that’s what I want. You will be perfect, because you are perfect for me.”
He watched as color suffused her cheeks, as pleasure overtook her. She loved when he praised her, emotionally, but also he could see that it aroused her. That it satisfied her on so many essential planes. It made him want to give her more. Always.
He stroked her cheek, then released his hold on her. She adjusted their positions so that she was hovering over him, her lips pressed against his shaft.
He groaned, letting his head fall back as she swallowed him down, as she began to pleasure him with all her inexpert ministrations. He loved it. Loved that he could feel that she was learning on him, that she was finding her way with him. She was his.
He hadn’t known that connection could make sex better. That this deep yearning need to hang onto a partner and care for her in every way, pleasure her, wrap her in blankets, give her good food, would be the ultimate in satisfaction. But it was.
His Verity. His Cricket.
His.
She pleasured him until he reached the summit, and he pulled her away from him, because he couldn’t let it end like this.
“Did I not please you?”
“Yes,” he said, pressing his thumb to her lips. “You did. You were perfect. But too good. I don’t want to finish like that. Someday I will. And you will swallow all of me, won’t you?”
Her cheeks went bright red. “Of course I will.”
“Yes. I know you will, because you’re so good for me. But now, I need to be inside of you. I need you all around me. Do you understand?”
She nodded, lying back on the bed and arching upward, an invitation that he wasn’t going to refuse. “You’re so tight and wet,” he growled, moving into position. “So perfect for me. And only mine. Do know how much that pleases me?”
She nodded. “Yes. I think I waited for you.”
As soon as those words left her mouth, he lost all of his control. He thrust inside of her, the warm welcome of her body pushing him to the edge. His teeth were gritted together, and he fought for any control he might find.
In the end, he could find none, so he surrendered. To her, to this. To the inevitability of it.
He was never going to let her go.
Never.
She was his. His.
His good girl. His wife. His everything.
There was no one else. There was nothing else.
He had found a link, he had found a connection; in this, in this moment, in this feeling, he knew what it was to be joined to another person. To truly have another person he couldn’t imagine living without, breathing without.
Too soon, his pleasure overtook him. Too soon, he lost control. “Come for me, beautiful girl,” he said.
He was desperate for her to return pleasure, and she did, arching against him and riding out her release, pushing him toward his own.
He clung to the feeling. To the certainty. But it rolled away along with his pleasure, and when it was over, he was just Alex again. And she was Verity. He had lost the connection.
The feeling that had overtaken him.
He sat up, breathing hard, his skin slicked and sweat. He felt like he was coming down from a high, and it was brutal.
He was still trying to find his breath when the words tumbled from his mouth. “It will be impossible to resist you.”
“You sound angry about that,” she said, shrinking away from him.
He regretted the way he’d spoken but he was still reeling, still dizzy. Still grappling with the way things had changed.
“What will become of us over the next six months?”
Her face went stony. “Right. Because it’s still...it’s still all about that, isn’t it? Your business.”
“My goal hasn’t changed,” he said.
And yet he knew it wasn’t that simple.
His goal hadn’t changed, but he had. What he wanted, the way he saw the future. He had felt something he hadn’t known was possible when he was with her and he didn’t want to give it up. Not ever.
“No, of course it hasn’t,” she said.
“My goal hasn’t changed, but my vision of this marriage has.
You didn’t want to get married, I understand that.
But you can be angry with me, you discovered that last night.
I won’t force you to change the shape of yourself to keep peace.
And I... Verity, what if you and I could have a family? What if we could be one?”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
Maybe it didn’t make sense and he couldn’t tell, because he didn’t know how to do this. Because he wasn’t as accomplished with human connection as he was at anything else.
“This marriage. What if we made it real?”