Chapter 15 Julian #2
“‘Cause if you want to eat dinner down here, that’s fine with me. I got us burgers. Might have to wash our hands first, but then, yeah, let’s go for it, Luce.
” He pauses. “You do something new to your hair? It looks good. Fuck, you always look great, but I like it.” Reaching out, Dallas takes one of the tousled waves, curling it around his finger.
“And the dress.” His eyes light up with sudden arousal.
“I’ve gotta send Loni a fruit basket or some shit. She knows how to pick out clothes.”
See? Here’s even more proof that I’m messed-up. This is exactly the sort of reaction I’d hoped for from my husband, and now that I have it? My stomach goes tight in sudden nerves as my brain insists he’s only saying that to be kind.
Damn brain.
Murmuring a ‘thank you’ under my breath, I give Dallas a thin-lipped smile. Then, doing my best to convince myself that my stomach is suddenly queasy because I haven’t eaten in hours and I can smell the food he brought, I start to climb to my feet.
Dallas runs his hand over the curve of my ass. “Sure you want to get up? We can have fun right here. Dinner can wait.”
I shake my head. “I’d rather eat, if that’s okay.”
“Yeah. Of course. I brought dinner because my wife needs to eat.” Showing off his athleticism, Dallas gets up much faster than I do. Once he has, he grabs me by the waist, helping me to my feet. “We need plates?”
Considering I had a private meltdown before I grabbed them… “Yes, please.”
He presses a quick kiss to the corner of my mouth. “You got it.”
Dallas is in a good mood, at least. Doing my best to follow his example, I force my own insecurities out of my head so that I can enjoy the time I have with my husband. He’s always so busy, and I’m always so alone, it’s nice to just be with him. I’m not going to screw it up for myself. I’m not—
I do.
Dallas manages to hold out until dinner is done and the two of us are sitting on the couch together in the living room.
Now that he has seen me in the nightie, it would’ve been noticeable if I changed out of it, so I kept it on.
However, despite how he kept shooting me approving looks, all that did was make me think that he might be used to a standard that I can’t reach.
And that’s silly. That’s so silly. He married me. He loves me. I wake up to his boner nestled in the cleft of my ass almost every morning. We have a very healthy sex life for a married couple who spent the last year or two separated. He’s obviously attracted to me.
You’re beautiful, Dandelion.
I curl in on myself.
He notices. Grabbing the remote from the coffee table, he turns off the show that he was watching and that I was only pretending to.
“Okay. Out with it. Something’s wrong and I’m not going to drop it until you tell me what it is.”
When I press my lips together, not saying a word, he lays his hand on my knee.
“I mean it.” A flash of panic touches his expression. “Shit. Was it me? If I fucked up, if I did something wrong… I didn’t mean it. Okay? I promise you, baby. I didn’t mean it. Tell me what I did. Tell me how to fix it.”
I am a piece of shit. Not only did I spend tonight shutting Dallas out, now I have him worried that he upset me—and all because he wrote me a sweet love note.
I swallow the lump lodged in my throat. “You left me a note.”
His expression goes flat. “I thought you liked my notes.”
“I do! I mean, I do, Dallas. But this one…” I look away. “I have a hard time believing that you mean it.”
I can tell from the way he looks up that he’s trying to remember what he wrote. He blinks. “I said you’re beautiful.” He pulls away from me in disbelief. “You think I’m lying about that? You’re fucking gorgeous!”
“I don’t feel beautiful,” I tell him in a small voice.
I wait for him to tell me that I’m being as ridiculous as I am. Only he doesn’t. Instead, his fingers reach up and gently brush a strand of hair away from my cheek. His touch is careful, like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he presses too hard.
“You don’t have to,” he murmurs. “I do.”
I finally look up at him again.
His green eyes have seemed darker lately. Shadowed. There’s something coiled behind them that wasn’t there when I first woke up in that hospital bed, and it’s watching me as if it wants me to notice it.
“I wish I could remember,” I whisper. “More than that, I wish I could see what you see when you look at me.”
“Well, that’s easy,” he murmurs back. He suddenly stands, holding out his hand to me. “I can show you.”
My breath catches. “Show me what?”
“What I see.”
I hesitate only a second before I take his hand.
He pulls me up gently and leads me towards the hall. I expect that we’re going to our bedroom, but he passes that room. My old room, too. He keeps going until he takes me to the one I borrowed the hairdryer from.
The one with the massive standing mirror propped up in one corner of the room.
Dallas moves until we’re both standing in front of it, our reflection filling the glass.
He’s still in the clothes he wears to work: muscle tee, dark jeans, boots. Compared to the white slip of a dress I have on, he looks like a dark villain ready to ravish the innocent heroine. As his hands settle on my hips, I look so small in comparison.
“You don’t see it,” he murmurs near my ear. “But I do.”
His thumbs trace slow circles against my skin, grounding me.
“You used to hate this spot,” he says, brushing his fingers along my collarbone. “Said it made you look too breakable.”
“I did?” I whisper.
“Yeah.”
He leans closer, his breath warm against my neck.
“Breakable? No, baby. You’re not breakable,” he says softly. “You’ve never been. If you were, would the two of us fit together as well as I know we do?”
My heart stutters as he moves his hands again.
They slide up my sides slowly, almost reverentially.
He’s not rushed. Definitely not greedy. His moves are intentional, from the way he cups my tits through the nightie to how he reaches down to my hips, hitching up the skirt enough to see that I didn’t bother putting panties on after my shower this morning.
It’s his turn for his breath to catch. In the mirror’s reflection, I watch his eyes go heavy, his lips parting slightly as he pants out a breath. He’s watching the front of my pussy as he reveals it, his growing erection nudging my ass as though he can’t help but grind himself against.
To make it easier, I lean back against him.
“Look at us,” he murmurs. “Look at the way I look at you. Tell me you’re not beautiful, baby. Mirrors don’t lie. You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. I wake up every morning and thank fucking God that I get to call you mine. Now look. Tell me that I’m wrong.”
Look? I’m looking. And you know what I see?
I don’t see a man who’s simply tolerating a woman who fell into his lap the same way she fell out of a window.
I don’t see a stranger pretending. I see a husband who is so desperate for his wife, if it wasn’t for his jeans keeping us apart, he would already be inside me.
“Let me tell you something, Lucy Wright. I want you to remember,” he says, voice roughening. “Not because you doubt me. But because I want you to know instinctively what we were. We’re made for each other. Look in the mirror. You’ll see.”
As I stare, Dallas’s mouth trails down the curve of my shoulder. His hand tightens at my waist.
The mirror won’t let me hide.
I see the way my body arches toward him. The way my lips part. The way his eyes lock on mine in the glass, daring me to deny the electricity snapping between us.
“Tell me you don’t feel it,” he breathes, shifting his hips, rocking against me..
I feel it. God, I feel it.
“Dallas…” I whimper his name, and in that sound, I give him all the permission he needs to make me feel beautiful.
“That’s right, Lucy. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. But you… do me a favor, baby? Put those hands of yours against the mirror. Don’t worry. It’s bolted down. It won’t fall… but I need to make sure you won’t.”
I do exactly that. While I lean forward, Dallas makes quick work of his jeans.
He gets them open, the sound of the zipper going down beating in time to the anticipation flooding through me, and when he grips my waist, pulling me back toward him, I’m already fluttering my eyelashes in bliss as he slowly feeds his cock into me.
“Yes… yes…”
“You like that?”
I nod, eyes still closed.
He pumps a little faster. “Uh-uh, Luce. You don’t think you’re beautiful?
Bullshit. You’re never more irresistible than when you’re looking up at me as I fuck you.
So go on, baby. Open your eyes for me. Watch as you take my cock like my wife should.
Don’t you even think of blinking until you watch yourself come all over me. ”
There isn’t any refusing him right now. He’s in complete control, and I can tell from the rhythm of his strokes that, if I refuse to do what I’m told, he’ll stop. Just like that, he’ll go to bed with blue balls before he makes his point.
He wants me to feel beautiful, and he plans on doing that by fucking me until I’m screaming his name.
My eyes pop open as he bottoms out inside of me. I gasp, and he exhales, clear relief fluttering across his features.
“Yes. That’s my girl. That’s my wife.”
The rhythm of us builds. It’s slow at first. Absolutely intentional on Dallas’s part. He keeps his strokes slow and languid instead of fucking me as though he’s racing to see how fast he can make me come. His hands continue their exploration, mapping me like he’s doing his best to memorize my body.
The mirror shows everything. The way his jaw clenches. The way I arch to meet each thrust, demanding more. The way he’s so right, that we fit, that we belong together, that he’s mine—
“Julian.”
I know Dallas prefers his nickname, but it… it just happens. His real name slips out without warning. Without thought. As though it was waiting at the edge of my tongue…
Everything freezes. It stops. Dallas’s motion, his body, his fucking heart. Mine, too when I look in the mirror and see that his expression changes instantly.
For the first time since he told me who he was, I…
I’m actually frightened of him. That’s what the look of pure rage on his face does to me.
It makes me realize how vulnerable I am, under his body, trapped against a mirror, his dick all the way inside of me with no sign that he plans on pulling out just yet.
Oh, no. He’s glaring at me instead with something close to… to hate.
“What did you just call me?” he asks, voice low and lethal.
My stomach drops. “Let me go.” It’s my instinctive reaction. He’s scaring me, and I need to be safe. “Please, let me go.”
“Answer me first. What did you call me?”
Why is he reacting like that? “What?”
“Damn it, Lucy.” His grip on my hip tightens painfully. “Answer me!”
“Your name!” I yelp. “You said it was your name.”
His eyes flash in the depths of the mirror. I keep staring at the glass. Somehow… somehow it’s better seeing his fury reflected back at me, like maybe it’ll be blunted compared to the full force of his anger.
“My name is Dallas.”
“I know. I’m sorry, okay? I…” I’m suddenly intimately aware that he’s still inside of me. “I’m sorry. Dallas. I didn’t mean it.”
He jerks his head. As quick as it came, the fury is gone. A look of horror replaces it, like he just realized how disproportionate of a reaction that was. Losing his shit because I forgot for a moment to use his nickname?
He drops his head, burying it in the curve of my neck. I hear him mutter a string of curses before he slowly, slowly starts to move again. “No. Lucy, no. I’m sorry. You don’t have to be sorry because you didn’t do anything wrong. I did. I’m sorry.”
Dallas matches his gentle thrusts to the heat in each repeated apology. And I know, without knowing how thanks to my missing memories, that he might just be as broken as I am.
“It’s okay,” I tell him as he continues to fuck me, and this time, I think I might be the one who is lying.