Chapter Six #3
‘I just find it strange you’d never explored that.’ His finger traced lower, towards her jaw, then tracked sideways, to the edge of her lips. Her eyes fluttered closed, giving him another visual clue as to how undone she was by this. Just like he was.
In the back of his mind, a voice was screaming at him, reminding him that this was stupid. That the stakes were so much higher for them now. There was a baby to think about; keeping this relationship impersonal and professional was essential. They were parenting partners, nothing more.
But the sparks igniting beneath his skin refused to be tamed.
He dropped his finger lower, to the jut of her decolletage and then with eyes that held hers, challenging her silently to stop him, to the curve of her breast, and inwards, to her nipple.
She sucked in a sharp breath as he drew a circle around it, taking advantage of her sensory overload and stepping forward so his body could have what it craved—contact, from knees to hips, so his arousal was pressed close to her sex, leaving her with little doubt as to what he wanted.
And he did want.
No, he needed.
More than he’d needed before. Not just with Rosemary, but any woman. It was as though knowing they were going to be parents had added a great biological imperative to this, a sense that there was something bonding them that defied logic or sense, went deeper than pure physical connection.
A possessive need overtook him, so it wasn’t enough to know that he’d been her first; he wanted to be her best. The only man who could drive her quite as wild, quite as fast.
His hand dropped from her breast, but only momentarily.
Only so he could slide it beneath the stretchy material of her shirt, eyes locked to hers, as he pushed it higher, over her slightly rounded stomach, to the full swell of her breast and he groaned deeply when he felt the weight of it in his palm, so full and satisfying.
It was no longer enough to feel. He had to see.
‘Take off your shirt,’ he said. Commanding.
No doubts. But in the back of his mind, he knew why he was telling her, rather than doing it himself.
He needed her to buy into this. To prove to him that they were equally invested.
He felt her tremble, noted the way she sucked her lower lip between her teeth, saw the way the hairs on her arms were standing on edge and understood, because he felt it too.
Her hands moved to the fabric far too slowly, so by the time she finally lifted it, he was almost exploding with impatience.
Having slept with her twice, yet never seen her breasts, he was suddenly like a horny, inexperienced schoolboy, about to see a woman for the first time. What the hell was wrong with him?
Clamping his jaw, he nonetheless couldn’t look away as she lifted the shirt from her head, then slid it down the side of her body, so it dropped to the floor with a soft rustle.
Her bra was simple cotton. Nothing like the silky, lacy things he was used to seeing, and yet, the way her creamy breasts spilled at the top of it was the hottest thing he’d ever seen.
It was no longer enough to look. He needed to touch, taste, feel.
To see and hold. His hand reached behind her, unclasping her bra swiftly, separating it so he could push the straps down her arms and remove the scrap of fabric.
His eyes clung to hers as he did so, as his fingers ran over the soft, smooth skin, until the bra joined her shirt on the floor.
She trembled. Her nipples were a dusky pink colour, so perfect, so taut. As much as he wanted to drop his head and take one between his lips, then the other, he lifted both hands instead, cupping her breasts fully at first, and biting back a moan at the perfection of that.
‘Christós,’ he swore, though, because the sensual beauty of her body went straight to his cock, making him painfully hard, straining against the fabric of his pants.
‘You are so damn beautiful,’ he groaned, shaking his head with the sense that he was losing himself.
Because this was not part of the plan. At no point, when he’d suggested marriage, had he thought there’d be a physical element to it.
True, he hadn’t exactly had time to concoct a plan for how to make it work, but Aristotle had been na?ve not to think this issue might arise.
He dropped his head then, finally giving into his deep, dark desire and taking a nipple in his mouth, teasing it with his tongue at first, rolling it until she was whimpering and then sucking hard enough to make her jerk forward, hard, against him, her body like a livewire that only he could control.
‘You are so perfect,’ he said, moving his mouth to her other breast. ‘I cannot believe we have slept together twice, and this is my first time seeing your breasts. Touching them like this.’ He moved his hand to the nipple he’d just relinquished and squeezed it between his forefinger and thumb so she made a sound that was part yelp, part desperate, hungry cry for him.
He understood completely. There was a balance between them, of pleasure and pain, of need and knowledge: this was wrong, yet they couldn’t stop it. And in that moment, all they could do was surrender, and deal with the aftermath in due course.