37. CHAPTER 34 #2
I sank a little deeper into the water, heat licking over skin that already hummed.
Everything hurt, but in a way that felt…
right. There was a dull ache between my thighs, a soreness that flared when I moved even slightly, and under it all a strange, faint pride.
After all the fear and hesitation, after months of telling myself I could get through this marriage untouched if I just stayed stubborn enough, I’d given it to him.
And no, it wasn’t due to any obligation or even because of the magnetic pull of the man himself.
I did it because my heart had grown tired of waiting. It whispered now, and in that moment, the readiness was more powerful than the fear.
When I finally emerged, my skin was heated from the steam and my limbs felt heavy, almost liquid.
I wrapped myself in one of his heavy bathrobes; it was massive on me, smelling of his sandalwood soap and the dark, metallic scent that was undeniably him.
I cinched the belt tight and padded back into the bedroom.
Orion was on the far side of the bed, wearing nothing but dark joggers slung low on his hips.
Seeing him like this—bare-chested, his hair mussed, focused on the mundane task of pulling fresh sheets over the mattress—was jarring.
He looked completely at ease with himself.
It was a version of him that was very new to me.
Also a different version from the man who had pinned me beneath him and praised every desperate sound I made in that filthy, wrecked voice. The memory made my thighs press together before I winced at the lingering soreness.
“I’m borrowing this,” I said, my fingers fussing unnecessarily with the belt as nerves crept up and I struggled to regain some semblance of composure.
His gaze swept over me, as he took in my bare legs and damp hair, his eyes lingering where the robe dipped at my collarbone. His expression deepened with a trace of lust, but his voice remained smooth.
“You can borrow anything you like,” he said, his voice dipping lower. “I did say what’s mine is yours. My robe. My bed. My entire life, if you’re so inclined.”
Risky, I thought, my heart skipping non-stop. Those were dangerous words for a man as cold as Orion to be throwing around. He stepped closer, his eyes searching mine with an intensity I’d never seen before.
“Are you okay?”
“A little sore,” I admitted. “The bath helped. Thank you.”
My body was doing more than complaining. It was practically screaming, but my pride refused to elaborate.
“I could make you feel better,” he murmured, stepping into my space.
He didn’t wait for an answer, trailing a line of agonizingly slow kisses from the apple of my cheek down to the sensitive dip of my neck.
I shivered, my breath hitching as I balanced between the lingering ache in my hips and the new fire he was stoking.
I let out a shaky laugh, gently sidestepping him to grab the edge of the duvet. “I’m not sure the heir to the Kade empire actually knows how to fold a fitted sheet.”
“You don’t think I can master a piece of linen?” he shot back, his tone dipping into a flirtatious growl that made my stomach swoop.
“No,” I teased, then relented under his gaze. “Yes. Maybe.”
“Maybe?” He drawled.
“I just…let me help,” I said stretching out my hand to grab one end of the sheet.
He looked at me like he wanted to object, but didn’t. I pulled on one end of the linen, he on the other. His eyes never leaving mine.
We worked in a charged, easy silence—smoothing fabric, stacking pillows, our hands brushing once, twice. The domesticity of it felt almost more invasive than the sex; making a bed together in the aftermath of it all felt strangely intimate.
When the last pillow was set, I stepped back, and the sudden emptiness of having nothing left to do made the room feel too small. The reality of what I’d given him—what I’d let him unravel—rushed back in.
“I should go to my room,” I said, my fingers pulled hard on the lapel of his robe. It was an old reflex. My usual wall. The part of me that still believed distance was the only way to keep my heart from becoming collateral damage.
His hand shot out, circling my waist and hauling me back into the solid heat of his chest.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he rasped into my hair.
My breath instantly turned uneven.
He dipped his head so his lips could graze the shell of my ear, sending a spark of electricity straight to my core. “Spend the night with me.”
I forced a shiver to stay internal, trying for a lightness I didn't truly feel. “And what’s in it for me, Mr. Kade?” My voice came out lower, softer, betraying how much I wanted him to convince me.
“Kisses,” he murmured, his mouth brushing my jawline with an agonizing slowness. “Cuddles. Endless amounts of them.”
“And?” I managed, my pulse hitting hard across my veins. I was still pushing, still testing the boundaries of this new, strange territory.
“Me.” His hold firmed, anchoring me to his body. “All of me, ma déraison.”
Goosebumps rose over my skin at the sound of it, so foreign and devastatingly intimate. He almost never spoke French. Hearing it now—in that deep voice that always seemed to get under my skin, and tied to a name that meant my madness, my undoing—sent my heart into a wild, thudding sprint.
All of me, he’d said. No holding back.
Just tonight? The question sat heavy on my tongue, but I swallowed it. I wasn't ready to poke at something that finally felt right.
He turned me to face him, catching my mouth in a tender kiss that deepened with a sudden, needy hunger, stealing the air from my lungs.
I felt his fingers tug at the belt of the robe; it fell loose between us, the fabric parting for his soft hands to find my bare skin.
His gaze dropped, darkening with a shadow of intense lust, then lifted back to mine with a reverence that made my knees weak.
He kissed a path along my throat, up the curve of my jaw, and back to my mouth. Each press of his lips saying everything else that he couldn't.
“Come to bed,” he whispered so close, I could taste the words.
I didn’t hesitate.
Whatever came next—the whispered confessions, the tangle of our limbs, the shared warmth of a man who had finally put down his shield, faded into a haze. The only thing that mattered was that I was here… where I was meant to be. In his bed, and in his arms.
He currently wasn’t just the man I married on paper. He had become the man I was starting to fall into…with my body first, and my heart dangerously close behind.