Chapter 27
Bodie
For a second, I thought I was dreaming.
Emmaline’s hands were on me, palms warm against my chest, sliding down my sides with deliberate slowness, curling around my back like she was memorizing the shape of me.
She pressed closer until there wasn’t a breath between us, and I swore my knees almost gave out from the shock of it.
I’d imagined this more times than I was willing to admit.
Late nights when sleep eluded me, guilty half-dreams where I let myself want what I shouldn’t.
But nothing in those stolen moments of weakness compared to the reality of her mouth parting in a soft whimper as her fingers hovered at the top of my ass and then swept lower with a touch that made my vision blur.
The scent of her surrounded me—vanilla from the bakery, something floral that might have been her shampoo, and underneath it all, pure Emmaline. Intoxicating. Devastating.
I hauled her closer, wanting her to feel exactly what she did to me, the hard evidence of how much I’d wanted this, wanted her.
Her hips bumped mine in response, bold and unthinking, and I nearly lost it right there.
The soft sound she made sent fire racing through my veins. Dear God, this is actually happening.
It was like she heard my thoughts, because she started backing toward the bed, her eyes locked on mine with an intensity that made my chest tight.
She was giving me the kind of invitation no man mistakes, the kind that says yes in every possible language.
I followed, my feet moving without conscious thought, blood pounding everywhere at once—in my ears, in my chest, in the part of me that strained toward her like she was the sun.
But when she hesitated at the edge of the mattress, uncertainty flickering across her face for a moment, I made myself go still.
This was Emmaline. My wife, yes, but also the woman whose family had been feuding with mine for decades. The woman whose brother I’d arrested. The woman who had every reason to hate me, and yet here she was, looking at me like I was something she wanted instead of something she should run from.
“What do you want, Em?” My voice came out rough, almost a plea. I needed to hear her say it, needed to know this wasn’t some fever dream I’d conjured up.
Her lashes fluttered, dark against her flushed cheeks, and her breath shivered over my jaw like a caress. The simple brush of warm air against my skin made me shudder. “Touch me.”
The words shot through me like a live wire, sparking every nerve ending I possessed.
I lifted my hands to her waist, my palms spanning the narrow curve of it, and slid them under her shirt with reverent, deliberate slowness.
Her skin was impossibly soft, warm silk under my calloused fingers, and she gasped at the contact but didn’t pull away.
The sound encouraged me to risk more, edging higher until my thumbs brushed the bare skin beneath her ribs, feeling the rapid flutter of her heartbeat. “Is this okay?”
“Yes.” Her answer was a breathy exhale that had me burning hotter, my blood turning to molten lava in my veins.
I peeled the shirt up and over, slow enough that she could stop me if she wanted, giving her every opportunity to change her mind.
She didn’t. She lifted her arms in silent permission, and then the fabric was gone and I was staring at plain white cotton stretched over curves that had haunted me since I was seventeen years old and stupid enough to think I could ignore what she did to me.
Plain to her maybe, but to me it was silk and velvet and sin all wrapped up in one devastating package.
My fingers traced the edge of the bra, tentative, watching her face as I did.
She softened, eyes half-closing like she’d forgotten what she was supposed to be doing—forgotten the feud, forgotten the complications, forgotten everything except this moment and the sensations I gave her.
Just absorbing. Surrendering. Being in this space we’d carved out for ourselves.
I couldn’t stop worshipping her. Couldn’t stop touching every inch of newly revealed skin.
Couldn’t stop kissing the places I uncovered as I got the bra off with fumbling fingers and set her free.
The curves of her breasts fit perfectly into my palms as I lifted them to my mouth, and I took my time learning the flavor of her—salt and sweetness and something uniquely Emmaline that I knew I’d crave for the rest of my life.
I licked and suckled those sweet peaks until they were tight and aching, until she was making soft, desperate sounds that drove me half out of my mind.
With an incoherent noise of pleasure, she arched into me, fingers spearing into my hair to hold me closer, her nails scraping against my scalp in a way that sent shivers down my spine.
Half drunk on the taste of her already, dizzy with want and wonder, I was more than happy to comply with her silent demands.
Her hand slid down between us, bold and shocking, wrapping around me in a firm, possessive grip that made stars explode behind my eyelids.
I groaned, my head dropping to her shoulder as my hips bucked into her hold without permission, the jolt of sensation threatening to end me right there on the spot.
“Em—if you want this to go where I think you want it to go, you can’t—” My words broke into a ragged laugh as she squeezed slightly, testing my resolve.
“Not right now. Not unless you want this to be over before it really starts.”
Her answering smile was pure wickedness, the kind that made my knees weak and my heart stutter. “Maybe I want to get to that point right now.”
“Not yet.” It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to catch her wrist and still her movements. “Not nearly yet. I want to savor this. Savor you.”
I undressed her slowly, reverently; every inch of her revealed another prayer I didn’t know how to say but echoed deep in my bones.
I whispered against her skin—you’re beautiful, you’re mine, God, look at you, I can’t believe you’re real.
The words tumbled out without filter, raw and honest in a way that should have embarrassed me but didn’t. It felt right. Like coming home.
I eased her back onto the bed and followed, settling alongside her, giving her what she’d asked for.
Touch. All of me, everywhere, exploring every curve and hollow like I was mapping new territory.
My hands learned the dip of her waist, the flare of her hips, the sensitive spot just below her ear that made her gasp and arch beneath me.
Her body was a feast of slim curves, a tantalizing buffet of smooth, tanned skin spread out against my navy comforter like an offering.
I took my time on every inch, kissing a path from her collarbone to her hipbones, tasting the salt of her skin and breathing in the scent that was driving me slowly insane.
I worshipped her until her hips writhed beneath me in a seeking rhythm and she muttered my name in a tone of strained frustration that made me smile against her throat.
“Need more?” I asked, though I saw the answer in the flush that had spread from her cheeks down to her chest, in the way her breathing had gone shallow and quick.
“Yes. Please, yes!” The desperation in her voice was my undoing.
Smiling against her throat, I pressed another kiss to the arch of it.
Her pulse hammered beneath my lips, and I slid my hand over the thatch of dark curls between her thighs.
She was already wet, already ready for me, and when I dipped into her folds to ease one finger into all that soaking heat, her hips surged up instantly, taking my finger deep, like she’d been waiting for this touch her whole life.
God, I loved her greedy desperation, the way she took what she wanted without apology.
“Bodie, please!” Her voice broke on my name, and the sound went straight to my cock.
Responding to the plea in her voice, I added a second finger and found a steady rhythm that sent her up and up, her own fingers twisting in the covers as she whimpered in pleasure.
Her body tightened around my fingers, and I saw the moment she started to come apart in the way her back arched off the bed.
When she finally shattered under my hands, crying out my name like it was torn from her soul, I felt like the luckiest bastard to ever walk the earth.
Easing my fingers free, I brought them to my lips, licking up the taste of her with a groan of satisfaction.
Sweet and musky and addictive—I wanted to settle between those pretty thighs and bury my face there, making her come again with my tongue, learning every sound she could make.
But before I could move, she reached for me again, bolder this time as she curled her fingers around my already straining cock with a confidence that made my vision blur.
“I want you,” she said, and the simple words hit me like a physical blow.
My dick pulsed with a hell yes that echoed through my entire body, and I reached for a condom from the bedside drawer with hands that shook so badly I nearly dropped it twice.
Rolling it on took longer than it should have, my fingers clumsy with need and the weight of the moment. This was happening. This was real.
Then I settled over my wife, bracing myself on my forearms to look down into her face, stroking my thumbs along her flushed cheeks.
She was beautiful like this—hair spread across my pillow, lips swollen from my kisses, eyes dark with want.
“Are you sure?” I asked, because I needed to give her one last chance to change her mind, even though it might kill me if she did.
Emmaline slid one hand up my chest, around the back of my neck, her fingers tangling in the hair at my nape.
The touch sent shivers down my spine, and when she pulled me down until our foreheads touched, her breath feathered against my lips.
“Take me,” she whispered, and those two words, that look of faintly crazed desire in her eyes, were my complete undoing.
I sank into her in one long, slow stroke, watching her face the entire time, seeing the moment her eyes widened and then fluttered closed as I filled her completely.
The sensation was overwhelming—tight heat surrounding me, claiming me as much as I was claiming her.
She felt like heaven, like everything I’d ever wanted wrapped up in one perfect moment.
I’d thought I’d known what this would be like.
I’d been wrong. It was more than I’d imagined, more than my guilty dreams had ever dared conjure.
Raw and primal and reverent all at once, a claiming that went soul-deep.
She was my wife. My body knew it, my bones knew it, my heart had known it for a long damn time even when my head had tried to deny it.
I gave her everything—every ounce of control, every ounce of need, every piece of myself I’d been holding back.
When she urged me faster with breathless pleas and desperate touches, I obeyed.
When she wrapped her legs around my waist and pulled me deeper, I groaned her name like a prayer.
When she broke apart beneath me, her body arching and tightening around me as she cried out, I followed her over the edge, groaning her name like it was the only word I’d ever known, like it was the answer to every question I’d ever asked.
Afterward, we lay tangled together, breathless and stunned, the room spinning like we’d both been shaken loose from gravity itself.
My heart still hammered against my ribs, and hers did the same where she was pressed against my chest. The silence was comfortable, heavy with satisfaction and the weight of what had just happened between us.
I managed to glance at my watch through the haze of contentment, still half-dazed by what we’d just shared, and rasped, “We could probably make the second movie.” The words came out rough, my voice still not quite working properly.
She rolled over to straddle me, and I groaned softly as she settled over my sensitive skin, her hair falling around us like a curtain.
Her smile was wicked and soft all at once, the kind that made my heart hitch and my body stir again despite having just found release.
“I think we should skip it entirely,” she said, her voice low and sultry in a way that made promises I very much wanted her to keep.
And then she kissed me, soft and deep and full of intent, and I knew with absolute certainty that the whole night was ours.