Chapter 18
MICHAEL
“Why did you come home so early?” she asks minutes later.
Her leg’s hooked around my hip, and she’s so tightly wrapped around my body that if she moves her knee even a little, she’ll feel how badly I want her.
Does she not realize what she does to me? How much she’s uprooted every feeling I’ve tried to bottle up? Her cheek presses up against my chest, and she practically purrs.
My teeth grit until my jaw aches, my eyes staring at the ceiling while I count to ten like a damn child. That’s what I’ve become.
But fucking her would be wrong. If tasting her was enough to send me to the edge—to make myself believe that I could kiss her, just once, when I swore I’d never kiss a woman again—then fucking her could change everything. And I’d never risk that.
Instinctively, I tighten my arm around her and pull her even closer. “I was checking the cameras around the house, and then I heard you crying. I wanted to check on you.”
She lets out a silky laugh, almost as silky as her velvety skin, and when she looks up at me, her features soften. “I’m completely going to ignore the fact that you were watching me naked in the shower and focus on the part where you left work to make sure I was okay.”
“In my defense…” I chuckle, brushing my fingertips up and down her arm. “I didn’t actually see you naked.” A languid smirk tugs at my mouth. “The camera doesn’t let me see inside the shower. Unfortunately.”
She bites on her lower lip, and my cock jerks.
My God, this woman.
“Semantics.” She smiles seductively until it suddenly disappears. Her brows snap, and she drags in a long breath. “Thank you for caring enough to come.”
“You’re my wife now.” I bring my other hand to her face, grabbing her chin between two fingers. “It’s my job.”
Moisture builds in her eyes. “I’m not your actual wife.”
“You are,” I remind her, my thumb tracing her jaw. “For a year, you’re my wife. In every sense of the word. And I’ll do everything to protect you.”
Does she not realize I mean that? I’d burn the earth to see her smile, to erase every instance of pain she still carries inside her. I never meant to have a wife, not a wife I actually feel this way for. When she’s gone, she’ll forget me. But I’ll never be able to forget her.
“Let me tuck you in before I head back to work.”
I start to slide my arm out from under her, but she rises on her elbow, grabbing a fistful of my shirt and staring straight at me with those damn soulful eyes.
“Do you have to go?” she whispers.
I’d give her anything in the world right now.
My heart pounds, and my palm snaps to her nape, clasping roughly, my face lowering to her. “Do you want me to stay?”
And those lips, her lips…they almost near mine.
She nods softly. “Please….”
Her warm, intoxicating breaths caress my mouth, calling to me, begging me to take what feels like mine already.
But she’s not mine. She can’t be.
“I don’t want to be alone right now,” she says.
I don’t want to be alone either.
I touch my forehead to hers, emotions warring inside my heart. Too heavy to ever say out loud.
“Then I’ll stay.” I kiss her softly on the top of her head, knowing I can’t kiss her in the one place I desperately want to. “Let me get out of these clothes first.”
Reluctantly, I get off the bed. Taking out my cell, I start to dial, and my assistant answers as soon as it rings.
“Alison, I won’t be back for the rest of the day. Cancel all my meetings and reschedule them for this week.”
“But, sir, you have a meeting with Wentworth Global about the expansion.”
Elsie stares at me curiously, and my mouth quirks as I hold her gaze.
“I don’t care. Make it work. Tell them I had an emergency.”
“Uh, sure.”
“Thanks.” I end the call.
“Did I just keep you from something important?”
She’s damn adorable, and goddamn enticing with my shirt on her body. That’s all she should wear…unless she’s naked, and fuck, does she look good naked.
I tried not to stare when I got her out of the shower, but with those curves, it was almost impossible. And now, with those rosy nipples practically poking out of my shirt, and knowing she’s completely bare under there…well, I’m finding it difficult to focus on anything else.
“Nothing is more important than being here with you. Everything else can wait.”
Her cheeks flush, and she fits me with a wild stare.
The tie around my neck cinches tighter the more her eyes bore into mine. I can’t take a second more of how she’s looking at me. The desire to tear that damn shirt off her body and show her what I want to do to her becomes unbearable.
Before I act on my desires, I head for the dresser, needing to change out of my work clothes. Giving her my back, I start to undo my cuffs, then the buttons of my shirt before peeling it off.
Her eyes…I know they’re on me. My dick knows it too—throbbing for her mouth, her pussy, to feel this woman come undone and say my name while she feels every ounce of pleasure I allow her to have.
The muscles of my back flex as I lower my fingers to my waistband, slipping off the belt with a heavy clank. I pull my trousers down my thighs and remove my boxers next.
I register the gasp of her breath, and it has me turning to look at her. I instantly regret it, because those eyes—those large, tawny eyes—are full of the same lust coursing through my blood.
Her parted mouth trembles, gaze darting down from my hooded eyes to my fully erect cock. Her gaze grows wider. And so does her mouth. Instantly, I imagine filling that mouth with the taste of me.
Her heavy breaths taunt me, while her fingertips brush over her collarbone. Her eyes go downcast, as though she’s uncomfortable looking at me.
“I’m your husband, little dove,” I say, voice gruff, slowly stepping toward her, wanting every inch of distance between us to evaporate.
I want her like I’ve never wanted a single person in my life.
“Don’t be shy with me.” I take another step. “You can look.” My footfalls grow closer. “You can touch. It’s yours, Elsie.”
Her lower lip disappears between her teeth as she dares a look into my eyes while I’m naked before her. Completely, utterly naked, in both body and heart.
“Do you like looking at me?”
“Yes,” she confesses on a whisper.
“I like looking at you too.” My fingers reach her shoulder, fledging down her arm, and her skin wakes with a blanket of goose bumps.
Her free hand tentatively skirts out toward my cock, but then she snaps it back, like she’s afraid.
“Touch me, wife. I want you to.”
Her brows bow as she gazes up, and those innocent eyes…they’re my undoing. I keep my arms at my sides, waiting and wanting…
Once, her hand circles around the crown of my cock.
“Fuuuck…that’s it, little dove. Stroke me.”
She clenches her fingers tighter, unable to close them around me.
“You’re so big,” she breathes.
I chuckle with a groan as she strokes me again. “If you’re trying to make me harder, you’re succeeding.”
She fists me tighter, slowly bringing her hand up, as though testing the feel of me.
I hiss, throwing my head back. “You don’t know what you’re doing to me. The way my body wants yours. It’s demonic. I’d rip you to shreds.”
My pulse thrums wildly when I narrow her a gaze, and a moan escapes her, her thighs rubbing one another.
With a growl, my restraint splits in half. And in a flash, my hand sinks into the back of her head, tightening in her hair, yanking her head back.
“You want me too, don’t you?”
A gasp slips out of her perfect lips. Her hand still tight around my cock has me insane with hunger, with a craving so raw I’d give up my soul to have her.
“Are you wet between those thighs, little dove? Are you aching for your husband to take the pain away?”
“I…”
Her eyes dart nervously between me and the floor, and she drops her hand off my hard-on. I miss it already.
“What is it?” I gaze at her intently. “Tell me what you need, and I’ll make it happen. I want to hear you say it.”
Her teeth bite into that lip I want to devour. “I…” Her attention darts down. “I don’t think I’m ready to sleep with you.”
“That’s okay,” I reassure her, keeping my tone casual even when every part of me rejects the idea. She’s what matters, though. “We have a year to figure this out.”
I tuck her chin in my tight grasp, pulling those eyes to mine.
“Do you want me to take care of you? Do you want me to make you come?”
I’d die a thousand deaths just to watch her fall apart again.
“That doesn’t seem to be fair…” She glances shyly at me, the corner of her mouth tilting up. “…seeing how hard you are.”
I flash her a wicked smirk. “I have ways to take care of that.”
Her brows dip, and I swear there’s a hint of jealousy in the pull of her features. Does she think I meant another woman? I laugh internally.
Good. I like knowing she finds the idea of me fucking someone that isn’t her as repulsive as I do.
“Not another woman, little dove.” I cup her cheek in my palm. “I have hands, and it’s not the first time I’ve used them with thoughts of you.”
Her eyes enlarge.
“That’s right.” I chuckle. “It hasn’t been easy to have you here. You’re a surprise in my life in every damn way.”
I inch closer to kiss her forehead. My breaths grow ragged, my other palm slipping around her ass.
“You’re a beautiful woman. And denying my desire for you would be foolish.”
She sucks in a struggling breath, and her face suddenly turns serious. Grabbing my wrist, she drags my hand to that warm space between her thighs.
She pants, looking up at me with insurmountable vulnerability.
“What now, little dove?”
As she tightens her gaze on me, she pushes my fingers to her bare core.
“Touch me.” She swallows with a swell of her chest. “I—I…”
Embarrassment stitches up her cheeks, pooling with a rose-pink hue.
“Hey…” I clasp the back of her neck. “Don’t be shy. There’s no shame here. Not with me.”
She nods and tries to look down, but I don’t let her, keeping her eyes on me with a yank of her hair.
“I’ve never felt this good, this alive, with a man before,” she finally says. “And I…I want you to touch me, Michael. Roughly.”
Her lips tremble like there’s more she’s trying to say.