Chapter 1 #3
I gasped against his lips, my hands automatically tangling in his dark hair as he backed me up against the edge of the wet bar.
His hands were everywhere—heavy, feverish, claiming territory.
He kissed me like a man who was drowning, desperately trying to carve himself into my skin to keep himself afloat.
“Adrian,” I moaned as his mouth left my lips, trailing hot, wet kisses down my jaw and the sensitive column of my neck.
“Mine,” he growled against my skin, his voice a dark, rough rasp that vibrated straight to my core. “You are mine, Grace. Only mine.”
He swept his arm across the wet bar. The crystal decanter and two glasses crashed to the hardwood floor, shattering into a thousand glittering pieces, a violent destruction of the perfect evening I had planned.
He didn’t care. He lifted me by the hips, setting me on the cold marble, stepping between my thighs.
The stone was ice against the backs of my legs. He shoved the skirt of my silk dress up to my waist with rough, impatient hands, and the contrast—cold marble, feverish skin—dragged a sound out of me before he had even really touched me.
“Look at you,” he breathed, dragging his palms up the insides of my thighs and spreading them wider. “Seven years, and you still undo me.”
His thumb found me through the thin lace of my underwear, pressing exactly where I was already aching. He wasn’t gentle about it. He circled, slow and deliberate and maddening, watching my face the whole time like he was gathering evidence that I was still his.
“Adrian.” I reached for his belt myself, fumbling the buckle open, dragging his zipper down. “Please. I need you.”
He hissed through his teeth when I wrapped my hand around his cock—hard, hot, heavy against my palm. His eyes fell shut, his forehead dropping against mine, and I felt the shudder run through his whole frame, his legendary control slipping link by link.
Then he knocked my hand gently aside, yanked the lace out of his way, and gripped my hips.
He paused for a fraction of a second, his lips hovering barely a millimeter from mine.
“Grace,” he whispered against my mouth, his breath hot, the sound of my name a desperate, grounding anchor.
And then he kissed me deeply, at the exact moment he pushed inside me.
I cried out into his mouth. He filled me in one long, relentless stroke, and the sudden, perfect fullness of him stole what little breath the kiss had left me. He held there, buried deep, his whole body shaking with the effort of keeping still.
“Move,” I gasped against his lips. “Adrian, please—move.”
Something in him snapped.
He drove into me with relentless, punishing force, his hips snapping against mine, anchoring me to him in the center of the shattered glass.
It wasn’t making love. It was an exorcism.
Like he was trying to sweat out the terror Celine had brought into the room, using my body to do it—and God help me, I wanted to be used.
I locked my heels at the small of his back and pulled him deeper, meeting every thrust, the world narrowing to cold marble, hot skin, and the slick, driving rhythm of him inside me.
“Tell me,” he demanded, his voice thick and guttural. One hand slid between us, his thumb finding my clit and pressing in tight, ruthless circles that ripped a cry out of my throat. “Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” I gasped. The pleasure was coiling low and tight, building fast toward something blinding. “God, Adrian, yes—I’m yours. Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop—”
“Never,” he growled against my throat. “I’m never letting you go.”
The pressure broke. I came with his name tearing out of me, my whole body clenching around him in long, rolling waves, my nails raking down his back through the fine wool of his shirt.
He growled, a feral sound, and drove into me twice more, hard and deep, before he shattered—burying his face in my neck, his teeth grazing my collarbone, calling my name again like it was the only thing keeping him alive.
I felt him pulse inside me as he came, his chest heaving, his heart hammering against mine, and then he collapsed against me, all that polished strength simply gone.
I held him in the quiet aftermath, my hands stroking his damp hair, my own breath coming in ragged gasps.
The air in the penthouse was thick with the scent of sex and spilled scotch.
I looked over Adrian’s broad shoulder, my eyes finding the coffee table in the center of the living room. The glossy ultrasound photos were still sitting there, small and quiet in the shadows.
He has my nose.
I stared at the black-and-white image of our son.
Celine’s comment had been bizarre, a strange, biologically impossible manifestation of pregnancy hormones. I could easily dismiss it. What I couldn’t dismiss was the heavy, trembling body pressed against mine, or the sheer magnitude of the raw panic Adrian was trying to hide.
My husband was the most controlled, calculating man in Manhattan. And he had just shattered a crystal decanter and lost his mind over a silly, harmless slip of the tongue.
I closed my eyes, burying my face in his neck, trying desperately to ignore the cold, quiet dread that the man I loved was fighting a terrifying battle I couldn’t even begin to understand.