CHAPTER 20 #4
"Impatient," he observed.
"You're taking forever."
"I'm savoring."
"I'll show you savoring."
He pressed his mouth to the inside of my thigh, and I forgot whatever threat I'd been about to make.
He took his time, alternating between soft kisses and firm pressure, building the tension until I was ready to scream. When his mouth finally found where I needed it, I did make a sound that was probably loud enough for the security detail outside to hear.
I didn't care.
He brought me right to the edge, then pulled back.
"Don't you dare stop," I managed.
"I'm not stopping. Just adjusting the plan." He kissed his way back up my body. "I want to be inside you when you come."
"Then stop talking and do something about it."
He laughed and reached for the nightstand drawer. "Still bossy."
"You're still too slow."
But when he settled between my thighs, when I felt the first pressure of him pushing inside, he didn't rush. He went slow, watching my face, reading my reactions, making sure every movement brought pleasure instead of discomfort.
"Okay?" he asked when he was fully seated.
"Better than okay. Now move."
He started with a slow rhythm that had me clutching his shoulders. This wasn't like our first time, frantic and desperate and trying to prove something. This was deliberate, intimate, both of us present and aware and choosing this despite all the reasons we shouldn't.
"Look at me," he said.
I opened my eyes, when had I closed them?, and met his gaze. The intensity there nearly undid me.
"I love you," he said, still moving inside me.
"I know you're not ready to hear it. I know you might never be ready.
But I love you, and I need you to know that this isn't just physical for me.
You don't have to say anything. Just let me say it.
" He kissed me, soft and sweet and at odds with the way his hips were moving.
"I love you. Even when you're angry at me.
Even when you don't trust me. Especially when you stand up for yourself and refuse to let anyone, including me, make you feel less than remarkable. "
My eyes stung with tears I refused to let fall. "You're making this complicated."
"It's already complicated." He shifted the angle slightly, hitting a spot that made me gasp. "I'm just being honest about it."
His hand moved between our bodies, finding the bundle of nerves that made pleasure spark through me. The combination of his movement and his touch and his words was too much.
"I can't." .
"Yes, you can. Let go. I've got you."
The orgasm rolled through me in waves, and I heard myself cry out his name. He followed seconds later, his face buried in my neck, my name on his lips.
We stayed tangled together afterward, both breathing hard, reality slowly creeping back in.
"We said we wouldn't do this."
"We say a lot of things." He rolled to his side, pulling me with him so we were facing each other. "Are you okay?"
"I don't know." I traced patterns on his chest, not ready to meet his eyes. "I'm still angry at you. Still don't know if I can trust you. Still not sure we can make this work."
"I know."
"But I also," I stopped, trying to find the right words. "I also can't seem to stay away from you. Which is either the stupidest thing I've ever done or the bravest."
"What if it's both?"
"Then I'm an idiot with decent survival instincts."
He smiled and pressed a kiss to my forehead. "For what it's worth, I think you're the bravest person I know. Staying here despite the threats, fighting back instead of running, giving me chances I don't deserve."
"I haven't given you anything. This was just," I gestured between us. "stress relief. Physical need. Temporary insanity."
"Is that what we're calling it?"
"That's what I'm calling it. You can call it whatever you want."
"I'm calling it falling in love with someone who's too smart to fall back." His voice was quiet, honest. "And hoping that maybe someday, you'll decide I'm worth the risk."
I didn't know what to say to that. Part of me wanted to say I was already falling, had been falling since the stables. But saying it felt like forgiveness, and I wasn't ready for that.
"I need time," I said finally.
"I know. I'll give you all the time you need." He pulled the blanket over us. "Stay tonight?"
"In your bed?"
"Where else would you sleep? The guest room seems far away right now."
I should say no. Should maintain some boundaries even after we'd thoroughly destroyed them. But his arms were warm and his bed was comfortable and after the day I'd had, I didn't want to be alone.
"Just sleeping," I said.
"Just sleeping," he agreed.
But we both knew it was a lie.
We lay in the dark, his hand tracing lazy patterns on my shoulder, my head on his chest listening to his heartbeat. It should have been awkward, sleeping with someone I was supposed to be angry at, someone who'd lied about the fundamental nature of our relationship.
Instead it seemed right.
"Can I ask you something?" I said into the darkness.
"Anything."
"When you were Peter in the stables, teaching me to ride, was any of that real? Or was it all just part of the plan to make me fall for you?"
He was quiet for so long I thought he wasn't going to answer. Then: "It was all real. The only thing that wasn't real was my name. Everything else, the conversations, the connection, that was genuine."
"How do I know you're telling the truth?"
"You don't. You have to decide whether to trust me or not. I can't make that choice for you."
I thought about that. About trust and truth and the complicated mess we'd made of everything.
"I want to trust you," I admitted. "I just don't know if I can."
"That's fair." He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. "We'll figure it out. Together, if you'll let me."
"We still have to catch whoever's trying to destroy me."
"We will. I promise you that."
I wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe we could solve the mystery and fix our marriage and somehow make this impossible situation work.
But want and reality were different things.
"Go to sleep, Betty," he said. "Tomorrow we'll keep investigating. Tonight, just rest."
So I did, tucked against his side in his too-large bed in his palace apartments, surrounded by all the complications I couldn't solve and all the feelings I couldn't fully name.
Tomorrow I'd wake up and remember all the reasons I should be keeping my distance. Tomorrow I'd go back to being appropriately angry and guarded and smart about protecting my heart.
But tonight, exhausted from destroyed rooms and threatening texts and a day that had swung wildly between investigation stress and stable peace and this, whatever this was, I let myself take comfort where I could find it.
Even if that comfort came from the man who'd lied to me about forever.
Even if I'd just made the situation infinitely more complicated by sleeping with him again.
Even if I had no idea what any of this meant or where we went from here.
His breathing evened out first, his hand stilling on my shoulder as sleep claimed him. I lay awake a while longer, listening to his heartbeat, feeling the rise and fall of his chest, trying not to think about how right this felt despite how wrong it should be.
Eventually, exhaustion won. My eyes drifted closed, my body relaxed into his warmth, and I fell asleep thinking that whatever happened tomorrow, whatever new crisis or revelation or complication awaited, at least for tonight, I wasn't alone.