Nausea churning in his gust, he almost staggered, so he turned on the old man and walked toward his wife. He’d die a thousand agonizing deaths before he betrayed her, but even knowing that couldn’t shake the guilt and shame coursing through him now.
The second his hand drifted down the soft curve of Lucy’s back, the tension in his chest dissolved by half.
She turned toward him, eyes sparkling with curiosity. “I saw you talking to Nico and my father. Which was worse?” The humor in her voice a complete contrast to the burning under his rib cage. “Let me guess.” She tapped her index finger to her chin, casting her eyes up to the side in mock contemplation. “My dearly beloved second cousin.”
After the exchange he’d had with her father, he’d take a thousand Nico’s. That was an enemy he had seen coming, and one he could deal with. Her cousin was utterlymeaningless. But her father—herfather—Joel needed to get out of here.
Tugging Lucy flush against him, he brought his lips to her ear. “I need to take you home.” He needed to claim her in every possible way, to be as close as he could. Needed to wash off the second-hand guilt pounding through him. Needed to prove to her that he’d never hurt her the way her father had. “I need to fuck you until I can’t see straight. Until you’re carbon copied into every part of my soul.”
Lucy leaned back so she could catch his gaze. A worried flicker rippled across the golden flecks in her irises. “Are you alright, Joel? Did Nico say something?”
She thought this had to do with dipshit. He almost laughed. If only. “Nico is nothing. He’ll be on a plane in three hours. If we are very, very lucky, we won’t be seeing him again until the next family reunion.”
Lucy stroked her palm down the stubble on his jaw, and he turned his cheek into her caress. “We can’t leave right now. There’s still the dinner and speeches, and…what happened?”
Your father wanted to give me the company. Even thinking it made him ill. The company this entire plan had been designed to bring to her had backfired and landed in his lap. If she ever knew her father wanted to give it to Joel, it would devastate her. Destroy her relationship with her father and turn her away from Joel forever.
He could never risk that, not ever again. Running his nose along her fingers one last time, he leaned forward and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Nothing happened. Did something have to have happened for me to want to tear this dress off you?”
It wasn’t his most convincing work, but a smile curved the ruby red of her lips. “Well, I’d be lying if I said I haven’tbeen thinking about the moment you take it off. I’ve been thinking about it since I put it on.”
One hard tug and there wasn’t enough room for air between them. Joel crushed his lips to hers, the bruising kiss a claim, a stake. She was his, and he wasn’t going to give her up for anything. Not ever again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Something was wrong. Lucy couldn’t put her finger on what, but that didn’t dissipate her certainty that something had happened during the evening that had caused this…desperation now consuming him.
They’d stayed until the end of the engagement party, and he’d given another heartfelt, romantic speech that left every woman in the room with wet eyes. And very likely, wet panties too. Hers sure were.
“Where the fuck did this guy come from?” Natalie had hissed in her ear as Joel spoke. “He’s like Jesus, but without the celibacy clause. Seriously, I need one. He’s fucking perfect.”
And he was. Adored by many, respected by most. He carried an undeniable gravity that compelled people not only do everything he said, but to want to. No one wanted to be Joel Morgan’s disappointment.
But when he was like this—frantic in his need, his restraint tethered only by her request that he get through the evening—it was hard not to let that kind of power go to her head.
By the time they’d climbed the stairs to the apartment at the end of the night, they were both beyond reason. Joel fumbled with the keys as he shoved them into the lock, missing his first attempt entirely. He muttered a heartfelt “fuck”, made it on the second attempt and then Lucy was up against the other side of the door, pinned between hardwood and hard muscle.
“Lucy, I—” He broke off, his lips finding her neck, her jaw, the underside of her ear.
His passion would have been alarming if it didn’t match her own. Her hands clawed up to his shoulders, clinging, clutching, dragging her body along his, searching for any friction she could find.
Joel hoisted her up, making her dress bunch around her waist as he guided her thighs around his hips, then ground her against the door. “So fucking pretty. So perfect.” And then he was kissing her again in that all-consuming way that made her feel like he was mapping out her mouth, tracing every corner with his tongue. “Mine,” he rumbled as his hands smoothed over the underside of her legs. “Mine to keep, mine to love, mine to fucking worship.”
Her pulse slammed in her ears as her head tipped back against the door. His words jumbled in her mind as his lips dragged across her neck.Mine to love. His words echoed in her brain, but she had no time to process them because his large hands were on her ass, massaging her cheeks before slipping his fingers between, creeping them forward, closer to her apex. Everything about the way he did this, from his words to his touch, was hypnotizing, and she willingly lost herself under his spell.
“I don’t think I can—” His voice was thick, raspy, a little unhinged. “I need to?—”
When she raised her head enough to meet his eyes, sheunderstood what he was trying to tell her. There was going to be nothing gentle about tonight. Joel spent most of his life holding everything together for everyone, but when it was the two of them like this, he could truly let go. Here, like this, she was his safe space, and she reveled in it.
Threading her fingers through his hair, she stroked through the strands. “Do whatever you need to do.”
His eyes darkened, a storm coming in rough and wild, and before she could register what was happening, she was being carried through the apartment, to the nearest surface, the couch. Joel peeled her off his torso, turning her so her stomach pressed the back of the couch and with the slightest pressure on the small of her back, he guided her over the top.
“I’ve been watching your ass in this dress all fucking night,” he murmured against her ear before he took a step back from her. His fingertips grazed along her ankles, lifting the material of her dress as he worked it up her calves, over her knees, her thighs.
She sucked in a breath when he lifted the material over her hips and dragged her thong down with a jerk. A low groan, a filthy muttered curse, and then his palms, hard and biting, were spreading her cheeks apart.
Lucy gasped at the sensation, squirming under his intimate caress.
