I nod and swallow the lump in my throat. He blows out a breath and then trails has fingers up my arm, tracing the neckline of the shirt just above my elbow.
“It was bad,” he says without inflection.
“She wanted me,” I say, the words ash on my tongue. Heartbreak rips through the bond, his sadness drowning me for a long minute. “But I told her I couldn’t live a secret. I don’t want any of this to be a secret anymore. I want to figure out what exactly our dynamics are before March and I have another heat. We can’t keep doing… this.”
His eyes are glassy, but he nods.
“I know,” he whispers.
“She…” I shrug. I’m sure he can figure out where everything shook out since I’m here and he’s felt both of our emotions for the last several hours. “And now I don’t know where that leaves any of… of this.”
I grab his wrist and pull it to my mouth, running my nose along the bond bite, closing my eyes as I try to breathe in his scent in the hopes it will calm me. There’s a long silence, even the bond going quiet, but he doesn’t pull away from me, letting me rub my cheek against his palm until I feel like I can breathe again. His purr starts, and that helps, too.
“Where do you want it to leave this?” he asks after a while.
“I…” I blow out a breath and focus on him, wanting to know exactly what he thinks the moment I let the words out. “I think I want to know what it feels like to knot you when I’m not out of my mind with pain.”
“Me too,” he admits.
“Is that…” I whine, trying to figure out how to put into words the mess that all of this is, the moral lines I can’t see anymore. “Does this make me a home-wrecker? Is it cheating?”
Paxton’s response is slow and measured.
“I think there are those who will always believe it was cheating. You aren’t Billie. I’m not Rhett. We couldn’t consent in the ways that matter, but that won’t matter to some people.” I tighten my hold on him as confusion sweeps across the bond. His eyes are tired now, his entire body sagging with exhaustion. His voice is softer when he continues. “I think it’s something we have to decide for ourselves. Things aren’t always black and white. Most of life is spent living in the gray. We agreed to talk to Billie. We set a boundary and held to it even when there was ample temptation to blow right through it. You’ve now talked to her, and she’s made a decision. If… if we want something, I don’t think you should drown in guilt over that anymore.”
“Will you? Drown in guilt?” I ask.
He twists his hand, lacing our fingers together. “Eventually, I won’t.”
It’s enough to have me crawling into his lap, my knees straddling his hips. Flashes of memory race through my body, my scent flaring out from me. His hold is gentle, though, the opposite of that day in my shop. His kiss is the same coaxing quest as the night in his car. I whimper, trying to get his skin against mine, his own desire swirling and blending with mine until I can’t breathe right, can’t think straight. His hands are unrelenting but careful as he eases Rhett’s shirt over my head and lets it fall to the floor. The scratches on my shoulders are nearly gone, but his eyes catch on the remnants as he pulls my hair over my shoulder so he can kiss along my collarbone.
A twisted mix of sadness and desire flash under my sternum.
“We can?—”
He kisses me before I can finish the sentence, settling me in among his pillows and shucking off his clothes in a fluid grace that mirrors Rhett’s. His body is more lean, his extra couple inches spreading the muscle more evenly across his frame. There’s more freckles along his chest and arms, the same light red hair that dusts his chest and runs in a line under his navel. His dick’s just as pretty, too, long and hard with a knot that has slick coating my thighs already. I want to touch him, taste him, but he laces our hands together, keeping me effectively, gently pinned to the bed.
He explores my body for a long time, letting his lips and beard and teeth mark and scratch every possible inch of skin I have. He pauses over the bonding bite, carefully tracing each divot of his teeth with his tongue before kissing it.
It feels like worship and apology all at once, and I blink back tears.
The feel of his beard on my inner thighs has my toes curling before he’s even truly touched my clit.
“Oh God,” I whisper.
“Okay?”
I nod, frantic to have him touch me, taste me.
I twist my hands into the sheets as he tongues me, his eyes a hot brand, searing me to my very soul. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t look away, until I’m shuddering my release underneath him, my pussy clenching around nothing, desperate for a knot. When he rises to his knees, I grab his hips, needing him inside me. His own need pulses just under my skin, multiplying every sensation rocketing through my body. When he finally drives into me in an unrelenting thrust, I arch under him with a ragged scream.
He buries his face in my neck, wrapping his arms under me to bring me closer to him. Every press of his hips against my clit has me shaking. Every drag of his dick along that sensitive spotdeep inside me has my mind melting. He presses a kiss to the hollow of my throat and then the crook of my shoulder.
“Fuck,” he whispers. “Carys.”
His hips stutter, and then he drives into me, forcing his knot inside me in a single, hard push. I scream and buck, my body trying to get away from the intrusion even as another orgasm rips down my spine, but he only holds tighter to me, kissing up my throat and across my jaw. My breathing slowly steadies, and the overload of sensation eases away, too, until I’m able to wrap my hands around his waist and pull him tighter into me, breathing in the woody, cypress scent of him as I bury my nose behind his ear.
His purr starts again, and a cautious contentment fills the bond. I close my eyes, ignoring the tears that slowly start falling.
