But she had time. Months. She would get through to him. Not just for herself. Not just for Alexandre. For their baby. For theirfamily.
“I have no regrets, Alexandre. You have been more than I could have ever hoped for when my father said he had found me a husband.” She crossed to him, reached up and began to unbutton his shirt.
“Why are you trying to make me out to sound—”
“Good? Noble?” She met his gaze.
His breath shuddered out as her hands slid over the expanse of skin she’d exposed by unbuttoning his shirt. “Yes. That.”
She pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw. Always in search of some spot he might have missed with his ruthless razor. But he was always perfect, wasn’t he? She let her hands explore the hard, tense muscles of his chest and abdomen. “Because you are both. You are also bad and selfish. And obnoxious and bossy. And honorable beyond reason. Handsome. Strong.”
“Ines.” He caught her wrists with his hands.
She looked up at him. “Because we’re all a mess of lots of things, don’t you think?”
His gaze was hard, his jaw clenched tight. “I most assuredly donot.”
She smiled at him, even though he was disagreeing with her. Because he was wrong, and she wouldprove it.
“If we are to do this,” he muttered, pulling her hands off his chest, “let us go to your bed.”
She shook her head. “No. No, I don’t think so. I know how that goes.”
His eyebrows drew together, as if he honestly didn’t know what she meant by that.
“You turn off the lights. You try to turn off…everything. Just get the job done.” She took his palm, pressed it against her stomach. “The job’s been done. This, tonight, and for the next few months isn’t ajob. It is just us.”
“It is an action item on your to-do list, Ines.” He said it with his trademark cool disdain, but his warm palm remained on her stomach. And in his eyes, she saw that hint of something…hot over cold. Intent instead of detachment.
So she moved his hand down, to touch her where she ached for him. His gaze followed his hand, and then she did not need to guide it because he stroked, over the fabric of her underwear but exactly where she wanted to be touched.
Yes, she had missed this. The fires he could stoke within her. Because he was relentless in all things, even this. His fingers slid under the fabric to find her. The core of her. He knew just where to touch, where to apply pressure, how to find that first, throbbing peak.
She held on to his shoulders, her body a shuddering mass of what he always brought her. But he was still standing there in control. Maybe there was the flicker of something triumphant in his dark gaze. Maybe she could see the outline of his arousal against his pants. But she had not broken through that wall.
She would. Shewould. There was no point to being back here, to accepting that her runaway had donenothing, if she did not get through to him.
“Come, Ines.” It was not the dirty order she might like. He was trying to lead her to the bedroom. He wanted lights off, heart off, and sherefused. So she did not let herself be pulled.
She unbuttoned and unzipped his pants quickly. She was trembling and desperate for more. More of him. More of everything. Once she managed to get his clothes off him, she pulled him to the ground. Here in the pretty sitting room she took appointments in. The light on. So she could see him. The ridges of muscle that tensed, contracted, jerked under her hands. Under her body as she straddled him.
His breath was ragged, but there was still distance in his eyes. It faltered when she gripped him, guided him to her. She wanted to see more than a falter. She wanted an obliteration.
So she moved against him in shallow, teasing strokes, not meant to do anything more than stir.
A hand came to her hip, clamped down, pulling her so that she had to sink down, sighing in contented pleasure to be filled by him once more. To behere, fighting for something rather than running away from all he couldn’t give her. And if he never did—
She stopped that thought in its tracks. She would only think in positives. And for now, the positive was the pleasure wrapping around her body. The intimacy of two bodies moving with the same purpose.
Intimacy—except, he was holding himself back. He was being socareful. Yes, he would give her pleasure. Yes, he would find his own. But there was that old wall between them. Like they wereonlybodies, nothing more.
She could not abide it. Not now that she knew there was some part of him that she could find if she broke down that wall.
She leaned forward, pressing her body to his, even with him lodged deep inside her. She pressed a kiss to his mouth, then dragged her lips to his ear.
“You do not have to be anyone but yourself with me,” she murmured there, before nipping at the lobe with her teeth. “Gentle. Rough. Sweet. Dirty. Whatever you are, I want that, Alex. BecauseIam yours.”
Chapter Eight
