Their kiss deepened; she stroked his shaft while his hands beneath her dress sought her breasts.
This was good. So good. He was forgiving her. And she would behave. She told him with her kiss—she would try to be what he wanted. She would.
His hands lifted her hips and sat her down upon him. Leonie gasped in pleasure as he buried himself deep within her.
He liked it this way, too. “Ride me,” he ordered quietly. “Do as you wish.”
At first, she didn’t understand his meaning. She wiggled her hips. The movement sparked a laugh from him that she felt roll through his body and to her deepest core. She tried it again, delighted with the sensation.
“You are going to make it too fast,” he warned, using his hands at her hips to show her what he wanted.
She wanted it, too.
He pulled her nightdress off, letting her determine the pace. His lips found her breasts and she thought she had discovered bliss. Her fingers combed his hair, wanting to keep him to her forever.
And yet that would not be possible, not with the heat pounding through their blood.
She understood more about how to please him. Now, he was teaching her what it meant to please herself.
Leonie moved faster, marveling at the desire spiraling tighter and tighter inside her. His lips found hers. His kiss was wild and uncontrolled. It was as if he wished to breathe her in, to possess her—and she would let him. She wanted him to have all of her.
They came at the same time.
Nothing could have prepared Leonie for the experience of meeting her peak with his. Waves of exquisite sensual gratification rolled between them.
Leonie lost track of time because it didn’t matter. Only this moment was of importance and it centered on this man.
She fell forward, her head finding that nestling spot between his shoulder and his neck. It was all too, too good.
His arms hugged her to him. She felt his breath in her hair. She could feel the blood beat in his veins.
Her mother claimed that a woman’s body was power. Leonie didn’t see it that way. She was as hungry for Roman as he was for her. And she knew there wasn’t another man walking this earth who could satisfy her and help her make sense of the world.
She knew that as clearly as she knew her own name.
“Roman, I need you.” There, she’d said it. She admitted she did not want to be alone and that, for him, she would let down her guard.
“Leonie, need is not love.”
There was a sadness in his voice.
She tightened her hold around him. What did she know about love? Had she ever seen it?
Yes, it held her now.
But could she trust him? Could she trust anyone?
That was the question she could not answer, even as, with the trust of a child, she nestled into his body and fell into a peaceful sleep in his arms.
The next morning, Leonie woke up in the big bed.
The day was well advanced. She stretched, her body feeling good, and she remembered what had happened in the middle of the night.
She rolled over, expecting to see her lover. Her husband.
His side of the bed was empty. There was no indentation of someone’s head on the pillow next to hers, no sign that another body had warmed the sheets.
Need is not love, Leonie.
