Her breathing became jagged. “Maybe you should confirm with me what you mean by real? So I’m clear?”
He’d much rather show her, but he could use his words like a grown-up.
“Well, if we have a real marriage, I guess we’d have a real wedding night. That means I’d take you to bed and make you come so many times the only thing you’d remember would be my name.” That about summed up what a real marriage was to him at the present moment.
“This is what Bax and Linx want for us?”
“Bax and Linx have no idea what they want. They just needed something to do.”
“What were…uh…their ideas to make this real marriage happen?” She hit him with a haymaker when she caught his gaze in the mirror.
He spoke to the image of her, because it was easier than turning her to him and speaking directly to the woman he was pretty sure he didn’t want to pretend with anymore.
Holding her gaze steady, he said, “To sing to you, cook for you, and then go down on you.”
Her eyes widened only the slightest of millimeters. Then a wicked grin traced along her mouth. “So far their plan sounds reasonable.”
Did she just? She did just…
“I don’t understand you.” He didn’t. “But I want to.”
“Okay, let’s say this is a real wedding night,” she said, still staring at him through the image in the mirror. “What would come next?”
“Well, I sure as hell would give up on your button situation,” he said. Instead of ripping her buttons free, or fighting with them, he started undoing the buttons down the front of his shirt. Testing the waters to see if she’d stop him. “So I could start undressing myself.”
She didn’t stop him.
Didn’t ask him to stop.
“Knox,” she said his name like a request. He wasn’t sure what request she was making, however.
“Would you like me to continue undoing my shirt?” he asked. “If this were real?”
She nodded, her throat clearly thick. “Yes.”
“I like you, Irina.” He continued with the buttons since these were a helluva lot easier to undo than the ones on her dress. “Real or not.”
They stared at each other in the mirror for a long beat, until something changed in her expression. A warmth shone through like a candle that had been lit long enough to really melt the wax and not just burn the wick.
“If this were real then I’d start touching you,” she said.
“Then maybe you should do that?” His words were rough against his vocal cords.
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, nodded, and turned to him, moving her hands to his lapel and then brushing his fingers aside to finish the buttons herself.
“I like you, too,” she whispered, her hands moving to the belt at his waistband, unlocking it.
Now that was an invitation if he’d ever had one.
“Then what are we doing here?” he asked, his body already getting ideas as to what it wanted to do with her, even as his hands moved to her jaw, brushed along her cheekbone, and dove into her hair.
“Well, if this was a real wedding night, it sounds like you’d sing me a song and then go down on me.” She said this like it was a joke, but the little wobble to her voice told him there was more to it. This wasn’t funny, and it wasn’t a joke. “You already did the cooking part.”
She reached for the collar of his open shirt, pulling him closer so his mouth was right near hers. This wasn’t for a show, this was just for them. “Or maybe you’d prefer I go down on you instead?”
He had a hard time forming a thought, what with all the blood rushing to a particular appendage at the thought of her mouth there.
“I’d have to ask you a question, and it’s a serious one,” he managed to say.
