I don’t pull away. I don’t break his furious kiss to tell him no. I let him feast on my mouth. I let him run his hands over my straining, trembling thighs. I lean into that touch, let his warmth spread through me, easing the ache of years of feeling things I never wanted to feel, the memories I wished I could wipe from my mind, the nightmares and everything else I kept locked inside of me, a Pandora’s box that I will never open because I know if I do, that’s it. I’ll be broken forever. This way, I still have a hold on my humanity. I stitched all that shit up long ago, sewed it into every fiber of my being.
I might know that I’m ruined, but no one else does and I’d give the few small pieces ofmethat still exist, the me I was before it all happened, to keep it that way.
My muscles strain and bunch against Gage’s hand as he strokes from my knee up the skin of my thigh and the rough rasp of his calloused fingers sends a thousand shivers biting into my skin, my muscle, my fucking bones. I feel that touch straight to the marrow of my being. Straight to the center of me.
He strokes higher, lifting the hem of my dress just a little, letting his fingers trail below. I could push his hand aside. I could break away. I could stop this from happening, but I don’t. I could run. I need to run, but my feet are like cement blocks rooting me to the floor. I don’t want to be vulnerable. I know what happens if you let yourself let another person in. I know how badly they can hurt you. All of you. How they can tear you apart and maim you the same way the blast of an explosion could. How they plant the seeds of their hate straight into your soul and those seeds fester and take root and break you open bit by brutal bit. For years.
For a lifetime.
“Have to taste you,” Gage growls by my ear, slamming me back into myself. Into the present. Into this moment with him. His harsh breath rasps hot over my earlobe, and a shiver tears up my spine. “Been thinking about this ever since that first day I saw you, scowling in that wedding dress. I thought that you looked full of fire and vinegar, but if I tasted you, you’d be sweet. Sweeter than fucking honey and wine and just as heady.”
Holy. Shit. That shiver is back, rippling down my spine from my neck, where my hair stands on end. It floods my stomach with shivery pangs and creeps into my thighs, which suddenly feel as weak as water. I realize that I’m soaking between my legs, that my panties are drenched, and I can feel the beads of moisture trickling down my thighs.
I feel… I feelalive.
I’m here. I’m here with him and though his hands are rough and brutal with the strength of a man twice my size and probably nearly three times my weight, a man who could easilyhurt me, snap me in half, damage me and ruin me. I’m here with him.
And somehow, I’m calm.
I don’t want to run.
I know that he won’t hurt me. He won’t destroy me. I don’t know why I trust him. He’s little more than a stranger, this man who is my husband, but I do. I trust him.
And I want this.
For him. For me.
To prove to myself that I can still do this. That I’m still human. That the bastard from nearly a decade ago didn’t steal everything from me. That I can still know and experience pleasure.
So when Gage slides down me and drops to his knees, I don’t shove his face away, run to my bedroom, and lock the door. No. I fist my hands in his dark hair, surprised to find it soft and silky. I expected it to be rough, shaggy, manly like the rest of him. Instead the strands tickle the sensitive skin between my fingers, until they meet my palms. I close my hands, fisting them as his hands slide up my thighs.
He leans in and his lips blaze the same trail his hands just traveled. My face heats up at the rasp of his stubble on my skin, the way his breath tickles the inside of my thigh, where my skin is silky and tender. When he lets out a groan and his tongue snakes out and licks a fiery path from behind my knee, all the way up, nearly to my soaked core, that heat spreads from my face and explodes in my stomach. My nipples pebble painfully beneath the flimsy lace bra I have on.
“Fucking hell, Ami, you soaked through your underwear. I can taste you. Taste the sweetness of your cunt down your legs.”
I vibrate against him, jerking hard at the filthy words. My legs feel like they’re made of a cross between butter and jelly and something else equally as useless at holding up the rest of my body weight.
As if Gage knows what I’m thinking, and he probably does given that I’m trembling and vibrating against him, wobbling like I’ve just downed half a bar’s worth of drinks and I’m trying to make my way in a strong wind on seven inch heels. He wraps one arm around my waist and with the other hand, he spreads my legs and roughly hooks his fingers under the waistband of my panties. He tears them down my legs, so rough that my skin burns, but I close my eyes and let my head bang back against the wall.
This is me.
This is me and him.
It’s just us.
Tonight, there is no past. No other Ami. No memories. No scars. No brutal reality. No fear.
Fear.I’m so fucking sick of being afraid all the time. For the first time in ten years, I just want tobe.
So when Gage uses his strong hand to guide my thighs apart, when he bends his head and lifts one leg, then the other, over his strong, rippling shoulders, I let him. Not only do I let him, but I let my head loll against the wall. I slam my eyes shut and just focus on breathing. In and out. In and out. I savor the rippling muscle below me. I can feel every movement he makes. Every bunch and bulge of his muscles. The wild heat that floodsme like an out of control fire, jumping all its boundaries and igniting me.
The lusty whimper that tears from my throat doesn’t sound like me, but I don’t care. I’m too busy feeling every strain and pull below me, of a body so much bigger and stronger than me. I love the way he dominates me. The way he’s completely in control, even as he kneels. Even as he stands below me, I feel like he’s a giant, towering over my petite form. I should feel threatened. I should be scared. But I don’t get danger from Gage. He’s never hurt me. He had plenty of reasons to if he was that sort of man. But while I know next to nothing about my husband of one year, I know he has his principles. The fact that he willingly paid the price for my accusations shows me what kind of man he is.
I love that when I crack an eyelid and look down, I see the contrast between us, his dark head against my pale skin, bronzed hands braced on my porcelain thighs, his massive fingers, all strength and stone—the hands of a warrior, digging into my tender flesh.
His hot breath puffs out against my overheated skin, and I jack my hips shamelessly into his face. I want this. I need this. All of it. Him. I needhim.
“Oh god, please,” I moan and my voice is heady, lust filled and wild.
