Page 31 of Seasons of Sin

“Don’t. You must hate me,” she whispered.

“Must I?” He stared resolutely ahead. Mustn’t he?

Her body was shifting with the force of her sobs, but she was silent. He shouldered the door and carried her upstairs, as he had done that first night. Had he already loved her then? He had fallen under her spell, without a doubt.

He moved to the room they’d shared and placed her on top of the bed. She was pale, her eyes red-rimmed, her lips swollen.

“You are not leaving me.”

Her blue eyes were enormous as they stared up at him. “He’s my husband,” she moaned, but her heart was begging her to reach for Thad.

“Fine. He is your husband.” Inside of Thad, something important died a little. “But you agreed to stay with me for the rest of the week. So stay.”

She shook her head. “It’s not right. Not to you. And not to me. Now that you know, surely you can’t still want to do this.”

He brought his body to straddle hers, and he trapped her wrists against the mattress. “Damn it, you know I do.” He lowered his mouth to hers. But he didn’t kiss her. He pulled her lower lip between his teeth and bit down on it just hard enough to make her startle up to his chest. Her heart was hammering.

“This is a mess.”

“Yeah,” he kissed her hard on the lips. “It is.” He pushed at the blue shirt, lifting it off her head so that his hands could cup her breasts. There were red marks between the orbs, and down her chest. The wax had done that, and it brought Thaddeus pleasure in that moment to see her marked so clearly by their lovemaking.

“You are mine. Not his.”

“I’m not anyone’s,” she insisted, but her body was silently chastising her for the lie.

“You are mine,” he disagreed, and to prove his point he lowered his mouth to her nipple and began to flick it with his tongue. “You wanted to screw away the pain? You wanted to cheat on him so much it no longer mattered to you that he’s had an affair?”

She nodded, but the plan seemed utterly juvenile, particularly in light of the pain that had already been wrought.

“Did you know, Mrs Arana, that I could bring you to orgasm just by doing this?” And he spun her nipple with his tongue whilehis fingers teased the other. Her stomach was doing flips and flops and she could feel a fever breaking out on her brow.

“Don’t call me that,” she whimpered, her voice fragile from the sensations he was crashing over her body.

“You don’t like it? You do not want to be reminded that you are married?”

“Not by you,” she groaned as her whole body began to quiver and tremble.

His mouth was moist and warm and her body was over-sensitized. She felt the waves of pleasure building and she moved her hands to his pants, desperate to feel him take possession of her once more.

But he shook his head. “Not now. Tonight.”

And it felt, at that early hour of the day, as though he’d asked her to wait a year. She shook her head and pulled at his hips, holding him close to her.

“I have a friend to get rid of,” he muttered, wondering what Rocco would make of Thaddeus’s acceptance of this situation.

He ran his fingers down her naked chest, tracing each wax mark, and then he brought his lips back to her breasts. “Have you thought of him while we’ve been together?”

Saphire shook her head. “Never.”

“Have you slept with me but wished it was him?”

“No!” She shouted, digging her fingers into his shoulders. It was life-savingly imperative that he believed her. “Never. I wanted to hurt him at first. But then it was you and me. Nothing else mattered.”

“You were never at liberty to make that decision,” he ground out. “Did it occur to you, Saphire, that I might not like being pulled into the middle of your marital issues? That I may not relish playing the part you have cast me in?”

“Yes,” she said simply, but guilt made her flush. “But by then it was too late. I didn’t even want to know your name. I didn’twant your number. I thought …” the word trailed off as he rolled his hips again and the pressure from his erection began to send her tipping over the edge of control. She cried out and wrapped her legs around his waist, as wave after wave crashed against her. She was panting; she was exhausted. He held her, waiting for madness to give way to truth. His whole sense of the world no longer made sense.

“What did you think?” He asked, standing almost coldly and neatening his clothes.