Page 36 of Seasons of Sin

His laugh was scathing. “You are kind of delusional, you know. It’s sweet, except that it is causing you to make the most fundamentally ludicrous decision of your life.”

“Stop.” She held up a hand. “I get it. You don’t agree with me. But I have to do this. I know myself. And I know that I won’t ever accept it’s over if I don’t go back to him and at least try to … to …”

“To what?” He demanded.

“To understand.”

“And us?” He said leaning down and kissing her with all the passion he felt. “You think you are not going to live with regrets over this decision? You don’t think leaving me will make you wake up in a cold sweat? When you reach for me in the middle of the night and find only him?”

Already the ache was spreading, killing off the sensual desire Thaddeus had awakened. “I can’t.” She ran her fingers up his chest. “I don’t deserve you. I never did.” She ran her thumb over his lips and he opened his mouth, nipping it between his teeth.

“Please, MK, please, just make love to me. Just hold me. I don’t want to fight on our last night.”

Their last night … and he was going to make sure it was one she never forgot.

He kissed her as though she was the salvation of his dying breath. His tongue pushed into her mouth and with his body he said the words he couldn’t utter.Don’t go. I need you.

His hands were firm on her softness as they ached to touch her everywhere; to commit to memory the nuances of her form. He made love to her slowly, gently, achingly soft, because all of him was weakened by the specter of her departure.

He held her tight, their breaths mingling and their chests moving in unison, until the sun crested and he took her again, imprinting himself on her and silently asking her to put aside her foolish, slavish devotion to convention and agree to stay.

But she did not.

When the sun shone brightly across the carpeted floor, Saphire eased herself out of the bed with a renewed sense of determination. She was shutting down on him. He could practically see her wrapping ribbons around her heart, tightening her resolve and removing what he had meant to her.

Her nakedness was spectacular. Her back, though, was scored with red marks from the candle wax. Remorse punched through him but he didn’t give it any room to move.

She had enjoyed it. She had been his equal and partner in every way.

And at least he had some insurance that she wouldn’t be jumping straight back into bed with her husband.

“Holy hell,” she murmured, as her eyes caught sight of the marks in the large mirrors. She angled herself so that she could see it properly and slowly, comprehension dawned. Her eyes moved from the clearly written initials ‘T K’ that he had inked in wax, to the artist who had marked her.

His expression was unapologetic.

“You wrote your initials on my back?”

His eyes flashed with a dark, heated emotion, but he didn’t answer.

“Why?” She reached around and ran her finger over the bottom of the K.

“Why do you think?”

Her stomach felt like it had been knifed. “I don’t know.” She looked like a fawn in the forest, completely helpless and confused. “Please tell me you didn’t mean to mark me in some way. To … put your name on me like a possession.”

Again, something seared through his face. “You do not think you are?”

“No!” She was appalled, and it radiated from her every pore.

“Of course you are. As I am yours. How do you not see that?” He hadn’t moved an inch, but she felt as though he was touching her. “I have slept with a lot of women.”

“Gee, great. Let’s talk more about that, please.”

His eyes narrowed. “You do not like to contemplate my past lovers? What if I told you that the woman who had a place in my bed before you is an Oscar winning actress? And before her, a famous singer? And before her, a supermodel. Before that, …”

“Stop.” She lifted a hand in the air; her fingers were shaking.

“Now imagine how I feel,” he said with an attempt at sounding reasonable. “These women are in my past. They are nothing to you and me. You need not feel jealous of them; I did not know you when I was with them.Youhave been here with me, and felt what I feel, and still you are going back to him.” He dragged a hand through his hair; it spiked in odd angles that made her tummy flop with love and desire.