“Okay.” Kelsey takes Liv’s arm and backs her up a few steps. “Dean, Liv and I are going to finish looking around. You stay here and chill out. We’ll come back when we’re ready to leave.”
I watch them disappear into the crowd. Liv turns once to look at me, and then she’s gone. I wait all of ten seconds before I leave the center and walk back out into the cold.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Olivia
ean is still not home when I get back to our apartment this evening. He called Kelsey earlier to tell her he’d left the art fair, but he didn’t answer his cell when I tried to call him. I spent the rest of the afternoon working mindlessly at the bookstore. My stomach is a knot of anger and regret.
I stare at the Christmas tree in the corner, the twinkling lights reflected in the windows. I think of the first Christmas Dean and I spent together, four months after we first met. A fairy tale—dark woods, tangled vines, handsome princes and all.
I press my hands to my eyes and try to breathe. I don’t know how we will ever fix this. If we ever will.
At eight, I change into my nightgown and crawl into bed, staring at the pattern of light and shadows on the ceiling.
Dean is the only man I’ve ever wanted. The only man I’ve allowed into my body, into my heart. The love of my life, who taught me more about happiness and pleasure than anyone else ever has.
So I don’t understand why I felt the way I did for Tyler Wilkes. I don’t understand why it was easy to kiss him, why I gave in to the pull of attraction. Had I wanted Dean to find out?
The thought stops my breath.
Dean has never been threatened before. He’s never had reason to be. I have always been the starry-eyed girl who melted at his touch. I let him into places even I didn’t want to go.
He knows he has all of me. And yet when he told me about his first marriage, I discovered I hadn’t had all of him.
When I kissed Tyler, had I wanted to shift the balance between me and Dean? Warn my husband that I could keep part of myself separate from him too?
Except that I didn’t. I could never have kept that kiss a secret from Dean, no matter what he kept secret from me. Even now, he has all of me.
I hear Dean close the front door and toss his keys onto the counter. Then he appears at the bedroom door. He looks windswept, his cheeks ruddy from the cold, his hair messy, as if he’s been running.
The sight of him—this man I still love with everything I am—makes my whole body ache with longing and sorrow.
Tension falls like a curtain. We stare at each other. When he moves closer, I can see the anger edging his muscles, the planes of his face.
He stops by the bed. His hand drops to the button of his jeans.
“Don’t say no,” he says. His voice is rough.
I can’t tell if it’s an order or a request. I don’t care. I shake my head.
I won’t say no. I don’t want to say no.
He works the buttons of his shirt and yanks it off his shoulders, then unfastens his jeans. His erection is already pushing against the fly, and arousal curls through my despair at the sight of the long, thick length.
He grabs a fistful of the comforter and pulls it away from me, his dark gaze skimming my body beneath my nightgown. Aside from a pair of cotton panties, I’m naked underneath the thin cotton, and his scrutiny alone makes my nipples peak. I suppress the sudden urge to cross my arms, to hide.
He kneels beside me on the bed and runs his hand over the front of my body, his fingers sliding beneath my breasts and tracing a path to my belly. Although his touch is achingly familiar, the intensity of his expression, the edge of lingering anger, creates a flare of both apprehension and excitement in me. My heart pounds, my blood heating.
Curving his hand around the back of my neck, he pulls me forward, his mouth locking against mine. His kiss is hard and insistent. He smells like night, like the wind. He thrusts his tongue past my lips, a deep invasion that incites a spear of lust.
I grasp his arms, urging him closer, wanting his weight on top of me. He straddles my hips, his erection pressing against my belly.
“Did he get this close to you?” His question is an accusation.
I should say no. No. The word screams inside my head.
Instead, I look up at him and whisper, “What would you do if he did?”
A firestorm of anger flares behind his eyes. I suck in a breath as a riotous combination of arousal and anxiety rises in me. Dean lowers his face so close to mine I can feel his breath on my cheek.
“I’d fucking kill him,” he mutters.
He yanks my nightgown up and presses his hand between my legs, one finger probing beneath the elastic of my panties into the cleft of my sex. I gasp, bucking my hips upward, seeking his entry.
He whispers something low against my mouth, then captures my lower lip between his teeth and bites. A twinge of pain spurs my arousal higher.
I pull away from him and stare into his eyes. “You never thought I could be attracted to another man, did you?”
“Goddammit, Liv.”