“Open for me and let’s find out.”
She giggled. The sound shocking them both with its honesty. She was almost embarrassed—would have been if he hadn’t dropped his hand and leaned forward the instant the laugh escaped her lips. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He reached for her, then, one large, warm hand curving around her knee, the touch erasing the game they played.
Her legs parted.
“So goddamn beautiful,” he said, his gaze not leaving her face as he came off the chair, falling to his knees at the edge of the desk, between her thighs. “So goddamn perfect.” He pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee, then her thigh. “So goddamn honest.”
She stiffened at the last, even as his lips curved high at the crease of her thigh, where it met the part of her that ached for him. For this.
Honesty.
She hadn’t been honest with him. There was nothing honest about this. Nothing honest about her. And he deserved better.
He sensed the change in her, lifting his lips, meeting her eyes across the long expanse of her torso. “Don’t think it.”
She knew he did not understand, but replied nonetheless, shaking her head. “I cannot help it.”
He pressed a kiss to the soft hair above the most secret part of her, the caress long and lingering and somehow sweet. “Tell me,” he said.
There were a dozen things she should tell him. A hundred she wished to tell him. But only one that found its way out. And it was perhaps the truest thing she’d ever said.
“I wish it could be like this. Forever.”
Her words nearly killed him. The truth of them, the way they mirrored his own thoughts, here in this place that was not his. Was not hers. This place that would ruin them both without question.
He wanted it forever, too, but, it was impossible. His past, her future, neither was conducive to forever. Those outside forces that loomed, they were barriers to forever.
No, forever was for simpler people and simpler times.
He leaned forward on his knees, keenly aware of the position, of the way he worshipped her, as though she were a goddess and he were her sacrifice. He pressed a kiss to the pretty soft curls that hid her secrets. Her position—the trust in it—the pleasure in it—made him harder than he’d ever been in his life.
He wanted this woman.
He might not be able to have her forever, but he could have this moment, this memory . . . This could last. It could stay with him on dark nights.
And it could ruin her for every other man who came after him.
“I’ve never tasted anything like you,” he whispered, letting his breath tease those curls as he parted her slowly, adoring the way she glistened, warm and pink for him. “Sweet and sinful and forbidden.” He ran one finger down the wet slit gently, and she lifted her hips toward him. She was so tender, so ready for him. “Slick and wet and perfect.”
He ran one finger down the center of her, listening to her breathing, to the way her breath hitched and rattled as he explored. “And you know it, don’t you? You know your power.”
She shook her head. “No.”
He met her gaze, leaned in, let his tongue stroke once, long and lush along her. He reveled in the way she gasped, the way she closed her eyes against the pleasure. “No,” he said. “Don’t look away.”
She opened her eyes, and he licked again, loving the way desire flooded her. “Tell me.”
“It feels—”
He repeated the movement, lingering at the top of the caress, where she wanted him most, and she cried out. He spoke there. “Go on.”
“Glorious.”
“More.”
He swirled his tongue over the little, straining bud, and she sighed. “Don’t stop.”
“I won’t if you tell me.”
“It feels like . . . I’ve never . . .” He sucked, loving the way she lost her words. “Oh, God.”
He smiled, letting his tongue play at her. “Not God.”
“Duncan.” She sighed his name, and he thought he would die if he wasn’t inside her soon.
“Tell me.”
“It’s beautiful.” Her hands found his hair, her fingers pressing him toward her as her hips rocked against him. “You’re perfect,” she whispered, and he was shocked by the words. And then she said something thoroughly unexpected. “It feels like . . . love.”
And there, in that moment, with the word hovering in the air, he realized that that was precisely what he meant for it to feel like.
He loved her.
The realization should have terrified him, but instead, it washed over him with the warm pleasure that came from truth, finally revealed. And at the far edge of that pleasure was the edge of something unpleasant. Devastation. Denial.
He ignored it, instead making love to her with slow, slick strokes. She moved against him, showing him what she liked, where she liked it, and he gave it to her without hesitation. She was manna, and he fed upon her, wanting to bring her pleasure only to give her pleasure. To give her the memory of this moment.