Teeth and tongue are at my ear, fingers and palm are at my mound, heat and strength are at my back. And the voice, the voice I’ll never forget is ringing out into the dark. “Jesus Christ, you feel so good!”
And that’s what brings me awake. Fully awake. To Tag touching me, making love to me, thrilling me. From dream to reality, Tag owns my body. It seems that’s a fight I’m destined to lose.
So I give up fighting. I place my hand over his and I urge him on me, his fingers playing, his palm massaging, all the while his long, thick cock is sliding in and out, in and out.
When my breath starts coming in erratic bursts, Tag picks up his pace, pushing me relentlessly toward a release that I’m losing control over. I bite down on my lip and I push it back. I fight it with everything that I have, somehow reasoning that if I can keep from letting go, I might stand a chance of surviving Tag Barton.
But he’s not satisfied with that. As if sensing that I’m holding back, Tag pulls out and sits up in bed. He looks down at me, his gaze eating me up before he even touches me again. I squeeze my eyes shut, unable to resist if I can see his gorgeous face and his gleaming eyes. I see the want there. I see the passion that’s only for me, but it’s all a lie. A lie that hammers ten-inch spikes into my heart. So I block him out the only way that I can.
Tag gently rolls me fully onto my back and parts my legs. He runs his hands from my knees to my groin and follows them with his lips. They continue up my body, stopping only to pay homage to my navel and my nipples before I feel them at my throat. Still, I don’t look at him. I can’t.
He goes still after he settles between my legs. I feel him throbbing at my entrance. I feel my entrance lapping at his crown, begging him to come inside.
“Look at me, Weatherly,” he orders softly.
I squeeze my eyes shut tighter.
He shifts on top of me, rubbing the head of his cock between my folds, a move specifically designed to drive me mad. I grit my teeth and pray for strength.
“Please look at me. I want to see your eyes,” he pleads, dragging his lips over my chin and my jaw, to my ear. “Please.”
There’s something earnest in that one word. It sounds different. It feels different, different even from the first one in the sentence. It seems . . . desperate. Maybe that’s why, against my better judgment, I open my eyes.
I’m held the moment I meet his gaze. His gray eyes are deep, shadowy pools of mercury that suck me in and steal my will, destroy my resistance. With our gazes locked, he slides slowly into me, a sweet promise made without words. His eyes never leave me, penetrating me deeper than his body. All the way to my soul. “I think I’m falling in love with you, my fair Weatherly.”
I gasp, his words so close to the ones I’ve waited and longed to hear from him. They melt into my blood as orgasm spreads through my body, his confession an accelerant to the fire in my belly. Like a blazing heat, it starts at the place where we’re joined and radiates outward, suffusing my every cell, warming my every muscle.
I groan at the feeling, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Rather than violent and explosive, as it normally is, this is deep and steady. Reverent almost. It pulses gently through me with a ceaselessness that rocks me to my very core.
Tag doesn’t take his eyes off me. Not when his breath hitches, not when his body jerks, not when his muscles quiver. We savor every second, every subtle nuance together, locked. Joined.
And when the heat starts to wane, when the ecstasy begins to abate, Tag leans forward to brush his lips across my cheek, capturing the single tear that escaped from the corner of my eye.
—
When I wake again, Tag is gone. I feel him as if he were still here, though. My body remembers every touch. My heart remembers every word. If only I could believe either.
I think I’m falling in love with you, my fair Weatherly.
God, how I wanted to hear those words a day ago, a week ago! But now? I can’t help wondering if somehow he knew how much I wanted to hear those words and he’s using them against me, another manipulative tool designed to get something from me.
My eyes burn with unshed tears as I’m overcome with that feeling of loss again. I grieve what was. Or what I thought was. I grieve what will never be. I mean, where could we possibly go from here? He married me to get Chiara. To my soul, that feels like he married me to steal from me.
Searing pain pulses through my chest. The truth hurts so much. But I have to push back the pain. I almost blew it yesterday. I can’t let him know that I know, which means that today I have to act more normal. Starting now.