Sweet Sinful Nights

“Then tell me,” he said roughly. “Tell me what you want to talk about so we can start over.”

“How do I know it will be different?” she asked, as she leaned her head back and succumbed to the strange combination of kissing and confessing. Or touching and talking. “Because of the shoes, because of the bracelet, because of scarves and lunches and the dinner and the tickets this weekend to Alvin Ailey?”

“No. Those are just things. It’s what’s behind those things that matters, and that’s how I feel for you. Because I would do anything to have you back,” he said, holding her face and forcing her to look him in the eyes.

And as she did, something inside her cracked open. The ice that she’d packed around her heart that he’d been chipping away at day by day, thawed completely.

“It’s harder for me to just start over than it is for you,” she blurted out, even though it was selfish, what she was saying. She knew that. But she couldn’t escape the painful truth of who she was. She stared fiercely at him, keenly aware of both the intensity of this conversation and the pressure from his erection between her legs pressing hard against her damp panties.

“Why? Why is it harder for you?”

“Because you broke my heart—don’t you get it? Mine had already splintered into a million pieces one night in a driveway, and I can only sustain so many breaks before it’s shattered.”

She stopped moving on him, and let the tears slide down her cheeks, as they’d done so many times with him. He gathered her close in his arms, and stroked her hair.

“Let me be the one for you. I won’t break your heart again. I promise.”

She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe herself, too. But there were things she had to tell him. Things that might tear him apart. “I don’t want to break your heart either.”

He smiled that crazy, gorgeous, cocky lopsided grin. He rapped his knuckles against his chest. “I’m tough. I can handle anything you throw at me.”

She wasn’t so sure, but even so, she loved this side of him.

Heels clicked against the floor. Someone was walking past them. The sound of the footsteps sped up. She covered her mouth and widened her eyes, and he laughed silently.

Then, maybe because of his admission, or maybe even more so because of hers, she brushed her lips against his, and kissed him softly, picking up the pace once more. She felt a freedom from the weight of memories. Maybe simply voicing them was what she had truly needed to move on. Oh, how she wanted to move on.

In every way with him.

Every. Single. Way.

“Soon,” she whispered in his ear. “Soon. I want to be with you again. I want you in every way. I swear.”

The talking of the past stopped, as it needed to. She’d said all she truly needed to say, and now all she wanted was to feel. Because she felt so much for him. More than she’d wanted to when she’d first agreed to dinner. More than she’d ever expected when he’d walked back into her life. Damn him, damn the heart, damn the body.

“Babe,” he said in a soft but firm voice. “Rock your body against me.”

“How is it we can talk like this and I’m still hot for you?” she murmured in his ear.

“Because I turn you on and because you’re crazy about me, too,” he said, low and sexy, and just for her. She shivered against him, saying nothing, refusing to give voice to the yes that formed on her tongue as she began moving again, her small body riding his big, strong frame.

“Just like that. Keep it up,” he told her, urging her on. “I can feel you getting close.”

“I’m so close,” she said on a quiet gasp.

“Let go. Let go for me,” he said as he thrust his hips up against her, and yanked her down harder on him.

She let the past fall behind her once more as she returned to what they’d been doing before. Coming together. She moved on him, harder, faster. There were no more words, no confessions, and no questions. Just movement. Their need for each other had never been quenched. She didn’t know if it ever would be, even as her belly tightened and she felt the start of that intense rush of pleasure. She pushed onto him, hitting that point where she lost control, and came apart for him, grabbing his back, biting down on his shoulder, falling apart in his arms.

In a broken photo booth in the back of a casino.

Of all the damn places in the world. Yet it felt so right.

But even through the haze of her orgasm, she knew she couldn’t escape the past. She couldn’t hide from it in all this contact with him.

Soon, very soon, she was going to have to tell him that he’d been the father of her child.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN


The ace of diamonds winked at him, a mate to the ace of clubs that the dealer revealed next on the green felt of the blackjack table at the Luxe.

“I’ll split,” he said to the goateed dealer.