“Just…” Inadvertently, I glance toward the twins’ room. “Anytime I’ve tried the whole relationship thing, it always seems to go badly. Maybe it’s just not meant to be for me.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment,” he replies, with more heat in his voice than I’d expect. When I glance up again, he’s staring at me, intense and caring all at once. “What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”
I tilt my head to one side, confused. “What happened with what?”
“Your ex.” He, too, glances toward the twins’ room.
I frown. “Which one?”
He blinks, squirming a little in his chair. “I… Well, I assumed there had been someone in the picture. When you had Luca and Lucie.”
I shake my head, laughing a little again. “I gave up on relationships long before they came around. Luca and Lucie don’t have a father.”
His face visibly tightens as I say that, his eyes narrowing and his mouth clamping tight.
Oh god. I can already imagine what he’s thinking. That I just had some one-night stand or… I hold up my hands, as if to tell him to stop. “It’s nothing weird. I just really wanted children, and I was at a point in my life where I had a stable job, and enough income to support—well.” I laugh softly. “To support one child, but I got lucky with a bonus prize.”
He’s still watching me, so intently that the air starts to do that magnetizing thing again. Every hair on my body rises, even as my shoulders turn toward him and I seem to gravitate toward him, leaning in slowly against my will.
“I was artificially inseminated,” I explain. “They’re test tube babies.” I smile sideways. “Best decision I ever made, no matter how difficult it might get.”
“Would you consider letting a man into your life now?” he asks, and I swear I nearly fall out of my seat in shock.
Why is he asking this? Is he actually thinking about…
But no. I’ve seen the way he is. Hot and cold. On and off. He’s just making small talk. Dinner conversation.
So I tell myself. But I also notice that neither of us has continued eating. Fine, if he wants to play this game… “What about you?” I reply, and I’m gratified by the slight startle in his eyes. “Why are you still single? You’re rich, you clearly love children, not to mention you’re hot as hell.”
To my satisfaction, his cheeks tinge the faintest pink at that last comment. “We’re talking about you right now,” he counters, and I notice that he’s leaning in too. We’re just inches apart, his breath on my cheeks, only the tabletop between us. “So come on. Would you consider lifting your ban on men, or have you sworn them off for good?”
His foot brushes mine under the table, and I jolt at the electric shock that sings through me. “I—I don’t…. Um…”
He grins slightly, clearly enjoying my discomfort.
I shake my head to clear it. “I haven’t sworn them off forever, I just… It would have to be the right man. You know. Someone who cared about children, someone who understood the responsibility that comes with dating a woman with kids. Someone who I can tell likes the twins, who would make a good father, like—”
I freeze, stopping myself dead.
He’s barely an inch away from me now. Those gray eyes of his are flecked with yellow at the centers, like tiny sunbursts. I can’t look away. “Like who, Manila?” he whispers.
“Like you,” I hear myself say, and I swear I can already feel his lips again, kissing me, claiming me…
But he doesn’t move.
I count breaths in the silence, listen to the racing pulse in my chest. He’s breathing faster too, I can feel it against my cheeks, hot as flames.
But then his eyes break from mine, and he glances down at the table between us. “You don’t need to lie to me,” he murmurs faintly, pushing away from the table. He picks up our plates, but I catch his wrist and stand beside him, holding him there, my fingers burning where they wrap around his wrist.
“I’m not lying. I’ve seen you, the way you are with the twins. I would never lie about that. You’re a good man, Cassius.”
His eyes snap back to mine, white-hot, wide with surprise.
“Even if you act cold sometimes,” I add, smirking slightly.
Then I can’t say anything else, because he grabs my chin in his fingers and tilts my head up toward is. When our lips finally collide, it feels like the kind of kiss I’ve spent years waiting for. Hot and cold at once, all consuming.
He wraps his arms around me, hands on my hips, and I arch onto my tiptoes, kissing him back with everything I have. His tongue parts my lips, tastes me, and I breathe in his heady scent, unable to get enough.
“Manila,” he groans, and just like that, I’m a goner. He grips my ass, lifts me slightly to slide his feet under mine. We walk like that, me balanced on his feet, backwards out of the kitchen. “I need to fuck you,” he says, his voice low and guttural.
“Take me.” I look up at him, arms around his neck, feeling every inch of his sinuous body against mine, including his cock, thick and hard where it digs into my stomach. “Do whatever you want to me, Cassius, I want you.”
I think he’s headed toward the bedroom, but clearly neither of us can wait to make it that far. At the living room couch, he tosses me down backwards, then lies down over me, his hot mouth tracing down my neck, my chest, his hands sliding underneath my shirt. His teeth graze my collarbone lightly and my whole body shivers in response.
“God, you are fucking gorgeous, Manila,” he breathes.
I press my hands flat to his washboard abs and push his shirt up out of the way. He breaks contact with me for a second to yank it over his head and toss it aside, then he’s back, kissing and sucking at my neck, his tongue caressing my skin.
“Mm, and you taste amazing…”
I run my hands up to his shoulders, along the sides of his jaw to tilt his head toward mine. “I want to feel your body against mine,” I say.
He slides my shirt off, unclasps my bra almost before I have time to blink, and bends to flick his tongue across my nipples, one after the other. I arch my back and gasp, digging my nails into his bare back.
He growls softly at that, a low, animal sound, and slides back up to claim my mouth in a deep kiss again, his chest digging into mine. My nipples are hard as diamonds, rubbing against his solid, muscular body. I can’t stop running my hands along his back, his sides, his abs, savoring the feel of his muscular form. Fucking hell, he could be a GQ model with this body.
He grins down at me, knowing the effect he has on me, enjoying it. “I can’t wait to make you beg for me,” he whispers.
He’s touching me everywhere, his hands exploring every inch of me, like he’s trying to memorize me. His hands knead my breasts, circle my nipples, teasing, building my anticipation until every brush of his skin on mine makes me shiver.
“Cassius…”