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“I noticed.”
“I didn’t think I was ready. Someone as faulty, as sinful, as selfish as me couldn’t possibly give you what you needed. Not just as a sexual partner, but as a true friend. I was embarrassed you had to propose to me. Ashamed that I accepted. Furious at myself that I let you throw your life away—your chance for what I thought was a real marriage—on me, a man who became suddenly terrified of intimacy after craving it for so long.” He tugged me closer to him. “Withyou.”
His eyes darted frantically around my face. He breathed out with a moan and kissed my forehead. “Decca. I wasn’t prepared for how much I’d want you. How much I’d miss you every time you left the room. How many nights I’d lie awake, aching to go to your bed and curl my body around yours. How much I’d need your opinion on everything before I could make even the smallest decision.”
I blinked, gazing up into his face, not ready to believe him, or else refusing to believe that he’d said what I thought I’d heard.
That he craved intimacy with me.
Above us in the linden tree, a barn owl hooted. A cool wind picked up, giving me the same strength and ferocity of the women who’d come before me to worship and dance and just be alive on this night.
This was my night. I wasn’t going to settle for the pittance he was willing to throw my way.
He picked up my other hand, and I let him. He stood in front of me now, so guileless, but so wrong. This whole look didn’t work on his face. It wasn’t him. He might have thought himself a sinner before, but the way to handle it wasn’t retreating into this farce of giving me just enough to keep me on his hook.
“Don’t do this now. I want more from you, Gus. And I don’t think you’re ready yet. I can wait. I signed up for this, knowing I’d have to wait. But don’t string me along and spoon-feed me drops of what I want when you can’t give me everything.”
“What is everything, Decca?” His eyes darkened.
“You really need me to spell it out for you? Sex, Gus. I want sex. And love. And more nights like tonight. And romance. I want you not to flinch if I touch you, like I’m some creep you can’t stand. Because I know you want me, Gus. You have this barrier up now that you’re a priest. You can’t work those two things out in your mind. But can’t this just be the one thing you don’t think to death about before you do it? Can’t you let your impulses guide you?”
His gaze hardened into something feral. His eyes dropped to my mouth.
“Yes, Gus. Kiss me. Just—”
His mouth slammed into mine. He inhaled deeply as he began moving his lips, inching mine apart so slowly, just a taste of the delicate skin inside my lip, our mouths melting into one.
I’d lost my breath. My hands hung at my sides. This was too tender, too fragile. If I moved a muscle—if my heart so much as beat—he might remember who he was kissing. He might come back to himself too fast and shatter this wonderful illusion of romance.
It was worth it. Someone could always shock me back into cardiac rhythm.
Gus
Her mouth tasted likeapples and communion wine, sweet, surprisingly complex, and intoxicating.
My composure was gone. Self-control vanished. It’d already been hanging by a wire. All I needed was for her to lay it out there. Tell me what to do.
I tasted more, threading my hands into her long black hair, pushing her against me. I needed more. I needed all of her. Every inch. Every breath. Every sigh that was escaping her sweet mouth would be mine.
“Tell me what you really want, Crow. Because I want you so bad, I can’t see straight. I want to devour you tonight, with your spiced wine breath and wild eyes. I want to lick every inch of your skin until you shiver. I want to watch your pussy quiver the first time you come on my tongue and watch it suck my cock inside you.” I gripped harder as her eyes closed.
I grew hard at the thought of touching her there, of the power I knew she’d give me willingly. Of watching her beg. Just to have me everywhere. Every way. Because that’s how we would be.
I sat in one of the Adirondack chairs, pulling her onto me. The night was too warm for a fire, but I knew it did things to her. Fire empowered her. Calmed her. Aroused her.
Her back was against my chest, but I moved her to the side to bare her white throat for me. She moved so willingly, like she’d been drugged, her body limp for my pleasure. And what pleasure we’d give each other now that we were giving in.
I scraped my teeth along the ridge of her trachea, enough to tease her and taste the salt of her overheated skin.
“How do you like it?
“I think I’d like anything with you.”
I laughed as her words caught on her breath. I cradled her neck, so she was looking into my eyes. I’d never felt like this with anyone before. I’d never wanted to protect someone, wrap them in velvet so nothing bad could ever touch them, all the while wanting to fuck her throat until she cried all that lovely black eye makeup off.
“Anything, Crow. I’ll do anything for you.”
“Kiss me?” she breathed as her eyes floated closed. I did. Sweetly this time, savoring one full lip, then the other, caressing her and fueling a desire, not just for sex, but for being her husband in all ways. Emptying the dishwasher, cooking her dinner, always remembering the tasks on the to-do list.
