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“Right now?” Her tone lilted with disbelief.
“Soon,” he deferred, recognizing he’d blindsided her and was losing more than the mood. Shadows of withdrawal had cooled the heat in her blue eyes. That was the exact opposite of what he was after.
He rolled so she was beneath him and set about returning the pleasure she’d given him tenfold. It took a few drawn out kisses for her to catch up, but then her desire reignited and she surpassed him, becoming frantic. When he ran his tongue beneath that thin strip of lace between her thighs, her hand fisted in his hair.
He loved when she was like this, clawing at him as though she couldn’t get enough of him. He was both cruel and generous, insisting on taking her over the edge more than once before he finally entered her. By then, her lingerie was nothing but torn wrapping paper off an elegant gift, discarded on the floor, while she was naked and arching with abandon, welcoming his every thrust.
It was raw and rough and maybe imbued with his own desperation to bind them indelibly. It was also powerful, culminating in the sort of supernova climax that had her screaming and him shuddering in a paroxysm of ecstasy that damned near destroyed him.
In the aftermath, they were puddles of quivering flesh, exhausted. He barely had the energy to touch the button that doused the lights or drape his arm across her waist to spoon her into him.
He was roused some indeterminate time later, aware she was trying to leave the bed.
“Where are you going?” he asked through his desire to remain asleep.
“Nowhere,” she murmured.
He thought he heard her sniff. It yanked him to a higher level of consciousness.
“Are you crying?”
“No. I have an eyelash in my eye. It’s gone now. Go back to sleep.”
He had a fleeting thought to turn on the light, but she snuggled her bottom into him and sighed, relaxing. He closed his eyes and drifted off again.
I can’t lose him, Sasha thought as she stared into the dark.
Rafael’s arm was heavy on her waist, but no matter how deeply asleep he was, he always noticed when she left the bed.
She had been weeping silently, afraid she would wake him, but putting physical space between them was next to impossible when lying against him was exactly where she wanted to be for the rest of her life.
Because she loved him? She was trying not to label it. That would give him even more influence over her than he already had. She was very careful to keep parts of herself back, pushing a persona of a spoiled heiress, an extrovert who loved to hostess, and a devoted if emotionally aloof wife.
She was devoted. She loved those moments when she made an introduction that clicked for him, or when her ability to charm a tycoon’s wife smoothed the way for their husbands to strike a deal.
She loved being everything he needed because he was pretty much all she needed. She could survive without him; she knew she could. She had done it for years, but that’s all she’d been doing: surviving. They had been long, lonely years filled with empty conversations at boring events with people who failed to interest her.
With Rafael, she thrived. They challenged each other and made each other laugh. He tapped into her stores of creativity, whether it was formulating a social strategy or designing their dream home. He gave her sensual pleasure that was like a drug, it was so intense and addictive.
Now he wanted a baby. She didn’t ask why. It didn’t matter why. If he wanted one, she had to decide whether to give him one or leave, because he had made clear from the beginning that this day would come.
She wanted to give him a baby. She wanted one for herself, but here came the tears again, welling up like blood from a wound.
She clenched her eyes shut, fighting the sobs that wanted to rack her body. Her lashes grew wet anyway and pressure built in her throat.
Her longing for a baby was so intense, it nearly stopped her heart, but it came with old and new yearnings. Hope and grief. Conflict.
Should she tell him?
No. Everything in her clenched up at the thought. There was too much shame in her, not for having a baby as a teenager and not even for placing her daughter with a loving family. On the contrary, she believed she had done the best thing for her daughter. At sixteen, she hadn’t been ready to become a mother. Raising that baby with her mother and Humbolt would have been abuse, plain and simple.
Instead, she had done everything she could to provide a good life for her child, leaving her with a mother and a girl she had regarded as a sister. She was envious of the life she’d given her daughter.
No, her shame stemmed from how her baby had been conceived. Logically, Sasha knew that a married man of thirty who seduced a teenager was a predator, but it hadn’t seemed like assault at the time. She’d been certain she knew what she was doing. It had been mischief. Something she had imagined throwing in Humbolt’s face at some point.
As with all teenage rebellion, she’d been hideously naive to the consequences. She’d been four months pregnant before she had even begun to suspect it. By then, Humbolt had figured out who she was seeing. He blamed the affair on her. He knew which side his bread was buttered on and had been determined to protect his associate. She had tempted a married man, he said, calling her all sorts of horrific things. Did she want to destroy innocent lives? What of the man’s wife and children? Had she thought about anyone but herself?
She hadn’t, of course.
