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His heart pumped rationalizations in his ears. You’ve already had sex with her. The damage is done. What do you have to gain by denying yourself the feeling of the delicate bones of her spine under your lips?
When she leaned in to kiss him, he had his answer.
CHAPTER SEVEN
VIVIAN HAD ALWAYS known Karl must be warm inside, despite his cold hands. His face might be frozen, without expression, but his small kindnesses and sense of righteousness had hinted at a fire burning within. It was the only explanation for his lips inflaming her.
He took her bottom lip between his teeth and nibbled. She made a wanting noise deep in her throat. Her nipples were hard against her blouse—had been since they sat together on the couch—and she was wet with desire. Pregnancy hormones made the tingle of his hand as it ran up the length of her body linger. Pregnancy kept the memory of his nip at her ear fresh, long after he moved on to kiss her neck.
She either had to blame the pregnancy or take responsibility for getting up off the couch and straddling him. But she wanted him. Wanted him despite the fact that the secrets she kept could come back and destroy the little bit of security she’d managed to find in Chicago. Could ruin the trust that she and Karl had developed.
She didn’t want to think about that now, with his hands strong against her back while his lips were soft on her neck. All she wanted to think about was that when she pressed her hands against his chest it was solid, and his heartbeat was powerful and real. She could worry about her secrets tomorrow.
The pressure of his hands on her back released. Karl pulled away from her and watched her face intently as he slowly unbuttoned her blouse. Though his expression didn’t change, she could feel the pulse of his thighs as each undone button revealed more of her skin. He didn’t make a sound until the front of her shirt hung open and he smoothed it off her shoulders with a sigh.
He pressed his lips against the crest of each breast and this time it was her thighs that tightened in response. Then he looked up at her and she didn’t know how she could have ever thought those eyes were cold. “I wish the night that got us here was clearer in my memory.”
Why did he have to talk? She didn’t want to think about that night and the morning she’d woken up to his cold eyes. That night she’d been seeking solace and someone to take her mind off what her father had asked her to do—and she’d nearly done.
She was in Chicago because she would be burned by the consequences of what she hadn’t done for the rest of her life.
He licked a line of skin along the edge of her bra and she pressed her hips into him, to lose herself in the present. “I intend to take my time tonight,” he murmured as he lifted her small breast closer to him and his tongue slipped under the fabric of her bra.
She moaned. Her body had wanted him since the first moment she’d seen him. In Las Vegas, she’d slid onto a bar stool next to him, felt the nip of his emotions radiating off his body and wanted to warm the chill of his eyes as she’d wanted him to cool her anger. She’d ordered a gin and tonic, instead, trying not to look at the sharp line of his profile.
She remembered the next gin and tonic, which Karl had bought her, and later the bottle of tequila he’d gotten for them to share. By the time they’d made it up to his room and noticed they didn’t have any limes, neither of them had cared. She had wanted to forget how she had nearly allowed her father to sell her soul. What Karl had been trying to forget she hadn’t known and hadn’t cared.
“Why were you drinking?” Crystal decanters on a fancy bar cart by his dining table held whiskey and brandy, but she’d never seen him open one. He hadn’t had so much as a beer since she’d arrived. “That night in Las Vegas, why were you drinking?”
He murmured a nonresponse as his tongue curled around her nipple, her head falling back in pleasure. When his fingers started working on the button of her jeans, she put her hand down to stop them.
“Does it matter?” He spoke to her skin as he pressed butterfly kisses around her collarbone. His fingers burrowed themselves between hers, a suggestion that she open herself up to him, and suddenly the reason he had been drinking mattered more than the aching between her legs.
