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Breathing hard, he moves his hand from my breast down between my legs. He slides his fingers all around, then strums his fingertips back and forth over my swollen clit.

As he undoubtedly knew it would, that instantly makes me orgasm.

Crying out, I jerk violently. My pussy convulses, clenching over and over again in hard, rhythmic waves.

“Come, baby! Ah, fuck yes, come for me!”

He sounds triumphant.

I understand then that forbidding me to climax was part of this game, that he knew every minute I’d hold back would add to my pleasure when I finally let go, and I’m stupidly grateful that he knows what he’s doing because this is exactly what I needed.

He’s exactly what I needed.

A handsome stranger with secrets in his eyes and a way of looking at me as if he already knows everything there is to know about me. As if I’m a book he’s read a thousand times and highlighted all his favorite passages.

As if he already knows how this is going to end.

He falls on top of me, pushing me flat onto my belly on the mattress and trapping me with his weight. With both hands clenched in my hair, he thrusts hard a few more times, then moans my name.

Shuddering, he empties himself inside my body.

I close my eyes and brace myself against the huge wave of emotion cresting to a peak above me, then surrender to its churning darkness as it crashes down and carries me, tumbling, far away.





19





Afterward, we don’t speak.

I don’t know if he’s feeling as emotionally raw as I am or if he simply has nothing to say, but he rolls off me and goes into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

The faucet runs. The toilet flushes. He reappears carrying a wet washcloth and a hand towel. He silently pushes me onto my back and wipes the washcloth gently between my legs as I lie there feeling as if all my bones have turned to liquid.

He dries me off with the hand towel, then rises and flips off the light switch. Then he crawls onto the mattress beside me, rolls me to my side, pulls me against his chest, and buries his face in my hair, inhaling deeply.

When he exhales, it sounds as if a hundred years of pent-up frustrations leave his body in the same breath.

Eventually, his breathing slows to a deep, even cadence that tells me he’s asleep.

I lie there in the dark enveloped in his warmth and think about Michael.

Was I a good wife?

I don’t know. I tried to be. More than anything, I wanted to make him happy. He wanted me to be happy, too, and I thought we were perfect for each other. All our jagged little pieces matched. We fit.

But our relationship was nothing like this.

I know it’s unfair to make comparisons. I also know it’s unfair that I lied to Aidan about being separated from my husband instead of simply telling him the truth.

But he caught me off guard. I had no idea anything even remotely like this would happen. I wasn’t prepared for the extent of our attraction, for the force of it, for the way I’m drawn to him with an intensity I feel strangely powerless to resist.

And so I simply let him believe Michael was still alive. Part of me wants to believe it as well. Part of me wants to believe this isn’t the truth:

My husband is dead.

He fell off our boat and drowned.

I watched it happen.

Maybe I haven’t told Aidan about it because I don’t want to relive that last part. The splashing and the screaming. Michael’s desperate cries for help growing weaker as the boat drifted farther and farther away.

The smell of smoke over the dark water and the awful, brittle laughter that seemed to come from everywhere all around.

I didn’t tell the detective who interviewed me after the accident about the laughter. It’s not exactly something I can explain.

I must fall asleep at some point, because the next thing I know, the room is light and Aidan’s big hand is gently stroking my bottom. He’s still behind me in the same position he was when he fell asleep.

He murmurs, “Morning, sweet bunny. Sleep well?”

Turning my head toward him, I inhale and stretch my legs, curling my toes. “I think so. You?”

He presses a kiss to my nape. His hand drifts over my hip and down between my legs. “Like the dead.”

“Hmm. That big hard thing poking into my tailbone doesn’t feel very dead.”

He chuckles. “You can’t blame him. He’s got a beautiful naked woman in his bed.”

When he slips his fingers inside my pussy and strokes them over my clit, I sigh in pleasure.

“I’m obsessed with that sound,” he says, his voice darker. “With all the sounds you make. I can’t get enough of you, Kayla.”

He bites me on the shoulder. It’s not hard, but it is dominant. Like something an animal would do before it mounts its mate.

“You’re shivering.”

“It’s not from cold.”

“I know, baby. Time to sit on my face.”

My eyes fly open. “Pardon?”

“You heard me. And from now on, I expect you to obey an order the first time I give it.”

My heartbeat surges. I lie still with my mind going a million miles an hour until I venture hesitantly, “I want to ask you something, but I don’t want you to think I’m being, um, disobedient. I’m just trying to figure out the rules.”