Excerpt from
Love Rekindled (All or Nothing #1)
Looking for more smoking hot contemporary romance? Check out the All or Nothing series by Nyora René, and start with Love Rekindled. After Charmaine and Malcolm break up, will they get a second chance at love?
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“Yes, you’re selfish, you refuse to compromise. Why do I have to give up everything?” she asked, arms folded across her chest.
Malcolm’s chuckle was sad, though he didn’t find anything funny.
“See here’s the thing, love, I thought us was everything. I thought our love for each other and our future together was everything. I thought the life we were building together was everything,” he said gutturally as he rubbed his chest, attempting to massage away the heaviness that sat there like a boulder.
An unnatural stillness came over them. He looked into her deep brown eyes, eyes that usually held happiness, but now held pain and anger. The romantic meal that he had prepared for them growing cold. The tension between them becoming more unbearable as the seconds ticked by.
“Mal, I love you. Please don’t do this,” she implored him, biting her bottom lip.
He tried one last time to change her mind.
“Think long and hard before you make a decision that could be permanent. How many guys out there are ready to make commitments? Ready for kids? Ready for permanence? Most guys our age are playing the field. Think long and hard about the life you’re sentencing us to. Think about us.” His voice trailed off and left silence in its wake.
Her right eyebrow rose, and her head tilted to the side, and he knew immediately that he had said the wrong words.
“So, I should just throw my dreams away and get married because according to you my opportunity for a loving and lasting relationship are, what, slim? And I’m not sentencing us to anything, you are.”
“I guess this says it all then. I guess this is it,” he said, his voice heavy and full of resignation.
Charmaine let out a long-suffering sigh. Closing her eyes, she shut him out.
“Yeah, I guess it is. I’ll pack my things and get a hotel room,” she said softly.
Did she really think he’d make her get a hotel room just because they were breaking up? “As upset and disappointed as I am, you know good and well I’m not letting you go to a hotel.”
“You don’t have a choice in this. I think it’s best if I just leave now. This is already painful enough.”
She rose from the table and he stared at her before casting his gaze over the table. He’d gone all out tonight in preparation for them celebrating her move to Houston, only to have her drop this bombshell.
His gaze left the table and finally met hers, hoping that she would change her mind, but all he saw was resoluteness in the rigid set of her clenched jaw.
Charmaine strolled forward. Just as she reached him, she leaned down and angled her head to plant a kiss on his cheek, but the kiss never landed. Instead, Malcolm planted both hands on her hips and pulled her down onto his lap.
Gazing into her luminous brown eyes, Malcolm let her see the love and passion that he had for her. When her chest rapidly rose and fell, and she began to squirm in his lap, only then did he give into the heat that always took hold of them whenever they touched. He poured his heart into the kiss, knowing that this would be his last chance. Charmaine didn’t want the same things that he wanted, and he refused to hold her back, so he kissed her like there was no tomorrow, cupping her face in both hands and letting his tongue take one last journey of her mouth, imprinting her taste on his tongue.
Briefly pulling back, Malcolm tugged at her bottom lip before delving his tongue back into paradise. There would be no love like theirs without her because she was everything, his everything.
As they fell into the kiss, he clutched her tighter to his body in a desperate embrace and gave her everything in that kiss because that was the kind of passion she inspired in him. He would never find another like her and he kissed her with all of the love, despair, and hunger that he felt in that moment.
On and on the kiss went until kissing wasn’t enough and his hands moved from her face, down her neck until he was cupping her breasts in both hands, squeezing and molding their firmness until she went limp against him in surrender. She draped both arms and around his neck and clutched his head in both hands. Her curvy body arched closer to his and he moved his hands to her waist to pull her even closer so that not a sliver of space was in between them.
They explored each other and made love to each other’s mouths until Charmaine pulled away, gasping for air. The tears in her eyes reflected the tears in his. He placed his forehead against hers as their breathing synced and calmed from the staccato rhythm inspired by their passionate embrace.
“I’ll always love you, Malcolm. Always,” she whispered gutturally, and he almost lost his composure at the pain in her voice. He couldn’t breathe after that, could only spasmodically clutch her waist and try to find his equilibrium. After a beat, she gently rose to her feet and leaned on the table. He clenched both fists to avoid snatching her back into his arms. Back where she belonged.
He cataloged her every feature from the top of her head to her feet. The silky caramel skin that felt like heaven when pressed against his. The long straight hair that she always spent hours making sure was just right. Her small upturned nose and high cheekbones that added to her allure. He imagined the high, firm breasts hidden behind the sexy little black lace dress she wore. His hands were already missing them. He glanced at the flat stomach that he had hoped would one day cradle and grow their children. Her curvy hips that he loved to grip, and those gorgeously long legs that he loved to feel wrapped around his waist as he made slow, sweet love to her.
He craved every luscious inch of her five foot nine frame. He knew that he would probably regret it, but he just couldn’t handle the distance between them anymore. Malcolm wanted her here with him, working on their future together.
As Charmaine turned and walked away from him, he could only hope that one day, he would find someone who could complete him as much as he thought Charmaine did.
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