I couldn’t believe I’d just issued that challenge. Couldn’t believe I’d spilled out everything I felt like that. I hardly dared breathe, pressing myself close enough that he had to feel my pounding heart and the way I trembled as I waited for him to choose. Because it was a choice. In this moment, he decided whether he wanted this marriage to be real or not.
I knew he cared for me. I knew he was attracted to me. But I was still absolutely terrified he’d choose not. He carried so much guilt and an unworthiness I’d sensed in him all our lives. I hated everyone who’d ever made him feel like less, and I hated even more that even the tiniest part of him believed it. Maybe that was why I’d been so bold. Temper and righteous outrage giving me the courage to speak the truth he needed to hear.
Even if it meant he could shatter me.
“Willa.” My name wrenched out of him on a pained groan, and my heart seized.
He was going to say no. He was going to be foolishly noble and find a way to try to gently reject me for my own good. I didn’t know how the hell I’d survive it, because it had taken every last shred of courage I possessed to admit how I felt.
Squeezing my eyes shut—because I absolutely couldn’t look at him right now—I took a step back. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what the hell I was apologizing for, but I didn’t know what else to say. “I—”
He yanked me forward so fast I lost my balance. Then his mouth crashed down on mine, and I lost my breath, because this was different from the other kisses we’d shared. They’d been playful, flirty, sweet. There’d even been that hot, sexy orgasm by the fire during the hurricane. But this kiss held an edge of something that might have been desperation, and I was so here for it. It wasn’t a declaration of undying love, but I hadn’t asked for that, hadn’t expected it. I’d take reciprocated passion and be grateful.
So. Damned. Grateful.
His hands skated down, cupping my backside, pressing me against the bulge in his shorts. I wanted to feel those hands everywhere, and I definitely wanted a chance to explore that bulge for myself. Relieved, aroused, I rocked against him, delighting in the growl that elicited. He set me back just far enough to strip off my shirt, then his own, before we dove at each other again. His fingers were at the clasp of my bra when I heard the rumble—part growl, part confusion.
My lust-addled brain took far too long to understand the sound.
Roy.
I broke the kiss, searching for my dog. He stood at attention a few feet away, my tank top having landed in such a way that it looped over his head. His tail wagged in a jerky, hesitant rhythm, as if he was pretty sure this was a game, but he wasn’t quite clear what was happening.
Right, well, he wouldn’t know what was happening, would he? It wasn’t like I’d ever brought a guy around him.
I laid a hand on Sawyer’s chest and stepped back. “Thirty seconds.”
Racing across the kitchen, I retrieved one of the chew bones I’d bought. “Here you go, buddy. Here’s a nice, tasty bone. You just focus on that, okay?”
I tugged the shirt off his head, and Roy took the bone from me, sending Sawyer a long look before he trotted over to the dog bed in the corner—one of several I’d scattered around the house.
“Now, where were we?” I flicked the clasp of my bra myself and let it slide down my arms, falling to the floor.
Sawyer swore, long and low, his eyes darkening like storm clouds. “Not here.”
He scooped me up in seconds, and I yelped, even as I followed his urging to wrap my legs around his waist. “Your shoulder!” It had come a long way, but still wasn’t fully healed.
“I promise, I’m feeling no pain.”
He hustled us up the stairs, every step a delicious friction against my center that ratcheted up my need. Pausing only long enough to kick the door shut, he carried me straight to the bed we shared and followed me down. Then he simply held there, hovering over me, staring with hungry eyes.
When he said nothing, just continued to drink me in, anxiety began to curl in my gut, souring the lovely buzz of arousal.
“Please don’t change your mind.”
“Never. I’m just slowing things down a bit.”
I wasn’t exactly keen on slowing down. I was too afraid he’d come to his senses and think to ask about the one thing I didn’t want to admit, because it might make him stop.
I opened my mouth to protest, but he curled his tongue around one nipple and words evaporated into a long, “Oooh.”
“So sweet,” he murmured. “I knew you’d be sweet.”
Suddenly very on board with slow, I threaded my fingers through his hair and cradled his head, keeping him close.
His smile brushed against my bare skin. “You like that?”
“More, please.”
“So polite. Such a good girl.”
Why on earth was hearing that such a thrill?
He settled in, making himself more comfortable as he cupped the other breast, rolling the nipple between his fingers.
Every squeeze, every suckle, caused a corresponding pull low in my belly. I shifted my hips, seeking relief for the building ache. “Sawyer.”
“Mmm?” The question vibrated against my skin, causing my nipple to bud even tighter.
“I need you to touch me.”
“I am touching you.”
“Everywhere.”
He paused, his eyes glittering as they stared down at me. “That’s a lot of territory, Wren. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
Damn him, he was going to make me say it?
Of course he was. This man was never going to make assumptions where I was concerned. Not with something like this. He would never push for anything I didn’t want to give.
Well, I was a grown-ass woman. If I could admit I loved him, I could ask for this. Probably.
“I need you to touch my clit.” The words came out in a rush, barely above a whisper, but he heard them.
His eyes went impossibly darker. “Fuck. I never in my life thought I’d hear you say that.”
I bit my lip. “Too much?”
“Nothing you could want will ever be too much. I just never thought I’d be here with you.” His big hands stroked along my ribs. “I’ve wanted you for so damned long.” The admission seemed to pain him. Or maybe that was the erection straining his shorts.
But his confession distracted me from the mortification burning in my cheeks. “Really? How long?”
“Far enough back that if I’d acted on it, I’d have earned a one-way ticket straight to hell, courtesy of your brother.”
Talk about a mood killer. “Let’s not bring him into this.”
“Fair enough.” He reached for the button of my shorts. “My wife needs to be touched.”
I shivered. It wasn’t the first time he’d called me his wife, but it was the first time like this, when he was on the verge of making me his wife for real. “God, I love that.”
He lowered the zipper and began working down the shorts and underwear. “What?”
“You calling me your wife.”
“What do you like about it?”
I struggled to consider the question as the cool air kissed my bare skin. “I… it makes me feel claimed.”
So did the look in his eyes as he stared up the length of my naked body, fingers stroking my calves. “Do you want to be claimed, Willa?”
I fought not to curl in or try to cover myself. I wanted this. I wanted him. I’d imagined this countless times before. I just hadn’t thought he’d be quite so… talky. “Yes.”
“How?”
Were we really having this conversation? I was used to Sawyer recognizing and anticipating my needs without my ever having to say a word. This was new, so I struggled with what to say.
He lost a little of that hungry look, his expression shifting into one of concern. “Is this too much? If it’s not working for you, or it’s making you anxious—”
I swallowed hard. “No. I was just trying to decide whether I wanted your fingers or your mouth first.” Oh my God. Did I really just blurt that out?
He blinked. “And what did you decide?”
“I’m greedy. I want both.”
Sawyer’s grin spread slow and wicked. “There’s my good girl. She knows what she wants.”
Well, my very vivid imagination had a lot of ideas and even more fantasies. We’d see if I liked them all in actual practice. “She would very much like more action and less talking, please.”
He was still chuckling as he settled between my legs. Whatever trepidation I felt at being completely exposed took a backseat to sensation as he began to trail little nibbling kisses from my knee up the inside of my thigh. Closer and closer he inched until the warm puff of his breath caressed my aching center. My body clenched, needing more than this slow tease.
“So pretty and perfect.” He pressed a kiss to the curls just above my slit, and my legs began to tremble. “Are you wet for me, Willa?”
This was it. I was going to die of wanting before he ever got down to business. “Why don’t you find out?” I challenged.
He huffed another laugh, and our eyes met. “I like you like this.”
“Like what?”
“Sassy and spread out for me to feast on.”
“There seems to be a distinct lack of feas—oooh, God!”
His tongue dragged through my folds, just barely touching my clit, but it was enough to make me jack-knife on the bed.
“So responsive.” The vibration of his growl against my most heated flesh made me whimper. “And all mine.”
“Yes,” I gasped.
“Let me have all those sweet sounds of pleasure.”
Then he truly went to work, and I completely lost my mind. There was no room for embarrassment, no room for anything but a riot of feeling as he took over every nerve in my body. So many times he drove me up, stopping just short of sending me flying. Then he’d start over again. And again, until I was a trembling mass of need, moaning his name, begging for release. Only then did he slide one finger into the center of the ache he’d created.
It was too much. It wasn’t enough.
“Please.” I didn’t know what to ask for anymore. I’d lost even the barest grasp of words.
Then he slid in a second finger along with the first, pumping slowly in and out, filling me up as his tongue worshiped my clit. I managed to pry my eyes open. I wanted to see what he was doing. Those stormy eyes were fixed on mine, even as his head was buried between my thighs, and at the heat in his gaze, the wave I’d been riding crashed over me, dragging me under a tsunami of pleasure.