“Regan,” I whisper, my lips closer to the shell of her ear, breathing her in, letting the warmth of her skin pull me under. “Are you wearing underwear under this shirt?”
She smiles. Slow. Knowing.
“No.”
My grip tightens. “Why?”
She wets her lips, blue eyes dark and heavy-lidded. “Because I want you to touch me.”
Fuck.
I hesitate for only a second before I’m moving, flipping her onto her back, hovering over her as she lands against the couch with a soft gasp. Movie be damned, we’re doing this tonight.
Her t-shirt is bunched up at the sides, exposing bare, soft skin, but I barely process anything past the sight of her legs parting, one foot dropping to the floor the other to the back of the couch as she opens for me. Her soaked, glistening pussy is right there, waiting, begging.
She lifts her leg off the floor, raises her knee up to her chest before dropping it to the side, falling open further, and I swear I forget how to breathe.
“Fuck me,” I murmur, voice thick, throat tight.
She looks up at me, cheeks flushed, dark, red hair wild against the cushions, blue eyes shining like she knows exactly what she’s doing to me. And damn, I want nothing more than to taste her, to spread her open and devour her, to have her coming all over my face, my tongue, my hands—
“Are you sure?” I rasp, my restraint barely hanging on.
She nods. No hesitation.
“Yes.”
Chapter 40: Regan
There’s been an invisible thread that’s been tethering me to Hayes ever since I came home from the hospital two weeks ago.?
No, I don’t remember our first marriage. Or our second, for that matter.
But I remember seven years ago. And what I don’t remember, the things that have been lost somewhere in the fog of my mind, Hayes has made up for in the quiet, steady way that he’s been here and the conversations that we’ve had.
It’s in the way he’s spoken to me, soft and patient when I ask questions about the past. In the dinners he’s made every night that he’s been home, setting a plate in front of me like it’s second nature. It’s in the way he looks at me, like I’m something he’s been starving for but refuses to take a bite of until I tell him he can. The clench of the muscles in his neck when he’s holding back, the bunch of his brows and the warmth of his eyes help meunderstand what we had before. And I feel confident now that we were so much more than just business partners.
And then there’s Declan. After my date with him, I knew deep down that there was a reason I ended things with him right before I blew into Hayes life once again. A reason I let him go. Because Hayes gave me something Declan never did. Something I don’t think I was even looking for at the time.
Passion and desire.
Between Rae, Molly, and Lydia filling in the gaps in my memory these past few weeks, it sounds like a textbookmemove. I made a deal. Convinced Hayes it was too good to pass up so that I could get the Mayberry Manor. Married him like it was all business. And then, somewhere along the way… I think I fell for him.
And over these past two weeks we’ve shared, I think I finally understand why and how I did because I’m falling for him all over again.
Maybe, in the beginning, it really was just about the deal. But the way Hayes looks at me now? Like I’m the only thing that’s ever mattered? That tells me it was more than that on the night of my accident. Even if I never said it out loud. Even if I never let myself believe it before.
He drops between my legs, his strong hands gripping my thigh, draping one over his shoulder while pressing the other one down, spreading me wider beneath him.
“You are… everything, Regan,” he whispers, his dark eyes alight with fire. The soft crease in his forehead—the one that’s been there for two weeks like he’s been holding back every time he looks at me—flickers in the dim glow of the candlelight. He trails his gaze over my body, between my legs, hunger written in every tense line of his frame as he memorizes my naked form.
“Do you remember what you told me the night we first met?” he asks.
I blink up at him, the memory hovering just out of reach before it clicks into place, but he continues before I can respond.
“I asked you to tell me a secret…”
“Oh…” I whisper, my throat going dry, because now I remember. I really fucking do.
