Somehow, he slipped past it, touched my wounded heart, gave me a job, guided me back to the woman I was on my way to becoming. And then he showed me the sexual, uninhibited woman I didn’t know existed.
Yes, asking him to enter into a secret, temporary friends-with-benefits pact with me is probably the epitome of selfishness. But I don’t rescind my request. And I want him to give in. More than my next breath, I want it. Want him.
“You’re my brother’s wife,” he states matter-of-factly. As if that should settle the discussion.
“Widow,” I correct. “And you didn’t seem to care about that last night…or this morning.” Not when he’d guided me down his body and rolled his hips, pushing his dick in my mouth.
He doesn’t address my point, but there’s another flare of fire in his emerald gaze. “You believe you’re ready for the consequences if someone found out about us, but you’re not. I’ve already had a taste of disapproval. I don’t think you could deal. It’s heavy, baby. And you’ve already lost so much, I don’t want to be responsible for you losing more.”
Translation: He didn’t think he wasworthme losing more.
Knox was the fighter, but now, at this moment, I want to climb into a ring and go ten rounds with any and every person who’d ever uttered a word or committed an action that entrenched his blasphemous belief in his own unworthiness.
Aren’t you doing the same thing?a sibilant whisper slithers through my mind.
No, I deny vehemently. He’s not second best. If we were different people and under different circumstances, I would stare down any woman who dared glance in his direction, and proudly walk around with a sign declaring who he belonged to.
But we are who we are, and nothing can change that.
He deserves a woman who can claim him as hers. Who can be his. And I’m not that woman. I won’t shatter his relationship with his mother, and I don’t want to risk the rest of his family’s love and respect for either of us.
But for a little while, I’d like to be her, even if under the somewhat deceitful blanket of secrecy.
“No one would find out if we’re careful,” I counter his argument. “And for the record, you wouldn’t be responsible if someone did discover the truth. I would. I’m a full-grown woman and am capable of weighing the consequences of my decisions. And you using the excuse of ‘protecting’ me from my own choices is insulting.”
He crosses his arms over his chest, arching a dark eyebrow. “So, I would be your dirty little secret?” His voice is rough, black gravel, but still, I sense that he’s not angry or offended.
“And I’ll be yours,” I reply.
His eyes narrow. “There could never be anything dirty about you, Eden.”
Damn. This man.
“Is that a yes?” I press.
There’s a long moment of silence, and it vibrates with the tension between us.
“Yes.”
The relief and joy that washes through me should be a warning that I’m in so much deeper than I want to admit. But right now, denial is my bestie, and we’re rolling together.
And frankly, need trumps everything else. My palms tingle and itch with the desire to erase the distance between us and stroke the amazing chest that’s calling to me like a pint of strawberry cheesecake ice cream.
But we have one last thing to settle.
“One last thing,” I say, injecting as muchI’m not taking no shitinto my tone as possible. “I think you should stay home from the shop today. Or at least not come in until late afternoon.”
“Why would I do that?” he asks, frowning.
“So you can get some more sleep. You seemed to be able to do it here in my bed. So maybe it’s a change in environment that helped.”
“It wasn’t the environment, Eden,” he growls. “It was the woman. Don’t doubt that.”
The bald, no-ruffles-or-adornment statement is somehow as hot as the filthiest thing he’s ever uttered to me. Christ, I want to climb him like a jungle gym. With a will that must be divinely given, I focus.
“And I want you to promise me you’ll go see someone about the insomnia and nightmares.”
His frown clears, and the Sphinx returns. “That’s not necessary—”
