Indecent Proposal (25 page)

The Internet was right. And she was one of those women for whom desire roared back, fueled by hormones and a certain lush new way of living in her body. Her breasts felt weighted, her skin like velvet. Between her legs, blood pounded like some kind of tribal drum.

Oh for fuck’s sake
, she thought.
Let’s not go overboard
.

“What if … what if I needed to kiss you,” he breathed.

Chapter 19

YES!
Her body cheered.
We can do that! Kisses for everyone
.

“Harrison.” There was a world of doubt in her breath that she couldn’t hide. Confusion. Worry. A finely tuned sense of danger.

It wasn’t just the contract they signed that made her worry. What would they do tomorrow? How would sleeping together change the very delicate balance they’d managed to create? How would she pay in days to come for taking what she wanted right now?

They both leaned back but didn’t let go. She fisted her hands in his shirt, her nails biting into the skin of his shoulders. His heart was pounding so hard she felt it under her hands, could see it in his throat. She stared at that throbbing skin, wondering when the world was going to burst into flames.

And then he kissed her.

And the world wasn’t engulfed in flame. It was she that was consumed.

She clutched at his shoulders and his hands swept around her hips to pull her into his lap, but they were stopped by the stupid soon-to-be-ash blanket, which she pulled and yanked out of the way until it was gone and she could find his body with hers.

There, she found his chest with her breasts. His arms with her hands. The hard erection in his pants with her belly.

Yes. Oh, God. Yes, finally
, she thought, pushing herself against him because she’d been waiting for this. Even while pretending she didn’t want it. Didn’t need it.

She’d been wanting this.

Wanting him.

He ate at her mouth, using his thumbs against the hollows of her cheeks to open it wider so he could devour her. And that’s what she craved; not just sex. Not just contact. She wanted to devour and be devoured.

“Ryan,” he breathed, pulling the sweater up and over her head and then yanking down the thin straps of her camisole until her breasts were revealed. He bent her back over his arms and licked at her breasts, pulling her nipples into his mouth, sucking until she cried out. Until everything began to coil inside of her, burning hotter and tighter.

Fuck
. She was going to come. She was going to come like this.

The pain of this pleasure was nearly too much and she had to share it, enlist his help in carrying this load, and so she sucked at his throat, so hard he lifted his hips, high and hard against her, his cock nudging into her.

She ran her fingers through his hair, using her nails against his scalp, and he hissed, his skin twitching. He reached both his hands around her hips, grabbing rough palmfuls of her ass, and she cried out, smacking her hands down on the back of the couch to hold herself up, to keep herself from slipping into a pile of messy woman on a man’s lap.

He pulled her and pushed her against him. Rough and hard and fast and urgent. Like he couldn’t get close enough.

“Are you …?” he panted, licking her throat, sucking her earlobe into his mouth, all while his wicked hands
held her against him. The perfect grip. A dreamy jail. “Is this hurting—” His voice cut off on a loud groan.

“Good. So good. Keep—” No. She didn’t want to keep going like this. She needed more. She needed him inside of her.

Just the thought of it—that slow penetration, the way her body would yield, but it would still sting a little, how heavy and thick he would feel, how right and foreign at the same time—brought her panting toward orgasm. Quickly she reached between them and unbuckled his belt. He caught on and reached under her skirt for the edge of her panties. She shifted to help him pull them off, but he grabbed the thin silk at her hip and twisted it around his hand, the elastic and silk burning into her skin until the fabric ripped and fell away.

He tossed her torn underwear on the floor and she pulled down the zipper of his pants and pushed aside the cotton of his boxers until he was a reality in her hand, hot and damp just there at the tip. Her mind was blown blank by lust, her body pained by want. By need. By a desire so sudden and so hungry she was almost scared the feeling wouldn’t go away. They could fuck each other until they couldn’t move, but this fire in her blood would not be extinguished.

On her knees over him, holding him still, she slowly lowered herself down, felt the push of the broad head, right there, right where her body wept for him.

She hung her head, shaking.

Oh. God
.

“Ryan,” he panted, as if he were running right alongside her in a marathon. His hands slid over her ass, up her back and back down, unable to make up their mind where to stay. “Condom.”

“I’m already pregnant,” she breathed, her forehead against his collarbone, his cock easing slowly, slowly
inside of her. “And there hasn’t been anyone but you for four years.”

“What?”

“Four years. I’m clean. You?”

“Ryan?” She felt him jerk as if to see her better, but they could save all their confessions and secrets for later. Now. Now they were busy with this.

“Tell me,” she demanded.

“I’m … I’m clean.” Of course he was; he was Harrison Montgomery.

She took him all the way. Her body split, her legs shaking.

His skin twitched under her hands. Against her. Inside of her.

She felt the breathless want turn into something real; it grew weight and heft and she lifted her hips, circled them, fell back against him, again and again, lifting the cumbersome weight of her desire up and off the ground until it had a life of its own and she could not move fast enough, hard enough. His hands on her hips did not hold her close enough and she closed her eyes and bit her lip and reached and reached and reached.

Harrison groaned and swore, sweat running down his neck, the hair at her temple, wet from his sweat or hers she didn’t know or care. All she cared about was the orgasm, just out of reach. Suddenly he lifted her and turned, laying her down on the coach, and he followed, covering her head to foot. His pants falling down to his knees. He gripped the armrest of his couch, spread her legs with his, braced himself against the floor, and pounded into her. Loud and sweaty and raw and real.

So real. So authentic.

It was them. Just them. No act. No charade. No pretense.

Finally
, she thought,
here we are
.

She reached between them, placed her finger against the hard, buzzing edge of her clit, and in one wild and ecstatic burst of light and sound and pleasure she screamed, her body blown to bits.

As if from a long ways away she heard his answering shout, felt him shaking against her, and she stroked his back, hugged him hard to her.

And waited for the regrets to show up, one by one, like moths finding the only porch light for miles.

What have we done?
she wondered, combing her hands through his hair.

She didn’t know what the next moment looked like, much less tomorrow. Or the next week.

How did this change everything?

The aftermath of all that lust was fear. Fear that she’d messed it all up again. She’d gotten to someplace good. Really good. She had friends. Work she was proud of. A team that counted on her.

A baby for whom she had to build a future. A safe, loving, caring future.

And this sex could really mess it up.

“Are you okay?” he asked, bracing his hands against the cushions by her rib cage.

She nodded, attempting a smile, though her body wasn’t totally back online. There were still parts of her she couldn’t feel. Her legs, for one. Her left arm.

When she shifted away from him he slipped out, and she felt the messy wetness of them between her legs.

“I’m … uh …” he said, sitting down hard on the other side of the couch, his damp pink penis slouched resting against his leg. “Wow.”

She forced herself to move, to sit up, and then stand on wobbly legs.

He lifted a hand to catch her if she fell.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said, and then walked across the room to the hallway toward her
room. In the hall, out of his sight, she put one hand on the wall to prevent collapse. With every step, instead of stronger, she felt weaker.

Mistake. Mistake. Mistake
.

In the dark bathroom she closed the door and crumpled down on the toilet.

She had half a mind to hide here until he got tired of waiting and she heard the creak of the stairs as he went to his room.

A minute passed. Another.

And there was only silence from the other room. He was more stubborn than she was.

She considered just slipping into her bedroom from here. They could simply not address that desperate, hungry sex at all and then tomorrow, they could just pretend nothing had happened and keep plugging away in this strange, estranged pretend relationship they were in.

But when she stood and caught sight of herself in the mirror over the sink, she knew she couldn’t hide.

You are a grown-ass woman. And grown-ass women don’t act like teenagers terrified of how a man makes them feel
.

She cleaned herself up, brushed her hair. Her teeth. She felt, more than that first night or even that awful ceremony at the Governor’s Mansion, like something had changed. That sex, hell, that
hug
, had shoved things aside, revealing what she’d rather keep hidden.

She wanted Harrison.

She liked him.

Staring at her reflection in the mirror, the lips swollen from kisses, the beard burn on her cheeks, the wild hair and wilder eyes, there was no pretending.

I had sex with my husband
.

She put her hair back in a ponytail, went into her
bedroom for clean underwear and a new tank top, and then headed back out to the kitchen to face the music.

The music, in this case, being a devastatingly handsome man, standing at the kitchen island, his arms braced wide against the counter. His head bowed.

My husband
.

And his own regrets were so obvious they were written on his body, in the way he stood. The lines around his mouth and between his eyes when he looked up at her. He didn’t know what to do any better than she did.

And she was wholly comforted by that.

“I think we’re in breach of contract,” she said, attempting a joke.

He smiled, a brief flash, gone before it really had a chance to settle in. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“Then we’re in the clear.”

“Ryan,” he sighed.

She lifted her hand, her stomach, her heart, her lungs shrinking. “Please don’t say you’re sorry,” she whispered.

“I’m not sorry. I’m not. But …” He blew out a long breath and ran his hands through his hair. “I feel like I’ve taken advantage of you.”

Something inside of her cringed. Her pride? “Taken advantage of her” alluded that their power dynamic was so skewed in his favor that she didn’t have a choice. Or that he didn’t think she was capable of choice.

“No. That was me taking advantage of you.” That hunger she’d had for him was embarrassing now. Hormones—she’d blame the hormones.

He watched her for a long while and she crossed her arms over her chest, feeling slightly too naked in her shirt. Too naked under his gaze.

“Nothing has to be different,” she said.

“It feels like everything is,” he said. “We had … Christ, Ryan, that sex … are we supposed to pretend like that didn’t happen? Because I don’t know if I can do
that!” He walked around the island toward her and she took a quick step back. Which of course stopped him in his tracks.

What would happen, she wondered if she said,
I kind of fell in love with you that night in the hotel. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I’m kind of wired like that. And now … now it’s that night in the hotel and this night on your couch and I can see love again on the horizon and that’s not what I need right now. You look at me like something you’ve taken advantage of, and I’m trying to build a new life for this child. A life with love and acceptance. Full-throttle warmth
.

And I don’t think that’s anything you know how to give
.

“It was an emotional night,” she said. “And I think maybe … we both just needed some comfort.”

“Are you honestly telling me that’s all that was?”

Part of her wanted to ask him what he thought it was, demand answers from him, but those answers might be worse than not knowing.

She had a path; for the first time in her life, she was working toward something, and she couldn’t let that be derailed. Not for sex. Not for more of this man’s honest smiles. Not for the scraps of attention and affection he offered when he was circling his own personal rock bottom.

He’d offered her a way into a better life and she, while he’d been gone, had created her own exit strategy. She couldn’t sacrifice that now. She was going to be a mother. Her baby didn’t deserve a compromise.

“Comfort and hormones,” she said with a shaky laugh, as if inside she weren’t in shambles.

He looked like he was trying to figure out if he was offended.

“I’m glad it happened,” she said in a rush, throwing
the words into his increasingly cold silence. “I’m glad I was here. Tonight. You needed a friend.”

“Right.” He did nothing to hide his bitterness. His recriminations were not pointed at her, but rather himself. The weakness he’d shown her, the vulnerability, it didn’t sit easily with him.

Her favorite thing about him, and he would eradicate it if he could.

“Don’t. Don’t do that.”

“I don’t have friends, Ryan.”

I know. I know you don’t and that’s why I have to be careful
.

“You do now.” She took a stab at bright and cheerful, but it fell closer to solemn vow.

His laughter was dark, tinged with disbelief, but his manners, his well-established sense of self-preservation, that shield he’d created between who he was and what he was, kicked in and he graciously ducked his head. A strange bow that broke her heart. “Thank you, then. For being here. I’m … I’m glad you were too.”