“Too fucking long,” he breathed near her ear, his ragged breath blowing hot against her flushed cheeks. He trapped her hands above her head. Interlacing their fingers, he captured her kissed bruised mouth in a slow and deep kiss that matched the rhythm of his plunging thrusts. “Look at me,” his command was a gentle imploration that Eden could not ignore. Her breath was his breath, intoxicated by the potency of their passion, unguarded green eyes anchored glowing amber and in that singular moment, in that raw and naked flow of their brief eternity something they had denied for too long was defined. Beyond the shallow depths, she saw herself in his reflective gaze; she saw how he saw her and the intensity there frightened her beyond reason. It was too powerful to speak into words. Too precious, too new, but it vibrated between them like a living entity, so palpable that they felt it on their sweat slicked bodies. It raised goose bumps and brought tears to Eden’s eyes. She tasted it in his kiss, felt it in the way he touched her, the way he grabbed at her thigh, and raised it higher up on his waist to drive in deeper than she’d ever felt him before. He took her fast, and she matched the cantering to and fro motion with ease. His feelings were made real, manifesting themselves in the way he possessed her. She felt his burning, desperate intensity, his unwillingness to break free of this moment, his need to stretch it further, make it last and last so that reality never caught them. He spoke what he could not say in kisses that she understood, and she responded with gasps, whimpers, and moans, clutching at him like life itself depended on it. He slammed into her with unrepentant vigor, over and over and over again, the rhythm maddening, urgent, and erratic. He made sure that she saw him, made sure that with every gasping breath she took, she took him into every cell of her body. Deep within the feminine mantle that clutched him tighter than a vise, he tattooed his name in slick magma, staking claim where no other man would dare trespass.
Euphoria leveled her, speared through her body, and overflowed; it was too much for her to withstand. She went willingly when it shoved her over the edge, and she fell happily into the arms of her little death. Her orgasm rippled and she milked him of his as he grunted and groaned above her, “Eden.” The bare utterance of her name was said in sweet reverence. “Eden.” And again he whispered it, against her cheek this time, a life line he clung to with unfailing strength.
There was nothing but the symphony of their ragged breaths playing against the walls of the bedroom. He eased out of her and rolled to the side but a possessive arm around her waist kept them entangled, limbs entwined and bodies drenched, neither one seemed inclined to move. Silence washed over them, the ardor temporarily satiated, and they basked in coital bliss. She felt the lazy swirls of his fingertips sliding along the curve of her hip, gliding up to her waist and when they reached near her ribcage she twitched. “Don’t,” she whispered drowsily.
“Don’t what?” he asked blithely, fingertips descending once again.
“Don’t tickle me.”
“Are you ticklish?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
The unexpected sound of his laughter filled Eden with an odd sense of elation, the rich, full sound washing over her like a cool wave. She looked at him beneath the veil of her lashes and found herself admiring the subtle changes, the look of amusement was something she had never had the privileged of seeing until now. Her fingers lifted of their own accord to his mouth, committing the imprint of that unguarded smile to memory, so that when she returned to her room it would be the source of her dreams. He puckered his lips against her fingertips, giving them a gentle kiss. “There are a lot of things I would like to know about you,” he said gruffly. “I’ve missed you.” He followed the admission with an indolent trace of his tongue across her dewy mouth. “Not just your body, Eden, but you.”
There went her heart again. The traitorous pumping organ jolted at the words he spoke so tenderly, convinced of the sincerity of feelings behind them. Eden rolled onto her back and covered her eyes with the back of her arm, needing to shut out the intensity bleeding from the green eyes she no longer recognized. She couldn’t do this. She would not do this. She’d wanted her visit in this fantasy to last a little while longer, but she could not stay here, because here, this room, this bed, the emotions she felt, were not real. And reality was very quick to reiterate that fact as it intruded on her thoughts and opened crevices where her doubts lay dormant. It preyed on her fears and demanded access to the foolish heart that held on to hope and craved his love like a sinner at God’s feet.
“You can’t say things like that.” Not when I’m steps away from being free from you. The words remained unspoken, a scalding steel rod roasting in her throat. She sat up in an instant, feeling a sudden overwhelming loss of control. Tension she hadn’t known in some time coiled inside her like a snake ready to strike at the slightest hint of provocation. He reached for her and she recoiled. “Don’t,” she said tensely.
“Talk to me,” he urged.
She shot to her feet and looked at him, impervious of her nudity. “You don’t get to do this, Dominic.” The look she gave him shredded Dominic. “I’m still so angry with you, but at the same time my heart breaks for you because of what you went through. I know you have your demons, and I can’t begin to understand how hard it’s been for you. But you’ve created my demons; you’ve made it so that I can’t trust you. You’ve made me fear you.”
“I would never hurt you,” he said with conviction.
“You already have,” she whispered, blinking away tears so that he wouldn’t see her weakness. “I don’t know what you want from me—”
He was there before she could finish, her face in his hands, his forehead resting against hers, there was nowhere else for her to look but up into eyes on fire. “I want you to tell me how to make it better.”
“How can you make it better when we’re already so broken? How can you make it better when I’m so afraid to let you in?”
“Don’t…don’t give up on me,” he entreated. “I know I can be the man you deserve, Eden.”
Eden closed her eyes, squeezed them tight, and in doing so the tears she’d wanted to prevent fell in earnest silently down her cheeks. Biting her quivering bottom lip so that she did not embarrass herself further, she sniffled and reopened her eyes. “Be the father our son deserves.” She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “He needs you.” She slipped away and just before she could break away completely he clamped a hand around her wrist.
“I need you.”
She shook her head, refusing to look back at him. “I’ve already given you what you wanted.” She turned and left him with only a ghost of her impression.
Chapter Nineteen
He was called away a few days later on business in Greece, and the trip couldn’t have come at a better time for Eden, who had once again avoided him after the passion filled night they’d shared. They had been closer than the word. Their shadowed movements a synchronized ballet they’d mastered long ago. Even now, nearly a week later, she could still feel his thickness and the smooth, controlled cadences of his thrusts that had only grown frenzied in their last gasping moments, and it had her feminine walls clenching reflexively. The slutty part of her that she rarely allowed to see the light of day wanted more of that fullness, wanted more of the delicious soreness that hurt so good. But it was a demand Eden could not satisfy, the two main reasons being that: one, thankfully, Dominic was out of the country; and two, she couldn’t allow sex to cloud her judgment, not now when the direness of the situation called for a level head. Eden knew it was a moot point, castigating herself on her ultimate failure in resisting his advances, knowing in the end she’d ended up exactly where she’d vowed she wouldn’t. Making that vow had been the beginning of the end. A jinx that had come to perfect fruition all because of the unimaginable hunger that had proved impossible to deny, an unquenchable hunger that ebbed when he stroked her only the way he could.
Now she stood in a quagmire of her own making, faced with the aftermath with nothing to save her from sinking but willpower. She had to make a decision, a decisive one that needed to ultimately benefit her. Because that’s what this was all about. She’d gone through far too much to be impeded now by something that wasn’t even real. There were no feelings in fucking. There was no love in this poisoned garden of a marriage. Forget that for an infinitesimal breath of time when he’d been buried deep inside her and the dark passion that filled his green eyes had captured hers, she’d seen her husband for the first time. Forget the heart wrenching intimacy he’d roused soon after when they’d been entangled like twine, with their hearts drumming as one to the same longing rhythm. That intimacy that they’d fallen into so easily, so unlike them, was admittedly what frightened Eden more than she dared confess.
Gathering her hair up in its customary ponytail, she wrapped it into a messy bun on her head, and tossed a cursory glance at her rearview mirror before opening the driver’s side door. This was her first time back on the night shift, and if Lena had had her way, it wouldn’t have happened any time soon. But Carver had intervened on her behalf after Mickey had demanded his liquor slinging girl back at the bar. So now she was working the night shift again, both a blessing and a curse. But it wouldn’t be for much longer, Eden thought, tonight she was giving her two weeks. Waiting tables and working for tips wasn’t a future she wanted for herself. It had only been a pit stop, getting too comfortable there hadn’t been part of the deal.