I’m not twenty-five anymore. An amazing body and a smart mouth don’t do it for me any longer.
Was that all she’d ever been to him?
She tilted her head back and looked up at him. “You didn’t mean what you said to Rory.”
His mouth compressed into a straight line. “Oh, but I did, Diana. I may still want you because you have an undeniably sweet body I could spend my life sinking myself into. But as for any emotion beyond that? History, sweetheart. You made sure of that.”
The hollow feeling that consumed her then was frightening in its intensity. She could not sign those papers tomorrow, could not step on that plane knowing that was what he thought of her. That she wasn’t any different from all of his other women. That what they had had meant nothing.
She moved closer until the tips of her breasts brushed against the fine material of his shirt and her hips were cradled in the wide breadth of his. His heat moved through her, reminding her just how good it felt to be held against him.
“What were those women to you?” she asked, tracing a finger over the groove at the side of his mouth that seemed to have grown deeper. “A salve for your embittered soul? A way to prove I meant so little to you?”
He captured her hand in his. “I just told you, Di, I’m over you. Don’t give yourself so much credit.”
But she could feel his arousal stirring to life against her. Feel the rigidness of his powerful body with every contact point it shared with hers. Sex had never just been about the physical between them—it had transcended that, branded them with a truth they couldn’t deny. And she wanted it. Now. Then she could walk away.
She ran her free hand up the hard muscles of his thigh until she found the essence of his virility. His rough intake of breath sent a surge of satisfaction through her.
“What the hell are you doing?”
She lifted her gaze to his. “Maybe I came tonight for this. Maybe we should finish it like we started...”
Hot color stained his cheeks, the cords of his muscular neck standing out in stark definition. “I think that’s a bad idea.”
Her fingers traced the hard ridge of him along the zipper of his pants. His response was instantaneous, his flesh swelling beneath her touch. It set her blood on fire to prove she could still affect him like this.
He arched his hips to press himself into her hand. “This is just sex.”
She closed her fingers more firmly around him. “Whatever you say.”
“Diana.” His fingers captured her jaw, tilting her face up to his. “This means nothing. Know that if I take you now.”
But she saw the emotion raging in his eyes. Knew it from their navy blue color so dark now his pupils blended with their inky depths. He was lying.
She reached for his belt buckle. His big body tensed beneath her fingers and for a long excruciating moment, she thought he would reject her. Then he dropped his hands, his gaze sinking into hers.
“You want one more night, Di? I can do that.”
A wave of adrenaline rolled through her, so strong, so powerful she was incapable of resisting it. It was so wrong but so right to be with him like this, but the right was, oh, so much stronger. Her hands worked his belt out of the buckle and yanked it free. His zipper accommodated her downward movement with a sharp hiss that made her stomach clench. Then there was only his hard, hot flesh to rediscover. He was silk over iron power, thick and unforgiving, and he knew exactly how to use it.
His groan split the night air. “There is a party going on thirty feet away.”
She squeezed her fingers around his burgeoning flesh. “I thought you liked to walk on the wild side...”
“Not with people I pass on the street every day.”
But his protest was halfhearted. His back was to the railing, shielding him from the revelers. His body was tense, expectant beneath her fingers, his flesh responding to her touch, pulsing, growing under her caress until he lay erect against his abdomen.
If he didn’t touch her soon, she was going to scream.
A hand clamped over hers. His face when she looked up at him was full of such heated intent it stopped her heart in her chest. “You know I’m not a taker like that.”
She did. She knew what a thorough, giving, wildly erotic lover he was, and maybe that had been half the problem tonight. She wanted that—soul destroying or otherwise.
She dropped her hands to her sides as he peeled the straps of her dress from her shoulders and cupped her naked flesh. It felt so good to have his hands on her after so long, she let out a low moan and arched into him. He bent and closed his mouth over a taut peak and sucked hard, his sudden assault on her body thrilling. His lips and teeth were insistent, unrelenting, demanding a response from the very core of her. “You like that,” he muttered against her flesh. “You always liked that.”
She moaned something like a response. He worked the nipple between his fingers as he transferred his attention to the other, sucking and pulling at her until the ache in her abdomen was so acute she thought he might bring her to orgasm with this alone. Her hips moved restlessly against him, demanding more. He moved his palm to her buttock, cupped her and held her in place against his arousal. For a long moment, she was suspended in a starry corridor that promised heaven. Then he gave it to her, the rhythmic pull of his mouth on her nipple sending a sweet surge of pleasure through her limbs that pulled a cry from her lips.
This, this was why it had only ever been Coburn.
Coburn watched his wife come down from her orgasm, her delicate face flushed with pleasure. The fact that he could make her come with just his mouth and the right amount of friction satisfied him on a level he couldn’t even begin to understand. This was when his wife was his. When they were perfect together.
He ran his hands up the inside of her filmy party dress and found her thong. The thin side ripped easily, pulling away from her skin like the unwanted impediment it was. Diana’s eyes rounded.
“That’s right, wife,” he growled. “You have me in a particular kind of mood.”
She didn’t resist as he turned her around so her back was against the railing, her body shielding him from the partygoers. His mouth settled against the shell of her ear. “Spread your legs.”
She resisted for a moment at the authoritative tone behind the command. Then her muscles relaxed beneath his hands as he moved her thighs apart and found what he was looking for. Hot responsive silk that had the ability to make him forget every rational thought he’d ever had.
She went rigid beneath his touch but not to stop him. She threw her head back, exposing her irresistible long, slim neck, and reveled in it. He buried his lips in her floral scent and moved his fingers against her in a slow, languid caress.
“Oh, God.”
His wife had always been responsive, but this time he savored every sigh, every moan, every delicate whimper as he brushed his thumb against the nub at the center of her. Worked it slowly, deliberately until she was moving against his hand, his name a whispered plea that did something to his battered soul.
“You have always been mine. Always.”
She didn’t respond. She didn’t have to. He knew the truth, knew the power they held over each other. It pushed him forward, goaded him on as he slid a finger inside her in a caress he knew she loved. Her eyes closed; her hips worked against his hand. Her breathing was fractured, hitched in the night air, her body trembling beneath his hands as she stood poised to shatter into another release. But he wasn’t going to give it to her that way.
He withdrew his fingers from her. Her eyes flew open. “There will be no audience,” he said roughly.
He slid his arms under her knees, picked her up and strode through the apartment to his bedroom. It was a big mistake to take her there, he knew. If he did, he would never get her out of his head. It was his bed, his space he’d created when she’d left him hollow and broken. To let her violate it again was surely unwise, but he wasn’t thinking with his head—he was thinking with another body part entirely.
The play of the moonlight through the skylight was all he needed to absorb his wife’s jaw-dropping beauty as he deposited her on the bed. She was everything he’d ever wanted, everything he could no longer let himself want. Not after this.
He stripped off his pants, shirt and tie and slid on a condom. Diana was staring at him as if he was a beast on the prowl, and he liked that. Liked when she was at his mercy. He straddled her, pinning her to the bed with his heavier weight. She looked brazen with her dress half-off and her eyes full of desire. He ran a hand from her throat to the heat between her legs, pushing her dress up to her waist. Her lips parted in an unspoken message. The urge to kiss her, to take possession of her sultry full mouth, was so strong it nearly consumed him. He swallowed it back, clamped his jaw down hard on the need. If he did that, this bedroom would never be his own.
“Coburn?” Diana lifted her hand to curve around his nape. Her dark eyes were confused, questioning. He closed his against the emotion he saw there because now it was too much for him. Now it threatened to singe him beyond repair. He allowed her fingers to bring his head down toward her parted lips, but at the last minute he turned his head and buried his mouth in her throat. She went rigid beneath him. He captured her nipple in his mouth to distract her, his hand moving down her stomach to ready her silken flesh for him. The stiffness left her on a low, reluctant moan.