“And you won’t ever look at me that way again?”
“No.”
That hurts a little, but I push the feeling aside, wanting to heed his words and just let go, for once in my miserable life. As it is I’m stuck in a job I hate, and I’ll probably sit for the bar and do everything my family expects. This is something I can do for myself and hold close as I live in misery, probably till I marry a guy they approve of and have two point five kids.
I can do this. No, I want to do this, and hold the secret close when I’m alone and wishing for things that I know I can never have.
Chapter Eight
Dev
The words leave my mouth, and I curse silently, regretting them as soon as they hit the air. Everything I’ve said to her is true. I refuse to lie to her and give her hope where there is none, but that doesn’t mean I want her to feel like she means nothing to me.
As if all we’d have is a cheap, sordid affair that will be easily forgotten. I know that won’t be the case, and I accept it, some part of me, the part I buried deep when Mum and Dad died, relishing the opportunity to feel more than the skin-deep pleasure of an empty orgasm.
The even emptier ache of the loneliness I’ve been feeling of late.
“If we do this you have to promise not…” Her words falter, but I stay calm, silent, and wait her out, knowing that she needs to take this final step.
I’d resolved to let her come to me, and my plan had worked just fine, except that I hadn’t been stable enough to take that heated look of hers over dinner and then watch her walk into her room alone.
It’s galling, but I have less control now than I did at sixteen, and I know that sleeping alone tonight is not an option. I want her too much, need the comfort I can sense lurking in her soft golden eyes, and I can’t wait another night to claim it.
“I’m not perfect, and I know that you’re used to skinny blondes with air for brains, and…just don’t be harsh about my weight, okay?” she says, biting her lip and avoiding my gaze.
Really? She’s made my dick harder than a bloody post, and she thinks I’ll have a bad word to say about her? I’ll have to do something about her lack of confidence, and I plan to, just as soon as she gives me the go ahead and lets me rip her clothes off.
I can almost taste all that lushness now that I’m within an inch of taking it, and I’m starving. Ravenous for all the softness she seems to think is a bad thing.
“You’re fucking perfect just as you are,” I growl, thumbing her lips free of her teeth and forcing her eyes back to mine. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. You’re built like a real woman, and I don’t ever want you to believe anything less.”
She shrugs and nods, a move I’ve seen countless times and one that means she doesn’t believe me but isn’t going to argue.
Oh well, I’ll just have to prove it.
“Are you ready, imp?”
Her slight nod is barely perceptible, but I accept it for what it is, permission, and take her hand, pulling her up and into the bedroom. Once there I see the pulse of her heart in her neck and stifle a grin, thinking of the pounding it will soon turn to when I get my hands on all those abundant curves.
“Take it off. Please.”
This is the first time in my life that I haven’t been the one to undress first before attacking a woman’s clothing. I usually get things done quickly and efficiently due to my need to get things moving along so I can move on to other things, namely business or the endless family things, but I need for this to be completely her choice.
I’ll wake up tomorrow morning with regrets—not for wanting her, but that I’m purposefully setting out to take her innocence, but I want one less regret. I need to know I haven’t coerced her.
I see her swallow and will my strength into her when her fingers meet the zipper at her side and pull it down, the trembling making the task much slower than I would like.
The dress gapes open, hanging on her breasts for a breath before she shrugs and lets it drop to her bare feet, leaving her clad in white silk panties and nothing else.
“Jesus.”
I can’t say anything else because I’m tongue-tied and speechless. She’s perfect, utterly perfect, from her creamy-skinned breasts, large and high with dark pink nipples, to her gently rounded stomach and her soft, satiny thighs.
I can’t look at her sex yet because I’m so hard from just a glimpse of her treasures that I’m afraid I’ll fall on her like a ravening beast.
“Uh.”
“No, don’t hide from me.”
Is that my voice? I wonder, clearing the croak from my suddenly dry throat.
“Can I turn the light out?”