At her incredulity that he’d done that when she didn’t have the blade of exposure held to his neck this time, he’d shrugged, saying he considered having her those ten weeks as vital to him as keeping his secrets had been. She’d insisted he hadn’t needed to give her anything, that what she wanted was only him. And he’d only said he knew that.
But he’d still been ready to part with such a staggering sum. To put things into perspective. So she wouldn’t mistake this for anything permanent.
She could have told him there’d never been any danger of that.
But she didn’t tell him. Nor did she talk about anything else of note, either. Their time together was about indulging in each other. Ten weeks of pure pleasure.
Not that she thought it would be really that long. There was no way he’d be with her right up to his wedding day.
Swallowing the lump she had no right to have perpetually in her throat, she ran her palms over his chest and abdomen, luxuriating in his velvet-encased steel flesh, tracing every bulge and ridge and groove of his chiseled perfection.
Then she went lower, afraid she’d find more evidence of disinterest to go with his unprecedented preoccupation, and her breath left her in a ragged sigh as her hand closed over his mind-blowing potency, fully, dauntingly aroused.
Her lips shaking in relief, she bit his earlobe as she squeezed him. “I need you to be doing far better things than staring out into the horizon like that. Like taking me right here, right now.”
“Scarlett.”
That was all he said as he flung his head against the back of the couch, exposing his face and neck to her worship.
But he hadn’t moaned her name in pleasure, or in sensual threat. But as if he was...trying to understand it.
Suddenly the whole world turned upside down. He’d grabbed her and flipped her in the air, bringing her down across his body.
Breathless with shock and with awe at his sheer strength and prowess, she gaped up at him. It had been effortless for him to catapult her like this. His hands hadn’t dug hard in her flesh to secure her, then he’d applied what felt like antigravity to her descent in midflip so that she landed with the softest of impacts on his lap.
Sealing her open mouth with a kiss that breached her essence, he finally withdrew to look down at her as she lay cradled in his arms, nerveless still with surprise and sheer delight. She would have stayed like this forever if she could.
He lifted a thick lock of her long hair to his lips before winding it around his hand, giving a tug that sent a million delicious arrows shooting everywhere through her body.
One of her various addictions to him was to how he gave her pleasure with every touch, every action. But when he plundered her, he had her screaming with it, tethering her by her hair, harnessing her to make her submit to his every demand. It bordered on savagery, and was pure perfection.
She wished she could ask him to grow his magnificent hair longer, so she could grab it as she held on to him, as he pounded into her, drove her beyond her limits and herself and the world.
But she had no right to ask anything of him, even if his indulgence of her knew no bounds. And even if she did ask, and he didn’t have to keep it cropped for his image and grew it out, she wouldn’t be around long enough to enjoy the results.
Megumi would. She knew he believed his fiancée would endure intimacy with him only for the purpose of making their required heirs, but Scarlett believed any woman he touched would crave him forever afterward. As she did.