“The fact that you were not those things, could never be those things, was why I married you in the first place,” he said, his voice softer, yet somehow more urgent.
She was astounded to realize that she believed him. Yet she remembered how it had been. He had been so cold, so distant, so disapproving, and she had not known how to handle that when the man she had fallen so far in love with had been so fiery, so deeply entwined with her at every moment.
“Why did you not tell me that then?” she asked, surprised to find she was whispering. Would it have made a difference? she asked herself now. Would it have changed anything?
“I could not tell you something I did not know myself,” he said in a low voice.
But she could not get past what his words seemed to imply. And she was shaken by the wave of grief that washed through her, over her, making her feel too large and unwieldy, too exposed, too vulnerable.
“You wanted something different, is that it?” she asked, because she could not seem to stop herself, not because she really wanted to know the answer. Her voice was hoarse from the agony of this conversation. She was sure she had bruises, yet she still could not seem to stop. “You …what? Thought I could be the symbol of your rebellion?”
“I wanted you,” he said, his voice as dark as his eyes, his expression as troubled as she imagined hers to be. His lips pressed together and she could see that tension radiating along the length of his body. “I wanted you. And I confess, Bethany, that I did not think of anything else at all.”
She wanted to weep. To curl herself into a ball and sob until the great mess of the feelings that swirled around inside of her were purged from her once and for all.
But instead, responding to an urgency she dared not examine too closely, she leaned forward. She propped herself up on her hands and held herself above him for a long, trembling moment. Then she closed the distance between them and went to press her lips to his.
“Wait.”
He stopped her just before she touched him and she froze, her mouth so close to his, so very close. She dragged her gaze up to his, so bright now, with desire glowing like molten gold. She shivered and he smiled, though his whole big body was as taut as a spring, coiled tight beneath her, so much raw male power leashed and ready.
“What is it?” she whispered just a breath away. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest, and she could see his hands in fists at his hips, digging into the blue and white blanket beneath them.
“If I taste you, I will take you.” His eyes, glittering with that intoxicating heat, were hard on hers. His harsh promise hung between them and lit her on fire. She exulted in the flames, the burn. “Be certain, Bethany. Be very certain.”
She was not certain at all. She felt reckless, compelled. She felt as if she had lost herself in quicksand. She felt too much, all of it so big, so terrifying, shaking her even as she sat.
I wanted you, he had said, and it made her shiver. Today of all days, here beside a lake that should not have been—a monument to a marriage disturbingly like the one she had walked away from—she would not let herself worry about the consequences.
She licked her lips and felt him sigh against her, felt that dark and intoxicating desire kick hard and hot between them.
Just for today, she promised herself. This is only for today.
And then, reaching across all of their history, across too many years and regrets, too much resentment and the space of one quick breath, she fit her mouth to his.
CHAPTER TEN
LEO let her kiss him, her soft, lush mouth hot against his. Once. Twice. Like heaven, her taste. A kind of paradise, the slide of her lips on his—tasting, touching. Needing him as he needed her. If this was his rebellion, he did not know why he would ever do anything but fall.
And then he could not help the thudding, pounding, heady mix of desire and triumph, victory and relief that flooded through him. He jack-knifed forward, never taking his mouth from hers, and took her face in his hands, angling her head for a better, hotter, slicker fit.
Oh, the taste of her. It was like the finest of his wines, like the heat of the summer sun, and he had been hard for her for days. Years. He went harder still when he heard the impatient, greedy sounds she made, her mouth opening over his, her hands spearing into the thickness of his hair to hold his head close to hers.
He felt her fine cheekbones under his thumbs, the soft swell of her cheeks. Still he tasted her, over and over, as if he could sate himself on this alone—as if he feared that should he stop, should they breathe, should they pause for even a moment, she would disappear from him all over again.
Not again, he told himself. Not now. Not while he captured her curls beneath his palms. Not while he tasted her as if he were dying of thirst and she was the coolest, sweetest, purest water he had ever known.