“Oh,” I whisper, wanting to look away, but unable to. I’d really thought he had a headache and wanted to lay down—it hadn’t occurred to me that he’d been removing himself to fight the urge to touch me. It saddens me at the same time that a jolt of lust tears through me, the feeling that he wants to avoid desiring me warring with the heady knowledge that I still affect him so much. “I didn’t know.”
Niall snorts. “Of course you did. You remember all the nights in Mexico, how you make me so fucking hard I can’t stand it.” In one harsh, angry motion he flings the blanket away, letting me see his cock, still jutting hard and eager out of the open fly of his jeans, his erection not the slightest bit affected by our fight. “This is what you fucking do to me. I can’t be around you five bloody minutes without being so goddamn hard that I want to bend you over the nearest surface, and not give a shite whoever else might see.”
Angrily, he yanks his jeans up, shoving his erection back into his boxer briefs. “But we can’t do this, Isabella,” he says firmly. “This isn’t going to work, and we can’t keep putting off the inevitable, pretending like it could.”
“But—” I’d told myself I wouldn’t protest, but I can’t help it. “Niall—”
“I can’t trust you.” His words are flat, harsh as a slap, though I know he’d never lay a hand on me. “No matter what else is between us, there’s always going to be that. And I can’t love another woman who I can’t trust.”
The finality of those words, the brutal harshness, feels like a stunning blow. As they hang in the air between us, I can’t help myself. I feel my heart break all over again, the carefully arranged pieces shattering once more, and I cover my face with my hands, unable to look at Niall any longer.
I burst into tears.
3
NIALL
Seeing Isabella like this makes me feel as if my heart is being torn out of my chest. Things between us are far from normal or okay, but when she covers her face with her hands and starts to sob, it feels like a dagger to my chest. I like to think that I’m not a cruel man, and I don’t want her hurt. Most of all, I don’t want to be the one to hurt her.
But I can’t stay in a marriage with someone I don’t trust, and there’s no point in dragging this out further. It’s only going to hurt us both in the end, and after Saoirse and now this, I don’t know how much more I can take.
There’s no way forward for us that I can see, no matter how much I might wish deep down that it could be different—especially now that I know Isabella is carrying my child.
“Hey.” I say it softly, reaching for her hands to tug them down away from her face. “Don’t cry. Please—”
Isabella looks at me with those wide dark eyes, now unfocused as tears stream out of them, and I fold my hands around hers, moving closer to her so that I’m sitting in front of her on the bed. She opens her mouth as if to say something, but it’s just more tears.
“I’m not abandoning you,” I tell her firmly, trying to soothe her. “And I’m not trying to reject you. But I’ve told you since we left the canyon that this can’t be anything more than what it is between us—me trying to keep you safe, and now trying to provide for you and our child.”
“Because of what I did.” Isabella bites her lip, scarred over from how many times she’s chewed on it in the past days, and I can’t help myself. I reach out to touch her cheek, wiping her tears away with my thumb, and her dark eyes lock onto mine.
God, I fucking want her.I’ve never felt anything like it, and nothing seems to quell it. No matter what I do, no matter what’s happening, my desire for her won’t go away. I long for her, even more than I did for Saoirse, in a way that I never have for a woman before.
“Isabella, please.” I pull her closer to me, into my arms, knowing where this is leading yet unable to stop myself from comforting her. “Please don’t cry. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. No one will hurt you ever again.”
When my arms go around her, I feel her relax into my embrace, and relief sweeps over me. The sounds of her crying ease, and I touch her face gently, tilting it up so that she’s looking at me again as I wipe away her tears.
“There. There’s no need to cry. All will be well.” I murmur the words in my rolling Irish burr, hearing the echo of my mother saying it to me, my gran before her. Words to soothe, to ease. I want nothing more in that moment than to soothe Isabella, but as she shifts closer to me, her chin tipping up as she leans into my embrace and looks into my eyes, I feel the desire coming back too, the ebb and flow of it as natural as if this were always meant to happen.
I shouldn’t kiss her. I know that, beyond a shadow of a doubt. All it can lead to is more pain, drawing this out, making it harder on us both. I’d intended the moment when we arrived in New York to be a clear delineation between the relationship we’d had in Mexico, and the one we’d have here, now that we’ve arrived home.
And yet—I can’t stop myself. It’s as if it’s someone else bending his head to kiss her full, soft lips, salty with her tears, someone else who feels himself go instantly hard when Isabella breathes in sharply at the touch of my mouth against hers, the flames of desire roaring up hot and fast.
I’ve pulled her into my lap before I know it, my hands buried in her thick black hair as I deepen the kiss, savoring the taste of her mouth as she gasps and it opens for my tongue. Her body arches into mine instantly, her hands curled into my shirt, and I’m reminded with devastating strength of that moment on our first night together, when she curled her finger into my shirt behind the bar and pulled me towards her—and everything else followed after that.
I want her just as much as I had that night. I had the excuse of too much tequila, the seductiveness of the desert night and a beautiful girl in a far away place then, but here there’s nothing but the fact that I want Isabella despite everything. That simple fact is what has me pulling her closer instead of pushing her away, my cock aching with unfulfilled need, my tongue tangled with hers as I breathe in the scent of her, taste her mouth and feel as if I won’t ever be able to fully let her go.
Somehow, I have to master this. There’s no escaping it now, no way to make our paths diverge. We’re bound together by something larger than us—which is exactly why I’d planned to mark a clear shift in our relationship. I’d meant it for Isabella’s good, for mine, and for the good of our child.
But all that disappears with the hot press of her mouth against mine and her body in my embrace. I fall back against the pillows with her straddling me, her breasts pressed against my chest, her small moans sweetly filling my ears as my hands slide down her back, fisting in her skirt as she rocks against my aching erection.
“Let me make you feel better,” Isabella whispers against my mouth, arching deeper into me, rubbing herself against me, catlike. “Let me do this for you, please. I can feel how hard you are—” Her hand slips between us, massaging the length of my cock through my jeans, and I groan. “Let me do this.”
She breaks the kiss, sliding down my body. God and all the saints help me, I can’t form the wordnowith my mouth, even though I know very well how bad of an idea this is. I have the taste of her mouth still on my lips, the shape of her body in my hands, and I can’t think of anything other than how badly I want to see her do just what she’s asking, to watch her slip between my legs and take my cock in her mouth.
Isabella’s hands nimbly undo my jeans, pushing them a little down my hips as she grips me there, bending her head to nuzzle against my cock where it threatens to spring out of my boxer briefs. I groan, my hand touching the back of her head as my hips jerk upwards. I’d been interrupted mid-stroke, and my balls are tight and aching with the need for the release I’d denied myself, my cock throbbing. I want to come more than anything in the fucking world right now, and as Isabella slips my cock out, sliding her lips along the shaft, the sound that comes from my throat is nearly pained.
“Fuck,” I hiss through my teeth as her hand encircles me at the same moment her lips take my cockhead into her mouth, licking away the pre-cum already collecting there. She looks up at me from between my legs, her huge dark eyes fixed on mine, as she starts to stroke my cock.