She pulled back, her eyes thick with emotion. “You’d better return that favor later.”
“Oh, I will.”
“Dinner first,” she breathed against my neck. “Feed me and then fuck me.”
That I could do. I wrapped her in her thick winter coat and helped her down the steps into the passenger side of my car. Then I settled in beside her and turned on the heat so she wouldn’t be shivering in her skimpy clothes. I gripped her bare knee as I looked over my shoulder to pull the car out onto the street and she gave a little shudder at the contact.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” I said as we drove through the neighborhood.
Her lashes lifted and dropped.
“What?”
“What you did in the hall.”
“I have desires too,” she said.
My fingers hardened on her thigh. “Believe me, kitten, I know all about your desires.”
“What does that mean?”
Into my mind flooded all the images I’d turned over and over in the shower for the last month. Rosalia on her knees in my office, her eyes soft and big as she pleasured me slowly. On her back with her nails digging into my skin as I stripped her of her virginity. The fear in her eyes as I dragged her down beneath my body that night I’d chased her.
“You enjoy the things I do to you,” I said softly.
She swallowed, but kept quiet as we drove into the city. I kept my hand on her warm thigh and once I looked at her and saw the lights reflected in her dark eyes. How had I not known how I felt before? It was right in front of me the whole time. It was stained on every moment I’d tried not to look at her and failed, on every night I couldn’t keep myself from waking her so I could sink into her soft heat.
It was snowing harder by the time we arrived at the restaurant. I lifted her from the car and carried her to the door so she wouldn’t soil her shoes. When I set her down, she was blushing a pretty color up her neck and throat.
“What is it?” I murmured, handing our coats to the hostess.
“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head.
The hallway was dim and strung with holiday lights. I took my wife’s hand and led her upstairs to the elevator. As the world fell away beneath us and we rose higher and higher, I felt the pain of the last month ease. Tonight, the next few hours—it was my chance to prove to her I could be more. That despite how cruel I could be, I could love her like a real husband.
This was what Lucien had meant.
She was bending for me. I just had to make sure she didn’t break.
We stepped onto the roof and she gasped and stilled. All around us, the city lay like a glittering blanket. Snow fell in soft drifts over the glass walls and roof hung with lights. In the center of the room was a single table set with two glasses of champagne. It was a beautiful sight, but I was too entranced by her face to pay attention to anything else.
My God, she devastated me.
“Should we sit down?” she whispered.
I took her hand and led her to the table, pulling out her chair and helping her sit. She turned to look up at me as I paused behind her chair and I bent and kissed the back of her neck. Right above the top of her spine. A shiver moved through her body.
When I sat down, her eyes fixed on me with a strange expression.
“I wanted to tell you something,” she said, squirming. “I mentioned something about my ring to Mrs. Greene the other week and she told me that it had belonged to your grandmother. So I just wanted to say, I’m sorry I was rude about it when you first gave it to me.”
I looked down at her fingers, laden with the heavy, dark stone. “Be honest with me. Do you want a different ring?”
She shook her head. “No. I love this ring now.”
I sat back, looking under the table. I’d requested for her gift to be brought to the table when I made the reservation and there it was, in a black gift bag. I bent and lifted it onto the table.
“Good, because I bought you something.”