“Do you have to be so crass?” Her brows pinch, and she sends me a look like a school mistress. But it’s a hard look to pull off when her cheeks are pink from my whiskers, and her hastily donned dress reveals a sucking bite to her breast.
“Modesty is a little hypocritical,” I chide, idly plucking at the sheet. “When we’ve both enjoyed my mouth on your cunt.”
“You enjoy annoying me, don’t you?”
“Not as much as I enjoy fucking you. Is it still crass when it’s the truth? Your speech was right, you know. The best man is always a woman.” Her brother chose well in both bride and best man. I hope to be as happy in my choice as he is someday. My choice. My heart. I’m looking at her.
She smooths her dress over her thighs, pointedly ignoring my gaze. “Van, the point I’m trying to make is that this can’t keep happening.”
I don’t point out that she knocked on my door. “Ah. I’m back to being Van again.”
“Yes. No more Niko. No more Niko for me.”
A fist tightens around my intestines, though I force myself not to react. I must’ve overstepped last night by involving myself in her family life. Doesn’t she understand I want it all? I want her mornings and her evenings and her every minute in between.
Angling my gaze her way, I force a smile. “I take it you’ve found someone else to fulfil your needs.” I don’t believe this for one minute.
“Yes, didn’t you hear? The newly divorced are insatiable.”
My gaze narrows as it falls over her. A crown of golden hair and eyes of steel. She probably chose her gown to complement the unusual color of her eyes, not that any other man would notice, given the way it clings to her torso like a second skin. She has the posture of a queen. Her body makes me want to drop to my knees like her most faithful subject.
“Insatiable, yes.” I am as insatiable for her as she is for me. Despite what she’d have me believe. We aren’t old flames who occasionally spark. We’re old flames who have smoldered for years. Old flames who eternally burn.
We were meant to be. We will be.
“I didn’t come to your room for this, not tonight.” The strap of her dress slips from her shoulder as though to contradict her words. “I came to say next week is a bad idea. This football game, we shouldn’t blur the lines—I don’t want my children to be hurt.”
“I will take care of their hearts, but you must take care of mine.”
“I don’t understand…” A hint of bewilderment flickers to life in her expression, replaced by something darker as I pull back the sheet and rise naked from the bed.
“You understand better than you allow yourself to.” I pin her with my gaze. A pulse begins to thrum in her throat.
“Van, please understand that this—”
“Means nothing?” Yet her eyes offer me everything as I settle my hand on her shoulder. “We’re just fucking?” Nothing that feels this intense could ever be described as casual. I brush my thumb over the wing of her collarbone, and her eyes flutter closed. She may veil her thoughts from me, but I won’t be ignored as I lower my head and press my lips to her chaotic pulse. Her soft gasp isn’t offered as resistance as I hook my hands under her thighs and lift her onto the dresser at her back. “Tell me, Isla, how many other men do you fuck casually?”
“That’s none of your business.” Her hand sears my skin as though she might push me away but hasn’t the will. We are like opposing poles, helpless to resist.
“Is that what you truly think?” My lips tantalize the delicate shell of her ear as I ignore the tension in my stomach and the insinuation that it is a lie.
“I’m not—I don’t ask you who you’re sleeping with.”
“Fucking, milaya.” She inhales sharply as I rasp the words against her skin. “We aren’t sleeping together because you chose to creep out in the dead of night.”
“I don’t creep.” She shivers as I trace the edge of her ear with my tongue. Gasps as my teeth gently test her lobe.
“The question you won’t allow yourself to ask, the only woman I’m fucking is you, my queen.”
“Van, please don’t.”
Her protest isn’t against the way my hand slides up her calf or how I press myself between her thighs. Not as her fingers knot and curl in my hair.
“I am your servant.” Sliding her dress out of the way, I swipe my fingers between her legs. She’s still so gloriously warm, so wet with our pleasure. “You rule over my heart.”
“No talk of hearts,” she whispers, her body undulating in a silent plea. Not heartfelt. Libidinous.