My knees wobble, threatening to give out completely.
With him still holding my hands against his chest, I look up at him with tears in my eyes again. “I just wish you had given us more time. What we went through was painful, but we should have suffered that pain together. That’s what we promised to do when we got married. You broke your promise to me, Sutton. You broke my heart and left me to heal it all on my own.”
“That’s why I wrote the letter telling you to bond with Zayd. So you wouldn’t have to be alone.”
“But I didn’t love him. I didn’t even know him. You left me with a stranger. You’re just lucky he cared enough to keep his promise not to claim me. That he was strong enough not to give in to his base instincts.”
“I know it hasn’t been easy for him…”
“Not just for him,” I admit, because he needs to know just how close he came to losing me.
Sutton’s eyes narrow and darken. “What do you mean?” His grip tightens on my wrists, then loosens again. “You know what? Never mind. I don’t want to know. Knowing is what hurt so bad last time.”
I flatten my hands on his chest. The familiar slope of firm muscle under his plain black tee quickens my breathing and the unquenchable need deep in my core. “We haven’t had sex if that’s what you’re worried about.”
But Sutton and I should, I think, sliding my hands down his chiseled stomach. Shockingly more defined than before he left.
His body has changed so much. Way more than regular chores or even exercise could change him.
Sutton sniffs the air. “Don’t lie to me, Layla. I can smell him on you. Mixed with… Your scent.” He looks between us. At our centers, so close to touching.
“I swear, Sutton. Zayd and I have not had sex. It’s just from how he marked me.” I bite the inside of my lip to stop myself from admitting how desperate I’ve been for more than just his mark.
Sutton grips the nape of my neck with one hand and presses the other on the small of my back, slamming our bodies together. “And how did he do that?”
“Are you… Are you sure you want to know?” From the hard length of his cock branding my stomach, I know his answer already.
“I need to know,” he says, leaning in to drag his nose up the pulse of my neck, inhaling deeply. “I’ve missed you so fucking much, Layla baby.”
I want to be mad at him, but it’s been hell not having sex. I’ve never been so horny as I have in the last month. And I still love Sutton. I want nothing more than to repair our relationship, but at the same time, I want to punish him for leaving me. Even though I know it will do nothing to help us heal.
My breath shudders when he drags his tongue along the same path his nose drew on my neck.
With his lips next to my ear, he whispers, “I know you’re still upset with me,” then he growls, “but I really want to fuck my wife.” He grinds his hips and his rock-hard length on my stomach, making my thighs clench against the flow of my slick.
“What are you waiting for?” I taunt.
Another guttural growl, and Sutton grips the front of my shirt, pulls, and sends buttons flying across the room, freeing my bare breasts. Arching my back over his thick, muscular arm, he leans over me and sucks my breast into his mouth, and laps his tongue around the hardened peak.
He doesn’t stay there long, trailing his tongue down the pillowy mound to lick his flattened tongue through my cleavage.
I didn’t think much of it when he licked my neck, but the way he’s focusing on my sternum and the insides of my breasts, licking and kissing, not leaving a single inch untouched, I wonder if it’s because these are the places Zayd’s mark is the strongest. I wonder if he’s going so hard on these areas because he wants to erase Zayd’s scent and replace it with his own.
Whatever his reason, it is an incredibly erotic act, and I can’t get enough of it.
Sutton drops to his knees, kissing a line down the center of my stomach as he goes. When his face is level with my hips, he buries his nose in the V between my legs, pressing the seam of my pajama pants against my slick sex.
“He marked you here,” he says, matter-of-factly.
“Yes.” I can’t deny it. I don’t want to.
Sutton hooks his fingers in the waist of my pants and pulls them down. Tickling my mound with the tip of his nose, he breathes in my bare sex.
“How?” He asks.
“Hmm?” I ask, struggling to process a conversation. Too desperate for him to get on with it. Desperate for him to bend me over the table or throw me down on the bed and fuck me senseless.
“How did he mark you here?” He licks up my slit, making me whimper.
