Frustration rages through his features. “God, Blake. I want to bend you over my knee and spank some sense into you.”
The imagery makes me squeeze my thighs together. That statement should piss me off, not turn me on. There’s a building panic inside my chest as my resolve begins to slip.
He bends his neck, bringing our faces close together. “When are you going to understand that other women don’t exist for me anymore? There’s only you. There will only ever beyou.”
A wave of heat crashes through me. As his heady scent envelops me, I can feel my control unraveling bit by agonizing bit. I shouldn’t have drunk more when I got home. The alcohol’s taken the edge off my restraint, and that’s a dangerous thing when Nero is around.
His long fingers unwind from around the knot of my belt, and he takes a half step back. At first, I think he’s about to walk away, but then he pinches one of the tails of the belt and stretches it taut.
He waits.
Waits to see if I’ll stop him. If I’ll rip it out of his hand like I should.
But I’m frozen. Ensnared by his gaze. There’s an energy swirling inside my body, desperate to be released after being bottled up for so damn long.
His eyes stay glued to my face. “It’s killing me that I can’t have you. That you won’t trust me.”
I do.
“That you won’t forgive me.”
I already did.
But if I tell him the only thing still keeping me from accepting this new life is my belief that I can never be truly happy with someone like him, someone who lives in the shadows, someone whoforcedme to marry him, I’m afraid he will make it his mission to prove me wrong. I’m afraid he’ll convince me to believe in a fairytale, a story that’s not real.
So I lie. “There’s nothing you can do,” I breathe. “What you did is unforgivable.”
Pain flashes inside his gaze. “I had to lie to you. I had to lie to everyone.” He shakes his head. “It wasn’t easy. On more than one occasion, I thought about telling you the truth, so that you’d know all of me. See all of me.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Because if you saw me, you would leave. Just the way I think you still want to leave now.”
My heart stutters on a beat. Does he know about my agreement with Vita?
No. He’s guessing. He’s trying to see how I’ll react. I stay silent as I hold his gaze and pull on my bottom lip with my teeth.
He starts to tug the silk belt open. “Don’t you feel the pull between us?” His voice is raw and filled with hunger I recognize all too well. “It’s still there. It never left.”
An embarrassing wetness trickles down my inner thighs. “No,” I whisper, without any conviction.
The knot comes undone with a twist. A breeze would be enough to part the robe now, but in the still air, it hangs frozen, giving Nero only a narrow glimpse.
He lets out a heavy breath. “I dream of you every night, Sunshine. Of having you writhe beneath me again. I dream of your moans and the way you used to gasp my name when I buried myself deep inside of you. I dream of nipping on your perfect lips with my teeth and then kissing them better. And I dream of that moment when we’d both reach our peak and it felt like we were the only people left in this entire wretched world.”
My heart is a frantic drum inside my chest. I know I should put an end to this, but the truth is…I can’t bring myself to do it. I miss him too. I miss the way things were between us before I learned the truth.
He drags the tip of his finger in a line between my breasts. “I’ve hurt you, so let me make it better. Let me give you pleasure to make up for the pain.”
My eyelashes flutter. It feels like my entire lower body has started to liquefy, and it’s getting hard to maintain a grasp on any rational thought.
If I let him open the robe, he’ll know. He’ll see the red flush over my chest. He’ll see my nipples sharp as points. And when he dips his hand between my legs, he’ll find me drenched.
And he’llknowI want him too.
My body throbs with need. My control makes a last gasp at the edges of my conscience and then dies a quick death.
I take a step closer.
