Page 51 of Substitute Bride

Maybe she should just tell James the truth. She’d vowed not to since the last time she’d attempted to be open about her feelings with a man she had completely humiliated herself.

But maybe humiliation was better than this emotional limbo. Maybe she should just get up tomorrow morning, go to his room, and say that sex had changed things for her and that she wasn’t sure she could go on like they’d been.

He would have to say something then. It was possible things had changed for him—in which case he could just say so. If not, then her heart would be broken.

It had happened to her before. She could live through it.

She brooded over it for so long that she felt dazed and fuzzy. She told herself to think about something else, so she thought about last night, which wasn’t at all a good idea.

She suddenly realized that she’d left her bra in James’s room last night. He’d taken it off and tossed it, and she remembered now that it had ended up on the side of the dresser. She hadn’t picked it up when she gathered up the rest of her clothes that morning.

She was suddenly embarrassed about James finding her bra in his room, and she got up to go get it. She hadn’t heard him return, so this was the right time to retrieve it.

Maybe he hadn’t really looked around this morning. It was probably still there.

She walked down the hall and opened his bedroom door, which was always kept closed during the day. The room was dark, which was to be expected, but a little light came in from the hall.

She walked over to the dresser and picked up her bra, and she was about to turn around to leave when she heard a mumble from the bed.

She froze.

James was home after all, and she’d just barged into his room at one o’clock in the morning.

She heard him moving in the bed, the covers rustling as he did so. She had to do something. She had to move. She had to get out of this room before he woke up and thought she was there on purpose.

He might think she was trying to make a move on him.

He might think she was as desperate as Genevieve.

She took one step and knocked her shin against the corner of the dresser, and she took a few steps away from the dresser automatically.

“Shit,” she hissed, holding up her left leg as the pain reached her brain.

James rolled over, and she realized he was awake now and she was right next to the bed. She could bend her knees and sit down on it if she wanted.

She was standing stupidly, balanced on one leg when James made a wordless, throaty sound.

Before she knew what was happening, he had reached out and pulled her into bed with him.

She didn’t resist. She didn’t want to resist. Instead she felt a wave of joy and excitement at the way he’d pulled her into his arms.

James rolled them both over so she was lying on her back. His weight on top of her was solid and heavy, and his face was so close she could feel his breath.

He gazed at her with silent intensity, his expression hot and needy. Her eyes were starting to adjust to the dark from the light coming in from the hallway.

He combed his fingers into her hair, lifting her head up as he lowered his mouth into an urgent kiss.

Rose’s arms wound around him, squeezing him in exactly the way she’d always wanted to. She opened her lips to the advance of his tongue, moaning deep in her throat as she squirmed to generate friction between their bodies wherever she could.

She was flushed all over and panting when he finally tore his mouth away. But then she gasped in pleasure as his mouth descended to her neck, his lips sucking hard against her racing pulse.

Her hands grasped eagerly at his bare back, clawing her nails down his skin. Realizing what she was doing, she instead stroked the lean muscles and smooth plans of his shoulders and back, loving how he felt beneath her fingers.

Her hands slipped lower to the waistband of his pajama pants. She edged her fingers under the fabric, pushing them down as she tried to reach the tight muscles of his butt.

James moved lower on her body before she could reach, his mouth closing around one of her breasts. He sucked on one nipple, teasing it with his tongue through the thin cotton of her top.

Rose gasped again as she felt a sharp tug between her legs. Her arousal was aching now—so intensely it actually hurt.