Page 23 of Score Her Heart

I turned around in his arms to fix him with a glare. “Um…I’m not changing my name!” I protested.

He smiled at me, and I knew he was trying to hold in his laugh. I shoved him away, realizing he’d said it just to annoy me. He leaned down to chastely kiss my cheek. “Oh, sweetheart, I know you won’t ever change your name, and I would never ask you to.”

“I’m not fucking property!”

“No, sweetheart, you’re my equal, my partner,” he agreed.

Something unlocked inside my heart at his words, but I swallowed and tried to shove it down. I wanted what he was offering, but could Riley really deliver? I pushed down the feelings that were trying to bubble up to the surface. The feelings of optimism, that maybe, just maybe, my best friend and I could make this marriage work.

Instead, I stroked my hand across his chiseled jaw and kissed him again. He kissed me back, and soon I lost myself in the feel of my husband’s tongue tangling with mine while his hands roamed across my body. Our legs entwined while we kissed until we were burning up the sheets and I had a fire inside me, raging to get as close to this man as I possibly could.

I straddled his hips, and his hands gripped my waist while he groaned against my lips. I smiled into the kiss and made my way down his jaw to that spot behind his ear. I loved the sound of him sighing in pleasure underneath me. I felt the stiffness of his erection beneath me, straining to be inside me again while I kissed my way from his ear to the column of his throat.

“Fi,” Riley hissed.

I pulled back to look down at him, his piercing blue eyes alight with desire. Wordlessly I pulled my t-shirt over my head and ran my hands down his bare chest. I played with the dusting of blond hair across the hard muscular planes of his chest. My husband was a work of art, but I knew he worked his ass off to be in peak physical condition. He needed to be for his job. A job he’d worked his entire life for. I had watched him work so hard only for it to pay off when he left for the NHL.

When he finally left me.

“Fi,” he said again, and this time it sounded like he was pleading.

“What?” I snapped in annoyance.

“We don’t have to have sex tonight,” he said.

My face fell. “You don’t want to?” I asked. I felt an ache in my chest at that. Why didn’t he want me?

He reached a hand up and pushed a strand of my hair out of my face. “I didn’t say that. I just don’t expect you to—”

He cut himself off with a groan because I took his hand and shoved it into my pants so he felt my arousal. His big fingers dipped inside me and barely touched my aching clit. “Touch me,” I demanded. “Feel how much I want you right now. Don’t you want that?”

He sighed. “Fuck, sweetheart, you’re so wet already.”

I nodded vigorously and ground against his hand shamelessly. “Please, baby,” I begged. I never thought I would be straddling a man and begging him for sex while his fingers grazed my swollen clit. Or that I would be calling that man ‘baby.’ Or that that man would be my childhood best friend.

He shoved me off of him and pinned me down on the bed, hovering over me. I bit my lip in anticipation. His eyes were ablaze with passion. “Of course I want that, you silly woman. I don’t want you to feel like we have to because I told you to go write tonight instead of coming to bed with me.”

“Oh,” I whispered.

He was on to me. I was trying to have sex with him as a thank you to him for not complaining that I needed to get writing done. Eric always complained I loved my books more than I loved him. A part of me wondered if maybe he had been right.

“Fiona,” Riley breathed, his breath hot on my neck. “I really want this to work between us. I want a partner, and I know that has a give and take.”

“I want that too,” I admitted.

I really did. A partner who felt like I was an equal was exactly what I wanted. But I was afraid that even though Riley said that was what he wanted, it wasn’t going to last. He would get bored of me; the fame and the women were what he wanted more than a quiet life with me. Because that was what he would have with me. I’m a quiet person, a private person, who buried themselves in fictional characters and didn’t have a lot of friends. I may have a loud personality, but I’m more of a hermit than people understood.

He caressed my face gently. “Fi…”

“Take what you want, Aaron. Take me, please,” I begged while I squirmed out of my pajama pants, leaving myself naked and on display for him.

He grinned at me and shed himself of his own clothes. “Oh? Is that what you want? You want me to take charge?”

“Aaron, please stop talking and get your dick inside me.”

“Christ, Fiona,” he said with a chuckle. Then he kissed me hard again, pinning my arms above my head with one of his big hands. His other hand toyed between my legs, teasing me until I was writhing in pain from not getting what I desired.

I kissed him back roughly, biting his lip and growling. He pulled away and pulled his fingers out of me. I whimpered at the loss, but then he flipped me over and swatted my ass. “Grab the headboard, Fiona,” he ordered in a low sexy growl.