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“Are you ok?” she asks, concern evident in her sweet voice, as she rises from the couch in the dark living room. Her silhouette blocks the urban glow from the windows behind her as she slowly closes the distance between us.
Fuck! This woman of mine! She is so beautiful. Inside and out. In the dim light, her hair glows like the full moon. Luminescent. The quiet swish of her feet against the wood floor brings her closer. I close my eyes, trying to wrestle my ricocheting emotions into some semblance of control. Every single nerve ending in my body feels scraped raw. I can’t stop thinking about my mom and the secrets surrounding her death and Dominic’s admission that he is Gray’s father. The worst though, are the thoughts of the tormented woman who is hopefully sleeping in one of my guest rooms. All of it is a swirling tempest so black, so vile, inside of me that I can’t help the reflexive step I take away from her. I don’t deserve to touch her. I don’t deserve to look at her. I don’t even deserve to breathe the same air as she does.
“Xavier?” she whispers again, close enough now that the sweet scent of sunshine and citrus that always follows her envelopes me in a familiar embrace. I retreat another step back, knowing that I will never deserve the love and concern that I hear in her trembling voice.
A rumbling moan breaks the silence of the room. It takes a second for me to realize that it’s coming from me. Years, decades really, of rage and pain reverberate in the tortured sound. My eyes sting, and my skin suddenly feels too tight to contain everything that is inside me fighting to get out. The anger and hurt. Betrayal. The confusion and remorse. Everything I’ve fought to hold inside for the past eighteen years, all of it rushing up from the depths where I have kept it trapped, unexpectedly spilling out in that hoarse, drawn-out sound. The sound of a wounded animal.
Her arms slide around my waist as she presses herself tight against me. The hard swell of her belly between us a reminder of goodness. Of hope for the future. Concrete proof that not everything is darkness. Not everything is bad. By some miracle, this sweet, amazing woman is mine, and even though she shouldn’t waste her time on me, Analise loves me. Me. Not anyone else. I’ve got to be the luckiest fucker on the planet.
Unable to resist the lure of her soft body snuggling into mine, I give in, my arms enfolding her. I won’t ever let her go.
“Come to bed, Xavier.” She murmurs against my chest, grasping my hand and stepping away from me. My vision is blurred with tears that I have never allowed myself to shed, and I follow blindly, my fingers twined with hers, as I continue to try to hold them back. In the back of my mind, I can still hear my father’s voice, Real men don’t cry. I was ten when he told me that, standing beside my mother’s coffin in a miniature black suit, a handful of daisies clutched in my small hand because they were her favorite. A hot track slides down my cheek, and I hurry to brush it away before Ana can see my shame.
I should have known that she wouldn’t miss it. Even in the dark room. Raising up on her toes, she loops an arm around my neck, tugging me toward her, her lips burning a path along my cheek, sipping up another tear making its way through the rough stubble of my beard.
“Come to bed, Xavier,” She whispers more firmly, urging me into the corridor.
Faintly, I hear the low cadence of Gray’s voice coming from behind the closed guest room door as Ana tugs me gently toward the master suite at the end of the hall. My steps slow. I didn’t know that he was here.
“You can worry about everything tomorrow.” Ana’s voice calls me back to her.
“I didn’t know he was here,” I mumble, allowing her to pull me back into motion.
She nods, “He let himself in just a few minutes before you and went straight in there. He never even realized I was in the living room.”
That sounds like Gray. No matter how much he pretends that nothing gets to him, after the verbal bomb that Dominic dropped on him, he’s probably feeling responsible for what happened to Nikki, being as his sperm donor was the one who hurt her.
Slowly releasing a shuddering breath that I didn’t even realize I was holding, I swallow hard. I know that what happened to Nikki was exactly what Dominic had planned for Ana, Faye too, since she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thank fuck we were able to stop him from hurting them that way. I'm sure that what I know is just the tip of the iceberg. Dominic is evil personified, and I don't want to dwell too long on thoughts of what he's capable of doing to someone unfortunate enough to be under his control.
“Xavier.” Ana's voice is sharp, surprising me. She hardly ever raises her voice and takes control. I revel in it. Especially since she's doing it to get me out of my own head. For the first time in hours, I feel the corner of my mouth lift in a half-smile as I return my full attention to my wife.
“Yes, wife?” I practically growl the words as I watch the thin fabric of her bathrobe slip off her naked shoulders billow to the floor in a silken pool at her feet.
“I need you.” Her whispered words destroy me. If she didn't already own me, the wealth of emotion in those three softly uttered words would have made me her slave. Every thundering beat of my heart shouts her name. Heat explodes through me, liquid fire settling low in my belly. My cock throbs as it lengthens and swells to painful proportions in my pants at the sight of her pale, bare flesh glowing in the dark shadows of our bedroom.
My hands have a mind of their own as they drop to my belt, undoing the buckle and shoving the fabric off my hips and kicking free of it. My first closes tight around my shaft, squeezing hard, in an attempt to regain a modicum of self-control.
Ana
For a minute, in the living room, he let me see further below the surface, all the way to the sad boy that I'm discovering hides beneath his tough exterior. I didn’t anticipate the reaction that my quietly spoken words would generate in Xavier, but as his big hands roughly release the belt around his lean hips and fumble with the clasp on his pants, I tremble with excitement. There he is! My beast! Since he rescued me, he has been nothing other than sweet and gentle. It’s been wonderful. Exactly what I needed after so many months apart, but right now, I want him to let go. To release his tightly leashed control and to lose himself in me while I get lost in him. I want nothing more than to be the balm that soothes the troubles that I know are heavy on his heart and mind. To give him pleasure and peace, the way he has given those to me.
Unmoving, I wait, my eyes riveted to him. I hadn’t even noticed he had already taken off his boots, probably before he even came inside the penthouse until he kicks free of his pants while tugging his black t-shirt over his head. That fast and he’s practically naked, only snug black boxer briefs between us as he closes the small distance slipping his hand inside the waistband and pushing them down freeing his cock.
I’m deliciously surprised when the long fingers of one big hand envelop his shaft, squeezing it tightly as he closes the gap between us. He’s so close I can feel the delicious heat of his skin, even though he isn’t touching me.
His chest is heaving with his labored breaths, and I revel in the knowledge that I do this to him. I make him so worked up that it takes his breath away, and my own respirations speed up in response, my heart galloping wildly in my chest. My pulse is pounding everywhere. In my flushed cheeks and behind my ribs. My nipples tingle and harden under his intense stare. A hot coil of pressure gathers below my round belly before expanding, making my clit swell and my pussy to flutter in longing to be filled by him.
A soft whimper breaks through the silence, and I know it came from my throat, but I stand frozen before him. Unwilling to move, anticipating his touch on my sensitive skin. Still, I wait, scalding heat floods my core and dampens the inside of my thighs. It’s only been seconds, but each one stretches out for an eternity.
After long agonizing seconds, he finally moves toward me. It’s nothing like I’ve come to expect from him, and is every
thing I have secretly been dreaming of since our wedding night. I’m not scared of him this time. So much has happened between us, we were separated for too long. He’s been holding himself back from me ever since the moment he got me back.
I want him. I need him this way, exactly as he is in this very moment. Desperate for me, a little out of control, and not withholding any part of himself from me. Not even the violence that I know he keeps tightly leashed. I have wanted to shatter that control, and my lips tip up in a small satisfied smile, knowing that just maybe I have finally succeeded.
My breath catches in my throat as his big hands roughly grip my arms, and he pulls me hard against his chest. I can feel his fingertips firmly digging into my soft flesh, and I can’t stop the soft moan that falls from my lips as I sag into his strength, my desire making me weak. The solid length of his cock presses against my swollen belly, and he grinds it against me, leaving sticky precum on my skin as he propels me backward to our bed.
The back of my legs hit the mattress. I fall back against the waiting softness of the high bed and bounce slightly, my arms and legs splayed out, and I gasp with surprise at my sudden tumble. He looks different standing over me, the lines of his face are harder than usual, cast in shadow in the darkness of our bedroom. Predatory, and if he’s the predator, that means I’m his prey.
