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He scrubbed a hand down his face, staring straight ahead, as if he was back in that church reliving every detail. “It was such a surreal moment, and it was like I was walking in a fog to her bridal room, because my head was telling me that there was a logical explanation for why she needed to talk to me, but my heart knew exactly what I was walking into. She was already in her dress and she was just sitting there and I could tell that she’d been crying, and then she looked at me and said, ‘I can’t do this. I can’t marry you. I don’t love you enough, and I don’t want to leave my family and South Carolina to live in San Diego.”
He turned his head and looked at Peyton, his gaze somber. “And just like that, it went from being the happiest day of my life . . . to the absolute worst day of my life. I loved her and wanted to give Amanda everything, and it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough to make her happy.”
There was no pity in his voice, just an acceptance of what had happened, though Peyton was certain something like that would affect a person’s ability to trust someone with their heart again. “I’m so sorry, Leo.”
He shrugged. “At the time, I was devastated, and it felt like there was an empty, bottomless hole inside of me for the longest time. I just never saw it coming, and I think that was the hardest part of it all. Being blindsided by the fact that I had no clue what she was really thinking or feeling, and then to be told that what I had to offer, which was everything I had, wasn’t enough for her to make that commitment after being together for over two years . . .”
He let the words trail off, but Peyton understood without him finishing the sentence. She remembered Serena’s comment, how Amanda had given Leo every reason not to believe in love, and now she knew why. She couldn’t blame him for being jaded, guarded, and reserved with his emotions . . . yet she wanted so much to ease his pain… and yes, be the one who showed him that love could and did exist. Because there was now no doubt in her mind, and her heart, that she was in love with him . . . and that was a first for her.
She moved toward Leo and straddled his lap so she was facing him. He settled his hands on her hips, and she pressed her palms against his lightly stubbled cheeks and looked him in the eyes. “You are more than enough,” she said, wanting desperately to add for me. “Any woman would be lucky to have you for their own.”
Her emotions were right at the surface, because she so badly wanted to be that lucky woman, but the fear of him not reciprocating her feelings held her back. So, instead, she tried to show him. She softly, gently kissed his lips, slow and seductive, and when that wasn’t enough and she needed more, she gradually sank a little deeper. With a needy groan against her mouth, he skimmed his hand beneath the hem of her top, and at the first heated touch of his fingers along her bare skin, an uninhibited heat pooled between her thighs, stealing Peyton’s breath and replacing it with undeniable soul-deep longing.
No man had ever made her feel so much need and desire, except for Leo. He was everything she’d ever wanted, everything she craved, and the idea of leaving him in three days and returning to her life as it’d been before everything they’d shared this past week made her heart ache at the loss.
As if he was attuned to her thoughts, he flattened his hand against her back and hauled her against him, taking over and capturing her mouth with an unexpected passion that seemed to ignite a fire in both of them. The hard length of his erection pressed insistently between her thighs, and she pulled on his shirt, working it over his head, and as soon as it was gone, he yanked her blouse off, too. Their mouths met again, tongues tangling as his fingers unhooked the clasp to her bra. The straps slid down her arms and she dropped the garment to the floor.
His hands immediately cupped her bare breasts, his fingers tugging on her taut, straining nipples until she whimpered and arched toward him from the decadent pleasure of it.
“I want you so goddamn much,” he rasped against her lips. He gave her breasts one last sensual caress before lowering his hands to unbutton her capris. “I need inside of you so fucking bad.”
The honest emotion in his voice nearly slayed her. “I need you, too. So much,” she admitted, feeling just as frantic to be a part of him.
She stood up, quickly stripping out of her pants and underwear while he shucked his jeans and briefs and kicked them aside. As she moved to sit astride him again, her knees on either side of his hips, he grabbed her waist to stop her descent onto his cock and swore beneath his breath.
His eyes, when they met hers, were tortured from restraining himself. “I need to get a condom from the bedroom,” he said, his voice as rough as gravel.
She made a split-second decision and shook her head. “I haven’t been with anyone since my last physical and I’m on the pill. I want to feel you inside of me, with nothing between us.” It wasn’t the equivalent of I love you, but it was the first step in showing Leo how much she trusted him . . . with her body, her heart, with everything she had to give him.
She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard, his fingers tightening on her waist, not to push her away but to draw her irrevocably closer, his need for her unmistakable. “I’m clean,” he assured her, then slid his shaft though the slick moisture between her legs before notching the head right where he belonged.
There wasn’t any guy in her past that she would have believed so unconditionally or would have given this privilege to, because it was so intimate and deeply personal for her. But there wasn’t a shadow of a doubt that Leo was a man who was tried and true and one who would never deliberately hurt her. She’d never wanted anything more than to share this with him.
Grasping his solid shoulders, she sank down on his length, reveling in the smooth, thick, velvety heat filling her, stretching her. She dropped her head back and moaned at the exquisite sensation of having him bare inside of her, and the way his big body shuddered told her that the pleasure was equally acute for him.
He raised his hands to her face, tipping her head back to meet his intense stare as he pushed impossibly deeper inside her with an upward flex of his hips. “You feel so goddamn good,” he said on a groan. “Fuck me, Peyton. I want to know what it feels like to have you come all over my cock.”
His hot, dirty demand made her body burn bright with pure sensation, and she moved on his shaft, slowly rolling her hips forward and sliding back again before grinding down on him to create an exquisite friction against her aching clit. She did it again and again while rubbing her breasts against his chest. Their eyes remained locked, giving her a glimpse of what he was feeling, too.
They’d had plenty of lustful moments over the past few days, sex that was hard and fast and wildly explosive, but this . . . this connection was on a whole other level. His focus was on her, and not just physically. The way he was looking at her was like being bathed in warmth and affection and so much passion that she wondered if, possibly, this could be more than a one-week fling. That maybe she could give him everything that Amanda hadn’t been able to.
She moved on him a little faster, reveling in the incredibly erotic slide of their bodies, the darkening of his eyes as he watched her expression as she rode his cock. The way his jaw clenched as he held back, waiting for her to reach the point of climaxing first, which was already starting to happen. Her lips parted as her breathing escalated, and her lashes fluttered closed as the delicious tension inside of her loosened and began to unravel.
“Look at me, baby,” he demanded as he skimmed his thumb across her lower lip, still holding her face in his hands, his own body taut beneath hers. “I want to feel it all, and I want to look into your beautiful blue eyes as you come for me.”
She forced her eyes back open, losing herself in the depths of his hot, vivid gaze just as the last tendrils of her release broke free. Deep and intense, the orgasm quaked through her and pulsed around his shaft. He grunted as he thrust up into her in a long, hard shudder, coming right along with Peyton as her body splintered into a thousand tiny pieces of heaven, and sheer bliss permeated her entire being with equal parts pleasure and an overwhelming amount of emotion.
When she came down from the high and the adrenaline rush receded, Peyton knew one thing for certain. She was utterly and completely Leo’s . . . and knew she always would be, no matter how this upcoming weekend ended.
Chapter Eleven
Peyton sat on the bed and transferred a few things from her normal everyday purse to a small handbag she’d packed to use for the wedding, while Leo finished putting on his white dress shirt and tie in the bathroom. She’d deliberately chosen an angle where she could watch him for the pure pleasure of it, and she had to admit that he cleaned up very, very well.
She thought back to that day when he’d picked her up at the airport over a week ago, and how she’d been a little disappointed that he hadn’t been wearing a suit, like most driving services required their employees to dress in. And for as sexy as he looked in jeans, T-shirt, and his leather jacket, she had to admit that he looked drop-dead gorgeous in more formal attire.
Her cousin’s wedding today marked the end to Leo’s agreement to be her pretend boyfriend. Well, actually, tomorrow, Sunday, was officially when they’d part ways, when he drove her to the airport for her flight back to New York, while he stayed behind in San Diego. After a few weeks, she’d let her parents know that the two of them, unfortunately, had broken up . . . even knowing that the news was going to disappoint her mom and dad since they’d grown to like him so much.
At least, that had been the plan when they’d d
