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But it would never be enough for the girl who’d wanted real love all her life.
‘I can’t,’ she said, her breathing so rushed, dragged from so deep within her lungs it hurt. ‘Don’t make me beg.’
Surprise covered his features when he pulled up to look at her.
‘Don’t use what I feel to demean me,’ she said, lying flat on the lounger, staring up at the evening streaked sky.
‘Demean you?’ he repeated, the word ragged. ‘Frankie, by getting you to accept what you want, I am empowering you. Empowering you to enjoy sex, to enjoy this thing between us that is purely good. I have no interest in demeaning you. I want you to be brave, to face up to what you’re feeling. Stop hiding from me.’ And his eyes held hers for a long moment as his mouth dropped closer to her sex. She held her breath, propping up on elbows to watch him.
‘Let us try it another way,’ he said, the words deep and husky. ‘Let me beg you. Let me beg you to let me do this,’ and he flicked his tongue out, teasing her flesh so she made a keening sound of pleasure. ‘Let me beg and you say, simply, “Yes”.’
Yes.
The word was heavy in her throat, bouncing over and over, begging to be said, begging her to agree, so she could be put out of her misery.
‘Just say yes,’ he repeated, and his mouth moved faster and her pleasure built until her eyes were filled with a bright white light and she was no longer conscious of anything but this.
‘Say yes,’ he demanded, pulling her body closer so he could go deeper, his mouth possessing her in a way that was so intimate, so personal, so perfect. His hand scooped under her bottom, lifting her up, and she heard herself crying out, over and over and over, giving away a part of her soul that she had thought she would be able to keep locked up: ‘Yes, Matthias, please. Please!’
* * *
He stared at the painting, his lips a grim slash on his face. Don’t use what I feel to demean me.
Her words, issued in the heat of a sensual moment of passion, had stuck with him, chasing themselves around his head until he could barely think, until he couldn’t fathom what he’d been thinking.
Don’t use what I feel to demean me.
Had he been doing that?
Since she’d arrived in Tolmirós, he’d been intent on seducing her, on forcing her to stop hiding from the magnitude of their desire.
Matthias, with his experience of women and sex and attraction, knew what he shared with Frankie was rare. So rare that even three years after their first encounter he hadn’t been able to put her from his mind. Three years later and he’d never met anyone who held the same appeal for him. This passion was rare and it deserved to be explored.
But at the cost of her self-esteem?
He swore under his breath, pacing to the windows that overlooked the ocean. It had all seemed so simple when first they’d arrived. Sex was a simple transaction. A conversion of lust to satiation.
Whatever his attitudes were to it, Frankie’s were not the same.
And yet he’d driven his tongue over her, tasting her release, delighting in her complete surrender even when he now suspected he should have stopped. He’d thought he would feel triumph with her surrender; he’d thought he’d revel in her total acceptance of the tug of their mutual need.
He hadn’t.
He’d felt only something very close to blinding panic. He’d tasted her as she’d fallen apart, and his own body had been begging him to bury his length inside her soft, welcoming core, yet he hadn’t. He’d pulled away from her even when her desire had burst around them, and her willingness to succumb to pleasure had been palpable.
He’d been as beholden to passion as she, in the end, but it didn’t matter. Because she’d been right. He’d been determined to get her to face what they felt for one another.
But why?
Why did he care so damned much that she should surrender to this desire?
Because he wanted her. He wanted her with the strength of a thousand stars, and he knew she felt the same. But her determination and willpower were many times stronger than his. Why? What did she want? Not just from him, but in general?
The damned fairy tale? He couldn’t offer that. He didn’t have it within his power to give Frankie the dream of love and happily ever after. But he could give her more than sex. He could give her enough, surely, to make her truly happy—not just in bed but as his wife?
And he wanted her to be happy, he admitted to himself now. He needed her to be happy, to smile at him as she had on those few rare occasions since coming to Tolmirós. He wanted to win her trust, to earn her trust, and the rest, surely, would follow.
Maybe it wouldn’t. But Frankie deserved more than to have a husband who wanted only her body. She deserved as much of the dream as he could offer—surely some of her fantasy would be better than none?
