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I shook my head. “No. Your mom was responsible for her own actions, sweetheart, hard though that may be to hear. She made a choice. The only person who should feel responsible is Robert.”
Belle’s face closed up at the mention of his name. “I’ve never hated anyone, but I hate him. He’s a mean drunk, and he made Mom’s life miserable. I don’t want him getting his hands on this place because of some stupid loophole. That’s the only reason I agreed to Grams’ plan that we get married.”
I pull back to look at her with a wry grin. “You mean, it wasn’t because of my devastating good looks and irresistible charm?”
That didn’t get the laugh I was expecting. Instead, Belle’s blue eyes kindled with heat as she gazed at me. “You’re a good man, Adam. Thank you for being there for Grams. I never had a moment’s worry about her, knowing you were running things here.”
I shrugged, touched by her words. “She was the closest thing I had to a mother after I lost my parents.”
Belle cupped my cheek in her hand, and I sucked in a breath at the sensation of her thumb sweeping across my beard.
“We’ve both suffered loss,” she murmured.
Our eyes met and held, the tension between us palpable.
My eyes dropped to her mouth and then lowered to the shoestring straps holding her camisole in place. The creamy swell of her breasts pressed against the thin material, her nipples clearly visible and I swallowed hard as my balls tightened and my shaft twitched.
It would be so easy to lean in, to claim her soft lips with mine while I cupped those perfect tits and slid my thumbs across her nipples. It would be so easy to press her back into the mattress and bury my aching length inside her. She looked so softly tempting, a vision of femininity with her flushed cheeks and blonde hair tangled around her face.
Fire ignited in my blood, heading south and causing my dick to harden and lengthen in my boxers. I hadn’t been intimate with a woman for years. Maybe that was why I was having such a visceral reaction to Belle. No, it was more than that. She was igniting a kind of desire, a yearning, I’d never experienced before.
Belle cleared her throat, jolting me out of my lustful stupor. I felt like an asshole. She was upset, reliving traumatic memories, and here I was, having all kinds of sinful fantasies about her. All perfectly normal under any other circumstances. After all, we were married. She was my wife.
But she was off-limits.
How the fuck was I supposed to keep my hands off her for the next ten months?
“Will you…will you stay? Just until I fall asleep again?” she asked softly.
I opened my mouth to refuse, but the vulnerability in her baby blues had me nodding my head instead.
Belle lay down, holding the covers back in an invitation for me to join her.
Dear God, she’s gonna kill me.
I slid in beside her, laying on my back and holding myself stiffly next to her. But then she turned into me, tucking herself against my side and resting a hand on my bare chest. Her touch burned me like a brand, setting off eddies of sensation that skittered across my skin and had me clenching my jaw.
Belle released a soft sigh, her breath feathering over my chest. “I’ve never slept with a man before.”
Christ. Did she know what she was saying? Her husky confession went straight to my cock, making it swell to previously unknown proportions. The slightest touch and I was sure it would detonate.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” she added, tilting her head back to look at me.
“You didn’t,” I lied, ignoring the persistent throb of my dick. God, I wanted to tangle my hands in her hair and kiss those plump lips while I buried myself in her slick heat.
“Can you believe I was saving myself for marriage?” she asked self-consciously. “And here I am, a married woman. Kind of ironic.”
I almost bit my tongue in half. It was our first night as a married couple, and all I could think about was doing what all married couples do on their wedding night—stripping her bare and marking her as mine from the inside out.
She’s a decade younger than you, asshole.
The words rattled around inside my brain, but my body didn’t get the memo.
“Goodnight, Adam. Thank you.” Belle’s soft, sexy voice cut through my lustful thoughts.
“For what?” Wanting to strip you bare and fuck you into the mattress until you scream my name?
“For coming to check on me. For this,” she replied, indicating our bodies molded together.
