AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What? What did I say?”
Moment of truth. Did she want him more than she wanted to stay hidden? Did she trust him to try and understand? After all, he’d been paying attention. He’d noticed she wasn’t comfortable and had asked. Gathering her courage and her words, Sofia decided to try and explain her paralyzing emotions.
“I’m afraid…”
“It’s not your first time, is it?” Shock blanked his features and his hands stilled on her hips.
“No. No, it’s nothing like that.”
Adrian let out a deep, relieved exhale. “Thank God for that.”
“It’s just been awhile…”
He rose back up off his heels, scrambling her thoughts as he moved his hips between her thighs. When he whipped his shirt off over his head, she nearly swallowed her tongue. Each hard day of labor had given him the build of a god, and she wanted to trace every divot, dent, and curve. Preferably with her mouth. His arms alone made her drool. The strength she’d felt gentled for her tempted her to trust him.
“Don’t worry, gorgeous. It’s like riding a bike.”
She stopped him with a hand on his chest, needing him to slow down and listen, but jerked it back, singed by the heat pumping off him. She had words. Somewhere in her brain. Words she had to say, before she started thinking with her hormones and let him do whatever he damn well pleased. She leaned back, away from temptation. She needed to be clear and open with him, so he knew what he was getting into. If he was going to reject her, she needed it to be while her clothes were still on.
“Wait.” His hands dropped from her hips to fist around handfuls of the comforter beneath her. He tilted his head down and held her gaze, waiting as she’d asked. She cleared her throat and pushed her shame out of her mouth.
“It’s been awhile, and I wasn’t this heavy before. I haven’t been with anyone since I gained all this weight, and I’m nervous to let you see me.”
Sofia blurted her painful confession and then fixed her eyes firmly on the floor. She could feel the tears building at the corners of her eyes and prayed that she wouldn’t embarrass herself any further than she already had.
“Hey.”
Adrian hooked a finger under her chin and lifted, forcing her to face him and her fears in the same glance.
“Hey, there. It’s just me. Let me tell you a little story and see if it helps, okay?”
Sofia nodded, caught in the warm sincerity in his eyes.
“Once upon a time, there was a boy. He was scared and lost, alone in the world of men, looking for somewhere to belong.” His hands ran down her arms and around her back so he could pull her back to the edge of the bed to kiss her neck. “The king took pity on this boy and gave him a job carrying trash. One day, an angel walked across the job site.”
He kissed his way across her collarbone and she shivered.
“She wore cutoff jean shorts that barely covered her ass.” His hands skimmed down her back to squeeze his target. “And a tight tank top that clung to her in all the right places. When she walked, her high blonde ponytail swished and swayed.” Adrian moved one hand down her ponytail, deliberately gripping and tugging lightly. “He wanted her instantly, the way a seventeen-year-old boy wants, all heat and little reason.”
Wrapping her ponytail around his fist, he tilted her face up for a brutal kiss that left her lips throbbing and aching for more. She tried to follow his lips, but he leaned back and continued his story.
“But she walked right up to the king and said, ‘Hi, Daddy,’ and the boy’s dreams crumbled.”
He slid his hands down her neck, over her shoulders, down her back. She barely remembered being that girl, and his hands were making it very hard to remember anything at all.
“Then came the dark time, when the princess went away.” He reached behind her and unzipped the back of her skirt, fingers dipping lower to grip her ass and pull her closer. When he reached around front and began to slide her tight skirt up her thighs, nerves compelled her hands to flutter over his. He steadied them and kissed them, grounding her in the moment. “The young man was sad, but he understood her need to grow her own wings. And when she came back,Dios mio, could she fly!” Her hands still caught in his, he moved them to slide up her thighs, pushing the skirt ever higher. She was twenty-eight years old and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d touched her body and enjoyed it, shame free. She wanted new memories to replace the ones she couldn’t find. “The girl had become a woman, and everything the boy had felt for her before magnified.”
He bent his head and licked the hammering pulse at the base of her throat and she gasped as the pleasure shivered down her arms.
“She wore sweaters to hide her lush, perfect breasts.” Adrian slid his hands over them reverently, before moving lower. “And jeans that molded themselves to her sexy hips. And lust tied the boy’s tongue, because she was so smart and beautiful and he felt so dumb and crude next to her.” He kissed his way to her ear and gently bit the lobe, then soothed it with his tongue. He whispered into her ear, “He had no right to think about putting his rough hands on such smooth skin.”
How had she not known? Sofia was so entranced that she barely registered that his hands had traced back to her breasts. She gasped with sudden awareness when he squeezed them together and gently tweaked her nipples, sending waves of electricity through her system. She groaned with pleasure and broke the spell, and he released her.
“What happened next?” she asked breathlessly, needing to hear the rest of the story.
“He tried to better himself so she would find him worthy. But then tragedy struck. Her smile dimmed in the shade of grief, and he wished more than anything to find the way to make her happy again. He wanted her the way a man wants his woman, but he waited for the right moment to tell her.”
He tugged her blouse free from her skirt and slowly slipped her buttons free, one by one.
