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This wasn’t about how she’d once loved Jai—an excuse he’d been hiding behind. This was about him, his moods, his...head.
She uncoiled from her cozy position slowly, reminding Christian of a lazy cat. A line appeared between her brows. “Is everything okay?” she said, taking in his face.
He ran a hand through his wet hair, uncomfortable with how easily she could read him. “No.” Her face twisted into instant concern. “Nothing’s wrong with my head. I meant that I’ve been thinking a lot and it... It’s left me antsy.”
She pushed off from the couch. The neckline of the sweatshirt didn’t simply dip. It hung off to her elbow on one side, revealing acres of silky, smooth brown flesh he wanted to bury his face in. “Okay.” She covered the distance between them and Christian breathed her in like a junkie. “Is there anything I can do?” She looked wary all of a sudden. “Do you need space? Was Jayden too much today?”
“No, of course not.”
She cocked her head curiously, like the precious bird he called her. “While you figure out how to say what you want to, can I have a turn?”
He grimaced and nodded.
She came at him like a hurricane. One moment, it was stiflingly tense and quiet in the lounge and the next, her arms were around his neck and she was plastered to him and her mouth was at his ear. For a few seconds, Christian couldn’t hear what she kept whispering. Because his damned heart was lodged in his ears. And his throat.
She was soft and curvy and warm, and he couldn’t resist wrapping his arms around her any more than he could stop breathing. This was the part he couldn’t still believe—this easy affection she showed him.
“It’s the best gift I’ve ever received. Today of all days...” The sound of her stifled sob had him squeezing her tighter. Their mutual love of music had been something she and Jai had shared—a private thing that had left Christian in complete awe whenever they played together. He couldn’t take away her ache and loss—the very same that burned through him today—but they weren’t alone with it. That was Jai’s legacy to them—this bond that he’d begun to forge between them, this ability to love that he’d taught them both.
“The sitar arrived, then?” he said softly, overcome by a cocktail of needs.
She nodded, a tremulous smile curving her lips. “You’re spoiling me.”
“I haven’t heard you play since I returned. Your mother said your instrument’s still at their house, so I thought maybe you should just begin again with a new one.” He ran his thumb over her jaw, unable to stop touching her. Unable to stop this avalanche of feeling inside his chest now that he’d admitted it to himself. “Why did you stop playing?”
A lone tear crested her cheek and he caught it with his thumb. “I just...didn’t feel the music inside me anymore. Not after I lost you, too.” She took a deep breath and set those beautiful eyes on him. “I tuned it up and played for a while.” She scrunched her nose. “But to be honest, I was pretty bad. Not playing for eight years will do that to you. Give me a few weeks and I’ll do a private concert. Just for my boys.” She flicked the tip of his nose and his heart clenched. “And swear you’ll tell me I’m amazing even if I suck.”
“I will,” he said with a smile. “But I’m not sure my son can manage that much deceit.”
She mock punched him in the gut and he caught her hand. On his next breath, her arms came around him again. A shuddering exhale left him as he gave in to the inevitable. One hand on her shoulder, he pressed a kiss to her temple, batting away at the desire that flooded his body.
She had no such reservations, no such restrictions she placed on herself.
Long fingers fisting in his shirt, she took his mouth in a passionate kiss. No, she claimed him as she’d never done before. There was ownership in the sure way she slanted her lips this way and that against his. There was power in how she nipped and licked and teased him.
This was not obligation or friendship or companionship that she was seeking when her tongue pushed for entry. This was affection and love pouring over into physical need, demanding release.
Her moan reverberated in his mouth, through him when he let her in. She tangled her tongue with his with a boldness, a purpose, and that was nothing but pure pleasure.
Her pleasure. Their pleasure.
Deep and devouring, she dipped and dived and tasted every inch of him, her breasts flattened against his chest. Her fingers held him, for her convenience, with a tight clasp at the nape of his neck. It was the kiss Christian had always wanted from her. A kiss, sometimes it seemed, he’d been waiting for from the very moment he’d seen her stroll into his house, arm in arm with Jai. It was the kiss he’d imagined a thousand times and it nearly broke him that it had come now, at the end of everything.
She rubbed the pad of her finger against his stinging lip and pressed it inside. He licked at the pad, and then suckled it softly, all the while reading her desire in her eyes, completely hers. Then she took his palm and placed it over her neck. Her eyes were brown pools of need. “Touch me. Everywhere. Anywhere.”
Acting on pure instinct, he curled his fingers around her throat. He felt her Adam’s apple move against his palm. Then she wrapped those fingers around his wrist and dragged his palm down. Between her breasts. Down to her rib cage. Then to her belly, which had the barest hint of roundness to it from carrying Jayden.
She pushed their clasped fingers past the seam of her shorts. She directed his hand and Christian went where she took him. And then his palm was there, covering her mound. She was warm against his skin, her panties already damp, and his erection twitched painfully in his jeans. Her hips nudged into his hand greedily, and her flush deepened.
“Oh, God,” she groaned. Her knees shook and Christian wrapped his arm around her waist until she was leaning against him. He moved his fingers gently, over the thin silk of her panties, tracing the shape of her, searching for her clit. He pressed down with the mound of his palm while he continued caressing her. And for every downward press of his palm, she thrust her hips into his hand and her breath came in fast, shallow gasps.
His mouth ran dry, his heart pounding in his ears. Every drop of blood in his body fled south. Her leanly muscled thigh pressed against his front, providing tantalizing friction for his already rock-hard shaft.
Her mouth opened against his throat.
An explosion of need swept through him, devouring him. Her cheeks were a fiery dark pink, her nipples tight against the sweatshirt, his sweatshirt. And yet in her eyes... He saw vulnerability and boldness and desire and plain need. All his plans to talk to her disintegrated. “I want to be inside you. Can’t wait. Please,” he whispered.
Fingers clasped around his neck, she murmured her answer into his mouth. “Yes. Now.”
