Matched to Her Rival

Not so tonight. But he didn’t dare say he was proud of her lest he frighten her back into that shell. Besides, the heat in her eyes sent such a shaft of desire spiking through him, he couldn’t do anything other than slide into the tub, gather her against his chest and dive in.

He kissed her, openmouthed, sloppy and so very raw. She melted into him, fitting her lithe body into his. Water sloshed out of the tub, which she didn’t notice and he didn’t point out.

He needed her. Now.

After an eternity of fumbling due to wet fingers and wet body parts and far too much “help” from Elise that nearly set off what would be a nuclear explosion of a release, Dax got the condom in place.

He never had this much trouble. But his fingers were still shaking as he slid into her with a groan and then he simply clung, hands gripping Elise’s shoulders. Flinging his head back, he let the sensations bleed through him and only some of them were physical.

That profound sense of what he could only label as happiness saturated the experience, lighting him up inside. It felt as if it would burst from his skin and pour out in a river. He savored the harmony, the rightness of it.

Elise, clearly impatient with all the savoring, planted her knees on either side of him and took over the rhythm, and he let her because it was amazing. The faster she moved, the higher he soared, and a growl ripped from his mouth unrestrained as she pushed him to the edge.

Nearly incoherent and almost numb with the effort to hold back, he fingered her in an intimate caress, silently begging her to let go. Instantly, she tightened around him in an answering pulse that triggered his release, and he came in a fountain of blessed relief.

She slumped on his chest, cheek to his skin, and he shut his eyes, reveling in the boneless bliss that he’d only ever experienced at the hands of Elise.

Being with her evoked so many things he had no way to describe, things he hoped never went away. But since he didn’t know how it had happened in the first place, what guarantee did he have he wouldn’t wake up tomorrow and find himself back in the real world where Elise wasn’t “the one”?

Because here in this alternate reality he’d somehow fallen into, it felt an awful lot as though she was a...soul mate.

Against all odds, he wanted to believe the concept existed, that it might be possible for him. For them.

After they dried off and got comfortably snugged together in bed he murmured, “Elise, you have to promise me something.”

“Anything. After the chocolate, you name it.” She sighed, her breath teasing the hair on his torso.

“Don’t stop. Keep doing whatever you’re doing and don’t stop. Even if I tell you to.”

She stirred and raised her head to peer at him in the darkened room, lit only by the moonlight pouring in through the opened blinds. “Why would you tell me to?”

“Because...”

I’m broken.

That’s why he’d never found a woman worth promising forever to. Why Elise’s matchmaking efforts had failed, despite participating in her profile sessions to the best of his ability. Not because there was something wrong with the women he’d dated, or even Candy, but because something was wrong with him. How could he explain that he pushed women away on purpose, before things got complicated?

But then, he didn’t have to explain. Elise knew that already. She had spelled it out in painful detail on the park bench. If he was being honest, that had been the tipping point, the moment he knew she’d snared an unrecoverable piece of him he’d never meant to give up.

He tried again. “Because I’m...”

Falling for you.

His eyelids slammed shut in frustration and fear and God knew what else. What was wrong with him that he couldn’t voice a simple sentence to tell this amazing woman how she made him feel? Or at least confess that she made him want to be better than he’d ever dreamed possible?

He wanted to be the man she deserved. For the first time in his life, he didn’t want to push her away.

But he knew he was going to anyway.

He couldn’t say all those things because Elise wasn’t his soul mate. She was someone else’s and he was in the way. For her sake, he would have to end things eventually.

That realization nearly split him in two. Appropriate to be as broken on the outside as he was on the inside.

“Hey.” Her soft hand cupped his jaw and her thumb rested near his eyes, brushing the lashes until he opened them. “What’s going on? You’re never at a loss for words.”

He laughed in spite of himself. She’d been tying him up in knots from day one. Why should this be any different?