Heath tried not to let the hard bite of her words affect him. She kept insisting she wasn’t embarrassed of him and yet she repeatedly went out of her way to prove otherwise. He wanted to ask why. To push her for more information, but this wasn’t exactly the right moment to have an in-depth relationship discussion. What was he going to say? He was wedged between her thighs, his pants shoved low on his hips. Now was not the time to disagree with her. At least not if he ever wanted to sleep with his wife.
“Okay,” he agreed and her body relaxed. He waited only a moment before sliding his hand the rest of the way up her thigh. His fingers found her slick and warm, her loud cry more evidence that she wanted him and was ready to have him at last. He grazed over her flesh, moving in sure, firm strokes, effectively ending the conversation.
Julianne arched her back, pressing her hips hard into his hand and crying out. Her worries of a moment ago vanished and he intended to plow full steam ahead before she changed her mind, this time for good.
Heath braced her hips in his hands, lifting her up, and then stopping just as he pushed against the entrance to her body. He didn’t want to move at this snail’s pace; he wanted to dive hard and fast into her, but a part of him kept waiting for her to stop him. He clenched his jaw, praying for self-control and the ability to pull away when she asked.
“Yes, Heath,” she whispered. “Please. We’ve waited this long, don’t make me wait any longer.”
Heath eased his hips forward and before he knew it, he was buried deep inside her. That realization forced his eyes closed and his body stiff as a shudder of pleasure moved through him. Pressing his face into her shoulder, he reveled in the long-awaited sensation of Julianne’s welcoming heat wrapped around him.
How many years, nights, days, had he fantasized about the moment that had been stolen away from him? And now he had her at last. He almost couldn’t believe it. It was the middle of the night. Maybe this was all just some wild dream. There was only one way to test it.
Withdrawing slowly, he thrust hard and quick, drawing a sharp cry from her and a low growl of satisfaction from his own throat. He could feel Julianne’s fingers pressing insistently into his back, the muscles of her sex tightening around him. He was most certainly awake. And there was no more reason to hold back.
Heath gripped her tightly, leaning in to pin her securely to the wall. And then he moved in her. What started as a slow savoring of her body quickly morphed into a fierce claiming. Julianne clung to him, taking everything he had to give and answering his every thrust with a roll of her hips and a gasp of pleasure.
Everything about this moment felt so incredibly right. It wasn’t romantic or sweet. It was fierce and raw, but that was what it needed to be. After eleven years of waiting...eleven years of other lovers who never quite met the standard Julianne had set. He was like a starving man at a buffet. He couldn’t get enough of her fast enough to satiate the need that had built in him all these years.
Yet even as he pumped into her, his mind drifted to that night—the night they should have shared together in Gibraltar. They should have been each other’s first. It would have been special and important and everything he’d built up in his mind. Instead, he’d given it up to some sorority girl whose name he barely remembered anymore. He didn’t know who Julianne finally chose to be her first lover, but even all these years later, he was fiercely jealous of that man for taking what he felt was his.
He was going to make himself crazy with thoughts like that. To purge his brain, he sought out her mouth. He focused on the taste of her, instead. The slide of her tongue along his own. The sharp edge of her teeth nipping at him. The hollow echo of her cries inside his head.
His fingers pressed harder into the plump flesh of her backside, holding her as he surged forward, pounding relentlessly into her body. Julianne tore her mouth from his. The faster he moved, the louder Julianne’s gasps of “yes, yes” were in his ear. He lost himself in pleasure, feeling her body tense and tighten around him as she neared her release.
When she started to shudder in his arms, he eased back and opened his eyes. He wanted to see this moment and remember it forever. Her head was thrown back and her eyes closed. Her mouth fell open, her groans and gasps escalating into loud screams. “Heath, yes, Heath!” she shouted.
It was the most erotic sound he’d ever heard. The sound went straight to his brain, the surge of his own pleasure shooting down his spine and exploding into his own release. He poured into her, his groans mixing with hers and the roar of the pounding water.
At last, he thought as he reached out to turn off the water. He’d waited years for this moment and it was greater than he ever could have anticipated.
Seven
He signed them.
Well, if that wasn’t the cherry on top, Julianne didn’t know what was. She didn’t know exactly when it happened, but as she sat down at the kitchen table the next morning, she noticed the divorce papers were out of the envelope. She flipped through the bound pages to the one tabbed by her attorney. There she found Heath’s signature, large and sharply scrawled across the page beside yesterday’s date.
Well, at least he had signed it before they had sex.
That didn’t make her feel much better, though. She had already woken up feeling awkward about what happened between them. She’d crept out of his bed as quietly as she could and escaped to the safety of downstairs.
Their frantic lovemaking in the middle of the night certainly wasn’t planned. Or well-thought-out. It also wasn’t anything she intended to repeat. He’d caught her in a vulnerable moment. Somehow, at 3:00 a.m., all the reasons it seemed like a bad idea faded away. Well, they were all back now. Eleven years’ worth of reasons, starting with why they’d never had sex in the first place and ending with that phone call to his “sweetheart” the other night. They weren’t
going to be together. Last night was a one-time thing.
But even then, coming downstairs and finding their signed divorce papers on the table felt like a slap across the face somehow.
This was why she’d asked him to keep this all a secret. There was no sense in drawing anyone else into the drama of their relationship when the odds were that it would all be over before long. No matter what happened between them last night, they were heading for a divorce. He’d said that he didn’t want a divorce, he wanted her to choose. Apparently that wasn’t entirely true. For all his sharp accusations, he seemed to want to have his cake and eat it as well.
With a sigh, she sipped her coffee and considered her options. She could get upset, but that wouldn’t do much good. She was the one who had the papers drawn up, albeit as a result of his goading. She couldn’t very well hold a grudge against him for signing them after she’d had them overnighted to the house.
As she did when she got stuck on one of her sculptures, she decided it was best to sit back and try to look at this situation from a different angle. She and Heath were getting a divorce. It was a long time coming and nothing was going to change that now. With that in mind, what did sleeping with Heath hurt? She’d always wanted him. He’d always wanted her. Their unfinished wedding night had been like a dark cloud hovering overhead for the last eleven years.
When she thought about it that way, perhaps it was just something they needed to do. Things might be a little awkward between them, but they hadn’t exactly been hunky-dory before.
Now that they’d gotten it out of their system, they could move forward with clear heads. But move forward into what? The divorce seemed to be a hot-button issue. Once that was official and they stopped fighting, what would happen? There was a chemistry between them that was impossible to deny. Now that they’d crossed the line, she imagined that it would be hard not to do it again.
What if they did?