Before Him

“I don’t remember you being this noisy.” His gaze crawls up my chest, his half grin kind of wicked. “Which is a lie because I remember everything.”

My nipples aren’t the only sensitive thing about me as my traitorous little heart flutters at his words.

His hand slips behind me, flicking the catch of my bra loose, which he hooks upwards to join my T-shirt. A flick of my wrists and a wriggle of my fingers and they both hit the floor. Not that Roman seems to notice as he returns to his task, framing my breasts with his hands. My nipples pebble at the brush of his thumb.

“You’re so fuckin’ pretty,” he rasps as our mouths meet in a rush. His lips travel across my jaw, nipping and licking until he reaches my ear. “Do you remember the champagne?” His tongue swirls against the sensitive shell. If I could speak, I think I might tell him how many nights I’ve lost to those thoughts. How I’d touched myself, hating myself for being the reason he wasn’t there next to me.

“So sweet here.” His fingers trace one delicate wing of my collarbone as though recalling the liquid’s trail, dipping into the hollow. Everything inside me draws tight in anticipation as his hand coasts down, pressing between my legs. “So fucking delicious here.”

“Oh, God!” My plea hits the air in a tremorous rush, every one of my nerve endings seeming to pulse under his hand.

“Loosen your shorts.” Less command and more coaxing, he clasps my pussy tighter, making it pulse. “This has to be your call, little love.”

I swallow thickly and roll my lips together. I’m suddenly parched and know exactly what I need to quench this thirst.

“I want”—you—“I want this.”

“Tell me again.” His jaw clenches, a tremor seeming to run through him. “Tell me you need this as much as I do.” There’s a rawness to his words. An honesty.

“I want you.” Between my thumb and forefinger, the button falls loose.

A deep noise loosens from his throat as I go one better on his demand, wiggling myself out of my shorts beneath him. I don’t care that it’s not a sexy kind of wiggle or that I’m wearing pink cotton panties printed with daisies or that my bra was washed-out baby blue. I doubt La Perla could improve on this moment or deepen the desire on his face. It’s with this thought, with this shock of longing, that I remember. I remember why I married him. No one has ever looked at me like he does. No one ever made me feel so seen.

But I can’t think of that now, banishing those thoughts and those sentiments, that subtle but very real ache. I push it all away as I grasp the hem of his T-shirt. I’m not at all gentle as I pull it up and over his head.

The sight of his body shouldn’t be a shock, but it is. Warm flesh, hard angles and muscles, and I really can’t touch enough of him. I run both hands over his broad shoulders, loving their size and shape and how they cast a shadow over me. I feel small and not at all in charge, and it’s been such a long while since I didn’t need to be the strong one.

It’s been such a long while since—

“Kennedy.” It’s my name, and it’s a growl. It’s hope and need and a ferocity that he presses into my skin.

I slide my hands from his shoulders to his biceps, over his pectorals and down. His abs tremble, reacting to my touch when I realise with a jolt that he’s poised above me, allowing me to touch him. To get my sensory fill.

Or maybe he’s just watching me want him.

“Don’t stop.” He blinks like his eyelids are heavy, swallows, then lowers his mouth to mine. “Don’t stop touching me.” His words, like his kiss, are all aching want. I’ve dreamed of this moment so many times, felt the phantom of his breath on my neck and the husk in his voice. But I know this is real because my dreams never came with this sense of thrill, of power, that I’ve made him feel like this.

His hips lower, and that power is suddenly exchanged as he presses the thick outline of his cock between my legs.

“Yes,” I hiss out, opening wider, wrapping my legs around him, the heat and weight of him burning like a brand through his jeans. “Oh, God, yes, there.”

“You’re fucking incredible.” His lips find my neck, rendering me a mass of tingles and arching hips. More. Harder. I can’t wait. Get me there. No one but him has ever made me feel like this.

“I want to taste you.” The words curl around me like temptation, exploding like a tiny, flickering firework between my legs. I don’t even realise he’s kissing his way down my body until his knee hits the floor and his hands are splaying me wider. His lashes flicker as he hooks his thumbs into the side of my panties, the plain cotton pulled no farther than mid hip when he halts. The same happens to my heart. This is my body, the one I’ve been the guardian of for almost twenty-nine years. It’s seen many changes, but no more than in the past seven years.