The Wrong Kind of Love

“You’re sure?” he asks.

I nod, slide a hand behind his neck, and bring his mouth down to mine so he can’t see in my eyes how scared I am that he might say no, that he might walk away and leave me alone in this hotel room with my thoughts and my regrets. With my doubts and the loneliness that has dogged my heels my entire life.

I nip at his lips, tug at his hair, and kiss him with all the desperation I feel as his hand plays between my legs. He slips and slides over every inch of me, circling my opening before he finally slides a finger inside me and I gasp against his mouth.

“Holy shit, you’re wet,” he whispers. “So wet and tight.”

I’m worried for a minute that he might realize how long it’s been for me. I don’t know this man, but tonight I’ve seen enough about who he is to believe that any signs of vulnerability might make him back off. But he doesn’t. He kisses his way down my neck. He slides his finger out and back in, making my hips lift off the couch and a moan slip from my lips.

He adds a second finger with the first and groans against my neck. The stretch of two fingers is almost painful at first, but then it’s good, and then it’s better. His thumb teases my clit as he works his fingers inside me. “How can you be so fucking beautiful? You’re even sexier when you’re turned on, and I wanted you from the second I saw you.”

I like his words against my neck, the husky timbre vibrating through both our bodies as he strokes me.

“Do you know how hard it’s going to be for me to walk away without fucking you?” He nips at my neck, bites and sucks.

“Then don’t,” I whisper. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever wanted, but right now it seems perfect. I don’t want to be alone tonight. Can I really say I wish I was with Marcus right now? Would I have wanted to be ignorant and have learned only after our wedding what kind of man Marcus really is?

When I open my eyes, my sexy stranger is looking at me like I’m a broken piece of fine china. He must have felt me tense as my thoughts went to Marcus.

He runs his gaze over me slowly—over my face and down my body. In this moment, his inspection isn’t sexual, more an assessment of my injuries, and I can’t decide if I’m grateful that my hurt doesn’t show on my skin or if I wish it did. I don’t want pity, but for just one moment it would be nice for someone to see me as I am, not as I present myself. Someone to see the fault lines hiding under my dutiful smile. Someone to see the darkness that claws at me when I’m alone.

I don’t know what it is about this stranger that makes me want that someone to be him.

When I reach for the button on his jeans, I don’t have any idea what tomorrow holds, but I know exactly what I want tonight. I want to give myself to this man, a stranger who can make me warm from the inside out just from the way he looks at me, a tattooed mystery with sad eyes.

He places a hand over mine, stopping me before I can unzip his jeans. “We aren’t going there tonight, sweetness.”

“Don’t you want to?”

He stills and squeezes his eyes shut. He shakes his head as he opens his eyes and studies me. “I don’t want to be something you regret.”

“You won’t be.”

He sweeps his mouth over mine. “Just let me touch you.” He dips his head and nuzzles the crook of my neck. He pulls his hand from between my legs, and I whimper at the loss. “You smell good. You feel good.” He meets my eyes and his go darker. “Do you taste good too?”

I gasp—at his words, at the idea of this man putting his mouth where his hand is, and at the promise in his voice.

He slides his hands under my ass and pulls my hips to the edge of the couch, parting my thighs wider and exposing me to his greedy eyes. Every nerve ending lights on fire as I watch him lower his mouth to my breasts. He rakes his teeth over my nipples and kisses down the center of my belly.

He grazes his nose from one hipbone to the other, then places a chaste kiss right above my clit. “Can I kiss you here?”

I answer with a ragged inhale, a nod, and the jerk of my hips. I’m trembling. Shaking with a need I’m not sure I’ve felt before. His mouth trails to my inner thighs, one side, then the other, first closed lips, then a hot, open mouth. First teeth, then tongue, and suction as he works his way to my center.