Marriage Without Love & More Than a Convenient Marriage?

This ought to be a visit to the familiar, he told himself as he turned the handle on the door and pressed into their room. It wasn’t. This was uncharted territory and the initiation this time was happening to both of them, moving them into some kind of emotional maturity he would have rather avoided. The tightrope he was walking didn’t even feel as if it was there anymore. He was walking across thin air, reminding himself not to look down or he’d be tumbling into a bottomless crevasse.

As he leaned on the door until it clicked, she opened the bathroom door and emerged wearing one of his T-shirts. The soft white cotton clung to her damp curves and naked breasts before falling to the tops of her thighs. He couldn’t tell if she wore underpants and couldn’t wait to find out.

“I didn’t bring anything sexy,” she murmured apologetically, her eyes bigger than the black plums in the basket. Her apprehension was unmistakable.

“You look edible,” he said, voice originating somewhere deep in his chest. He moved across to her. “I didn’t shave.” He took her hand and rubbed the heel across his jaw where a hint of stubble was coming in.

“It’s okay,” she murmured and pulled her hand back then wrung it with her other one. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so terrified. This is silly.”

A swell of tenderness rose in him. He took her hands and kissed each palm. “It’s okay. I’ll take it slow. As slow as the first time. I want to savor every second.”

Her smile trembled. “I know it will be good, but my body seems to think we’re strangers. I keep reminding myself I know everything about you. The important things, anyway.”

His blood stopped in his arteries as he thought about what she didn’t know about him. Important things, but so was this. He needed to cement their connection before he could even contemplate stressing it with a full exposure of who he was. And wasn’t.

Adara cupped the sides of his head, trembling with nerves and anticipation, wanting the kiss that would erase all her angst and drown her in the sea of erotic sensations he always delivered.

Gideon wasn’t moving, seeming to have slipped behind a veil of some kind.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as doubts began to intrude.

“Nothing,” he said gruffly and set his mouth on hers.

The first contact was just that, contact. Like finding the edge of the pool when your eyes were closed and head submerged and your lungs ready to give up. Relief poured through her as the familiar shape and give of hi

s full lips compressed her own.

And then he opened his mouth in a familiar signal that she do the same and she nearly melted into a puddle of homecoming joy. His arms slid around her and pulled her into a hard embrace against his shirtless chest, muscles bulging with such strength it was almost uncomfortably hard against her tender breasts, but so welcome.

Adara curled her arms around the back of his neck and clung, kissing him unreservedly as her senses absorbed every delicious thing about him. His shoulders and back were gloriously smooth and naked, scented with body wash and rippling hotly as he moved his hands on her, awakening every nerve in her body.

The wide plant of his strong legs let her feel the brush of his hairy legs against the smoothness of her thighs. She wriggled closer, wanting to feel the hard muscle that told her he liked the feel of her against him. Her body craved contact with that gorgeous erection and she arched herself into firm pressure against the ridge she could feel behind the fly of his shorts.

“This isn’t slow,” he growled, straightening and grasping a handful of T-shirt between her shoulder blades.

The soft fabric stretched across the round thrust of her breasts. Her nipples stood out prominently. Eagerly. He leaned to take one in his mouth, suckling her through the fabric until she let out a keening moan of distress at the pleasure-pain. He pulled back to examine the wet stain that turned the cotton invisible, clearly revealing the sharp pink tip and shaded areola of her breast.

Adara gasped at how flagrantly erotic this was, but couldn’t help arching a little in pride when she could see how excited he was by the sight. He smiled tightly before bending to do the same to her other nipple, bringing her up on her toes the sensation was so ferociously strong. A ripple of near ecstasy quavered in her abdomen, making her weak and mindless. She clung to him as if he was a life raft.

“I’ve always liked that, too,” he said with satisfaction.

“What?” she asked breathily.

“The way you dig your kitten claws into me when you’re about to come.”

The heat that suffused her nearly burned her alive. “I’m not,” she said in a near strangle.

“No?” A light of determination flared behind the liquid heat that had turned his dark eyes black.

Her heart skipped in alarm, but his superior strength easily backed her to the bed and levered her into the poofy cloud of the duvet. He took a moment to admire the purple undies she was wearing, the prettiest pair she’d brought, before he drew them down her legs in a deliberately slow tease of satin against skin.

The unfettered daylight and proprietary touch of his strong hands on her legs made her thighs quiver.

“Gideon,” she protested.

“You’re so close, matia mou,” he cajoled, thumb stroking into her wet folds to search out the knot of sensation that was undeniably eager for his touch. She instinctively lifted her hips off the bed at the first contact. He bent and chuckled softly against her inner thigh, kissing his way to where her entire world was centered.

Latent modesty curled her fingers into his hair and she moaned indecisively, wanting badly to give in to what he offered, but she felt like such a wanton. She tossed her head back and forth, tugged on his hair, then felt the hot lick of his tongue and nearly screamed with delight. Need ravaged through her and she encouraged him, nearly begged him with the rock of her hips and clench of her fist in his hair and then—