Her lips part and she stares at me, and I can’t help it. I swoop in and steal another kiss. Then more. On her mouth, her jaw, her neck.
“You look so beautiful today. I couldn’t take my eyes off you the whole ceremony.”
“I know.” Her hands roam across my back, over my shoulders and chest. She nips at my lips and gasps into my mouth. “I like it when you look at me. I’m so weak for it.”
“Nothing about you is weak.” I yank up her skirt and stroke her thigh, working my way around to the thin band of her panties at the top of her hip. I follow that silky scrap of fabric down between her legs and stroke her there. She bites back a cry. “I’m the one who’s weak for you, and I’m sick of trying so hard to resist it. Let me touch you. Let me feel this.” I slip two fingers into her panties, and she gasps at my first pass over her clit. “Shh. Later, you can scream as loud as you need to, and I’ll fucking relish every sound you make, but right now I need you to be quiet.”
“Kace.” Her hands are shaking as she unbuckles my belt, unzips my pants. “Just tonight, okay? I need you.”
Just tonight? Fuck that. I want more than tonight, and I’m going to make her see she does too. I tease her again and again until she’s trembling in my arms and I feel her orgasm building. “You’re so slick. I can’t stop thinking about how this would feel on my cock.” I drive two fingers into her as I press my mouth to hers, muffling her needy whimper. Slowly, I drag in and out and watch her face—her heavy-lidded eyes, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. “I want to spin you around and fuck you against this window.” I withdraw, softening my touch as I circle her clit—once, twice, three times—before plunging my fingers inside her again.
“Please.”
I don’t know if she’s asking me to fuck her or let her come, but then my dick’s in her hand and she’s stroking me, and I can’t think about anything but getting closer. Closer to her slick heat, closer to her soft whimpers, closer to the woman who stole my heart and then ran away. “You have no idea how much I want you. How much I’ve missed you,” I say, jacking up into her hand as I continue to tease her slick sex.
I spin her around and yank her hips back to tilt her toward me. She writhes and rubs her sex against my dick until the tip notches inside her.
She jerks away, her dress falling back down, then stumbles backward. “I’m sorry,” she says. She closes her eyes, and tears roll down her cheeks. “We can’t.”
Shit, shit, shit. “Stella, please.”
“You don’t want me, Kace. You’ll realize that soon enough.” Then she opens the door and runs away.Chapter Twenty-FiveKaceI’m working on my laptop at the kitchen table when the front door opens with a crash, and Hope announces, “We’re home!”
I close my laptop and stand just in time for my daughter to run at me and wrap me in a hug. I stoop down to press a kiss to the top of her head.
“She was up at four a.m. asking to watch Elsa and Anna,” Amy says, appearing from the hall. “So be warned—she might be cranky tonight.”
“I can handle it.” I turn my attention to Hope. “Hey, Snickerdoodle. Did you have a good night with your mom?”
“The best. I got new ’Merican Girl dolls.” Her eyes go wide. “Two of them.”
I arch a brow at this and look to Amy, but she shrugs. “They’re her birthday presents from me, Kace. Relax. They just took longer to get here than I expected.”
“Can I go play with my dolls?” Hope asks, bouncing.
I nod. “Only for a few minutes while I talk to Mommy, then I want you to help me clean your room.”
She runs off before I can even finish talking, and I laugh. I’m sure she didn’t hear what I said about her room and probably doesn’t want to.
“She loves those dolls,” Amy says, but when I turn to her, her mouth is pulled tight in a grimace as she stares out at the backyard.
“Are you okay?” I cock my head to the side, studying the anguish contorting her features. “Ames?”
“I heard Stella moved out.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah. She found another place.”
When Amy looks up at me, tears spill down her cheeks. “I’m afraid I made a mistake.”
“About what? Dean? Because you did.” My jaw is tense, and it’s almost funny. I’m angrier with her for leading Dean on than I am with Dean for sleeping with my ex-wife. “That was a ridiculously bad move on your part.”