Without a single thought, a single word beyond what they’d already spoken, they tore at each other’s clothes. Her red suit jacket tumbled to the floor, his rumpled shirt and his wrinkled pants. Her perfectly creased red trousers and the lacy pink thong beneath them were shoved to the floor, and she stepped out of them. She stood exposed before him and his hand went instantly between her legs, cupping her mound, his fingers stroking and pressing along her flesh. She felt the thrilling tremor of his rough fingers on her tender skin, and she thought foolishly how glad she was that she’d had a Brazilian, that she was bare beneath his questing hands so she didn’t miss a single bolt of sensation.
Harvey’s commanding presence, his demanding touch stirred something in her. He took what he wanted, he always had. It shouldn’t turn her on, but it did. She was an independent woman. She’d fought hard for everything she had. But what she wanted at this moment was to surrender. She’d kept the babies a secret, had kept them from their father. She’d hurt him, had hurt herself in the bargain. They could heal each other, maybe, just maybe, and perhaps this was the first step. If they could come together, if she accepted him, welcomed him into her body that yearned for him so achingly hard, then it might help.
Bella wound her arms around his neck as his mouth blazed a trail down her neck. A sizzle started below her ear and sparked down her body, her breath coming faster, her hands clutching his hair. The scrape of his beard on her sensitive flesh felt erotic, heightening his every kiss with a roughness that was new. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her lips again, hard and insistent, bruising her lips even as she kissed him back with equal enthusiasm. She pulled him toward the bedroom, as urgent as he in her desire.
Harvey backed her into his room and turned her around, his hand on her back pushing her down to bend at the waist, so her chest and face were on the bed, her backside high. His tongue licked a single stroke between her legs and she felt her knees tremble as she groaned. He lapped at her again with only the tip of his hot tongue, probing the folds at the joining of her thighs.
She pushed her hips back against his face, wanting more and deeper, but he withdrew his tongue. One big hand held her down while he parted her folds and pushed three long fingers inside her. She screamed at the invasion, at the erotic shock of his fingers penetrating her.
Bella rode against his fingers as he pushed them high inside her, his rough fingertips grazing that spot that made her see stars. She heard herself beg, heard herself plead with him to give her release, and he pulled out of her, his fingers wet against her thigh as he withdrew them from her clinging folds. Frustrated, she moaned in dismay.
Harvey seized her legs and flipped her over on her back. Pressing her knees back to her chest, leaving her open and exposed to him, he drove his cock into her with one hard thrust. Breathless, she cried out as best she could as he pounded into her with such force, such punishing power that it was a pleasure with an edge of pain. She was quivering with want, with dark desire as he held her down. She nodded her head when he met her eyes, saying ‘yes, please, now’ again and again. He released her, drawing back, letting her straighten her legs, and he was no longer within her. She felt bereft, unfinished, confused. She reached up for him, her breathless face asking him why.
He gathered her in his arms, kissing her hair then. She wept into his chest, his hand in her tangled hair, “I’m sorry,” she said again and again.
“I know. I got carried away. I shouldn’t have been rough with you. I don’t want to hurt you, Bella.”
She reached for his shaft, taking it in her hand so hard and thick. He was still ready for her, and she wanted him more than she could say, “Please, Harvey. I need you. I need to feel close to you now, to know that whatever I’ve done wrong, I haven’t lost you completely. Show me, please,” she said.
Harvey’s gaze when it met hers was sad, confused, not at all the self-assured playboy billionaire she’d first met. Like her, he probably didn’t know what to feel right now. But she knew for a fact it would be better together. He kissed her, tentatively this time, without the punishing force, without the raw urgency he’d shown her before. His need was still powerful, but she felt the emotion in this kiss, the brokenness, and tenderness, the sorrow.
She wrapped her arms around him, and he lay beside her on the bed, kissing her. He kissed her until she wept from the intensity until her whole body shook with longing and regret. Harvey swept his tongue into her mouth again, and as she accepted it, he parted her legs with his hand, moved into her with one smooth thrust of his powerful length. The raw heat and pressure of him within her made her gasp, drawing his tongue deeper into her mouth.
As he rocked into her, slow and sensual, he kept kissing her. It was the strongest union she’d ever felt, their bodies joined, their mouths joined, her fingers in his sandy hair. It felt right and perfect and she shattered around him, screaming into his mouth, swallowing his cries as tremors still shook her body from her own climax.
Harvey cradled her in his arms, and her tears fell on his muscular chest. She couldn’t express the regret and heartbreak she felt, and how she ached even more from the knowledge that she alone had brought this on herself and on the man she loved, on the family that they should have had together. She shook her head over and over, unable to say anything but that she was sorry.
At last, she slept. When Bella woke, she saw him there, awake beside her.
“I’m sorry, Harvey. I did this to us. And I barged in here, wanting reassurance from you when I have no right. I should have waited, found out how involved you want to be, and figure it out from there. But I couldn’t stand the silence. I needed you, needed to see you and touch you and—”
“I needed to see you, too, but I didn’t know how. Not after, after I found out about the twins. Bella, I’m not sure how to have this conversation…you were wrong to keep them from me all this time. I’m not a monster. I’m a father, and I have a right to know my children and be part of their lives.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” she sniffed.
“The level of involvement? You really think I’m going to decide not to be involved? I’m going to be their father. I’m going to be part of every day and every decision. As I should have been from the beginning. And I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m not just gonna come and visit, or go with you to the movies or something, or go to soccer games like a convenient uncle. No, Bella. I’m not going to be stuck in a box and taken out on holidays and stay out of your way. You don’t get to be in charge of this since you took the last five years from me. You’ve had control over every aspect of their lives, and it’s time I had a say.”
“I—I understand you’re angry, and you have every right to be—” she began carefully, suddenly very aware that she wasn’t wearing any clothes. This was not a conversation for pillow talk. This was something she needed her power suit and heels on in order to face it.
Bella sprang off the bed and darted into the bathroom. She washed up and tried to smooth her rumpled hair that so plainly said she’d just had sex. Energetic sex. Her face flushed at the thought, and she put on a t-shirt she found hanging on the back of the door. She couldn’t face him without something on, some sort of armor, and a borrowed shirt was better than nothing. She rushed past him and gathered her clothes, hurried back into them for some vestige of propriety, some mature professional appearance to try to negate the fact that she’d been completely and utterly vulnerable when he spoke to her angrily. She strolled back into his bedroom, found him clad in shorts and a tee, his hair smoothed down.
“Clearly we need to discuss this,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Shall we have a glass of wine and try to be civilized?”
“Please.”
She followed him into the kitchen, and he poured a nice Napa pinot noir for her, which she sipped. Bella waited, remembering her communications training from her marketing degree. In an adversarial situation, show patience, show calm, not desperation. So she sipped, and wished for a ponytail holder to tame her messy sex hair, and watched him over the rim of her glass.
“I want to meet them,” he said.
“Of course,” she said, congratulating herself for agreeing to the first thing he wanted. She was beginning with a positive, with being agreeable. That was good.
“I want to know what you’ve told them about me.”
“I haven’t told them much. They’re just now to the age where they’ve started to ask questions. I told them that all families are different and what’s important is that they are loved and wanted. That their daddy was a good man and we were going to be married, but that he had wanted and loved them very much.”
“Oh, really. How did you kill me off?”