Page 69

Nuptials?
I glance at Ark, who looks gorgeous in a crisp midnight-blue business shirt, minus the stuffy tie he’s rarely without, and designer slacks that cost more than I make a month.
He’s glaring at the cashier.
If looks could kill, the cashier would be on his knees, clutching his chest.
The cause of their tension dawns on me when the butterflies in my stomach augment. They’re not fluttering with the fear that usually shakes my vocal cords. They’re too low for that. They love the protectiveness beaming out of Ark and how sharing some of my secrets with him didn’t change his obsession with my safety.
The knowledge frees my voice from encumbrances when I say, “Thanks. It’s new but amazing.”
Myhusband’s mouth curves egotistically when I shift my eyes back to him, and I hit him with an animated wink. It reduces the scowl between his brows and hovers his hand so close to my back that goose bumps prickle on my nape.
I arch into his embrace, craving his touch, before I guide our walk back to my apartment building.
Something as simple as being guided down an isolated street shouldn’t instigate a fiery response, but I feel like I am on fire. My thighs ache from the number of times I press them together, and my panties feel damp.
The responses of my body grow more uncontrollable the longer we walk. Our attraction is intense. Burning. And his closeness is the drug my body desperately needs to fully wash away the haunted memories clinging to my skin.
Icy winds announce winter is only a hair’s breadth away, but I feel so toasty when we enter my apartment ten minutes later that I sag against the door, needing its coolness to subdue the inferno burning me from the inside out.
The fire is upgraded to catastrophic when Ark spins to face me. He radiates power and authority, but I pay the most attention to the hunger in his eyes.
He craves me as badly as I crave his touch, and it’s reached a point where I can no longer hide the truth. “Kiss me.Please.Wash it away.”
The lack of fear in my voice is shocking, but it has nothing to do with how fast Ark jumps to my command. I scarcely register the groceries being dumped onto the entryway table before his hands are in my hair, and his mouth narrows toward my parted lips.
As we breathe as one, our eyes locked and silently devouring, he tugs on sweat-damp strands, forcing my head back before his eyes seek permission to kiss me like I didn’t beg for him to do precisely that.
When I nod, he leans in deeper before spearing his tongue between my lips. My fingernails scratch at the varnish on my door when he strokes his tongue along mine, tasting every inch of my mouth.
I’m desperate to lose my fingers in his dark mane, to drag my nails over his scalp while returning his confident embrace, but the consciousness that not all the thudding of his heart is from our heated kiss stops me.
If I want him to shift my thoughts of sex from painful to pleasurable, I need him to exert the authority he did during our previous exchanges. To do that, he needs to feel comfortable and confident.
Touching him won’t allow that.
When I balance on my tippy-toes, stealing the last ounce of air between our bodies, Ark growls into my mouth before he deepens our kiss. I’m pinned between him and the door, hungrily aware of his desires as well as I am mine. He’s hard, his cock thick and strained against my damp panties that are seconds from being exposed by the unladylike thrusts of my hips.
With my palms flat on the door, I return his kiss with as much eagerness as he is displaying. I stroke my tongue along the roof of his mouth and nip at his lips while grinding myself against the impressive bulge in the crotch of his pants.
My clit throbs for attention, as thunderous as my heart. I want his mouth on me again, down there, but I’m too scared to ask.
Before our exchange on his desk, I’d never been pleased orally before.
Actually, I’d never been pleased. Period.
I was assaulted and discarded. That was as far as my sexual experiences went.
You wouldn’t know that, though, from the deep moan that emits from Ark’s mouth when the shimmers of an orgasm wrack through my body from grinding my clit against his crotch.
“Fuck, Mara…” Ark growls over my lips, doubling the searing ache coursing through me. “I want you so bad it hurts.” He kissesmy mouth, nose, and neck before he pinches my chin with his thumb and forefinger to align our eyes. “But I will stop this now if that’s what you want. I will walk away without?—”
I roll my hips upward, ending his worry.
Then I re-lock our lips.
In minutes, our exchange moves from the foyer to the living room. The pillows Tillie picked from a thrift store flatten against my back when Ark lays me on the couch before he plants a knee between my legs.