Page 18 of His Forgotten Wife

She nodded, not surprised that he was thinking along the same lines as her about this…

affair. With his usual blunt honesty, telling her what it would be and what it wouldn’t be.

No more foolish dreams, no weaving extra meaning into every gesture.

“Wow, if only I had your logical brain. Your persuasive words. Your utter arrogance that the world will arrange itself to your needs,” she said.

His gaze ate her up as he dragged his fingers down to her clavicle and the hollow of her throat. When he notched his thumb into it, her pulse rocketed. Satisfaction blazed in his eyes, turning the irises molten.

“You’re so responsive to my touch, Dahlia.

It’s the most primal thing I’ve ever known.

” His mouth joined his fingers, tracking warm trails down her jaw.

“Should I tell you how I want to explore all this silky-smooth skin with my lips and tongue? How much I want to dig my teeth into the tight dip of your waist? Or how sexy your thick, toned legs look in those shorts?”

“God, Ares. Let a girl catch her breath,” Dolly murmured, her body bowing in his arms however he wanted it.

Fantasy blended into reality and she lost her foothold on both.

For just a second, fear swamped her. With her wrapped around him like a vine, would he remember that fateful moment when she had confessed something similar to him, though not in such blatant words?

“Shh… Dahlia, I’ve got you,” he said, pressing his fingers into her lower back. “This is me, agapi . There’s no need for fear between us.”

Dolly buried her face in his neck, afraid of what he might see.

But she refused to let his previous rejection ruin it for them now, refused to let the shadow of a future that had never been possible blur the present.

“I know,” she said, as much for herself as for him.

“But it’s hard to reconcile this man who can so easily give words to his wants, who feels such naked desire, with the man who never even noticed that I was a woman, much less a desirable one. ”

It was a question he had asked himself numerous times.

“I can only surmise what the past me, who by the way sounds like a dumbass, was thinking.”

She smiled then, even though it was the curving of her lips against his neck that he sensed.

It felt like a ray of sunlight touching his face after standing in musty darkness for too long.

Even this hunger for her touch, this new need to bind her to him…

all of it was like standing in brilliant sunlight after living in a cave all his life. “I might agree with that.”

He buried his face in her hair and the familiar scent calmed him. “All I can say is that I must have wound myself up very tightly around the boundaries between us. And given how important you are to me, didn’t wish to cross them.”

“Okay,” she said, still shaking.

Ares knew how much of a chance she was taking on him, how brave she was being by exploring this thing between them. “Put your arms around me, Dahlia,” he said, not giving her an inch.

The few seconds before her arms came around his neck, fingertips creeping upward into his hair, felt like a thousand eternities to Ares’s impatient mind.

And when she went on her toes and pressed herself deeper into him, near-violent shivers racked her strong frame.

So much vulnerability wrapped in strength.

But even he, with little knowledge of how this worked, understood that these shivers spewed from a different source.

Her breasts rubbed up against him in a delicious glide that made his eyes nearly roll back.

He grinned, his attention drifting to the rise and fall of her chest and the nipples poking through the crop top.

She was aroused by his nearness, by his words, by him.

Having that proof was so much better than the speculation.

He wanted not just her kisses and her passion, but all her deeply held secrets.

But he couldn’t dwell on this when she rubbed her lips against his and whispered, “No more questions. No more analysis or warning or caveats. Please, I just… I want this. Isn’t that enough?”

“More than enough,” he whispered in her ear just as she buried her entire face in the hollow of his neck. “I’ve got you, agapi .”

A guttural groan fell from his lips as she dragged her teeth up and down his Adam’s apple, her fingers tightening on his scalp.

His heart beat so loudly that it wouldn’t be a surprise if it thumped out of his chest, suffused with wanting.

As if she understood what he needed, Dahlia brought her lips to his chin, and then to his mouth.

Her own moan joined his inhale, and his entire body—every cell and sinew—came to a stillness at that first contact.

As if to savor the taste and feel and scent of her.

She pulled away, just an inch, and settled in with a deeper press this time.

Sweet and tart, with a hint of strawberry, her taste sank into his every pore.

With a rumbling groan that made his chest shake, he pressed and pulled back, pressed and pulled back, tasting her over and over. She groaned, clasped his cheeks as if to stop him from pulling back, and rubbed her lips over his.

Pleasure poured in like an avalanche through Ares, spinning through his limbs, as if he were an endless algorithm that had been plugged into a supercomputer.

His brain struggled to keep up with the sensory receptors, struggled to note what action of his caused what reaction in her.

It was an endless feedback loop anyway, he told himself, eager to evoke more of those hoarse, husky, hungry sounds out of her.

On and on, he kissed her, their lips finding a frenzied rhythm. She nipped at his lower lip and the slight hiss of pain made his cock throb. He returned the favor and when she moaned, lapped at her lower lip.

The more he tasted her, the more he needed. While he nipped and licked, optimizing for a better, deeper fit, drowning in his own savage need, she wrapped herself around him like a string of lights around a Christmas tree.

Her warm pants, the glide and slide of her soft flesh, her nails digging into his scalp, it was a symphony of sensations inside him.

A harsh breath escaped him as she nibbled his lower lip with her teeth.

That she was as mindless as him in her need was like pouring gasoline on the flame of his desire.

The silent cove, the crashing waves, the stretch of endless blue, everything disappeared as their tongues tangled and their bodies writhed and glided against each other. But it wasn’t enough. Filling his hands with her buttocks, Ares lifted her.

Long legs wrapped around his ass, Dahlia clung to him like she never wanted to let go. And the feel of her heated core against his cock was heaven. “Oh, God, Ares. Right there. Just there,” Dahlia murmured, her lips swollen, strands of silky hair falling loose from her braid.

The searing heat of their bodies turned into a flame, even with their clothes on.

Holding her like that, despite his body protesting at the sudden movement, Ares thrust his hips up into her. She bounced in his grip, following the rhythm by grinding her hips down. Her mouth ran down his neck, teeth and tongue licking and nipping at his skin.

His injured shoulder strained at her weight, his hip was nearly crying in pain, and Dahlia… Christos , her head thrown back, she was making those breathy little sounds that narrowed his entire world to her. He’d woken up wanting this with her, needing to see her like this…finally.

“Tell me what you need, Dahlia,” he commanded through gritted teeth.

“Something more. Just a little more. Please, Ares…”

Bending his head, Ares closed his mouth over her tight nipple, over her crop top, and sucked on the peak. Her breath hitching, her hips ground down on him in a frenzy and then Dahlia fell apart in his arms with a soft cry.

Unable to bear her weight any longer, he sank to his knees and crumpled to the sand with her. His hand automatically went to his hip, as if to clutch down on the pain, but still, he couldn’t stop looking at her.

With the sun blazing above them, the faint sheen of sweat coating her skin like glitter, she looked like the mermaid in the poster that Arabella still had up on her wall. For just a moment, he wondered at the ending of that story.

“Are you okay?” he asked gently, when her eyes popped open.

She licked her lips, turned to look at him, and sprang into a sitting position. Her hand covered his on his hip, regret and guilt painted like neon signs across her face.

“Don’t start, Dahlia.”

“I—I’m not a lightweight and that must have—”

“Was it good?” he asked, eager to see the flushed desire in her face again.

“I think I nearly blacked out. And I’m not usually… I didn’t mean to demand it like that. I completely lost control.”

“I like it when you lose control or when you demand things of me, Dahlia.” He pushed completely onto his back and patted the space next to him.

When she hesitated, he frowned. Why did she distrust him so?

“You just dry-humped your way to an orgasm while riding me. Lying down next to me is that much of a stretch?”

“That was sexual and it has been a long-ass dry patch for me. This…is much more intimate. You don’t understand.”

A familiar despair took root in his chest but he refused to let it grow. “Maybe I don’t. However, I do understand that a woman might want to be held after an orgasm like that, instead of a pat on the head for a good job.”

“Did your AI bot tell you to say that?”

He shrugged.

Her eyes glowed with warmth. Gingerly, she lay back down. On her side, with her palm flat on his abdomen, her warm, soft flesh snuggled into him. Her nose tucked itself somewhere between his neck and shoulder, though she was very careful to not lean into him.

Ares closed his eyes, and the scent and feel of Dahlia, all wrapped around him, magnified. With her taste lingering on his tongue, he felt engulfed by her in the best way.

He had no memory of ever feeling such contentment in his life before. Of clicking into his place in the world. Of not wanting anything more in any way except to lie like that with her.

“Why do you like it when I demand things of you?” she whispered after a long while. “That’s like the opposite of everyone I’ve ever come across in my life.”

He lightly slapped her hip. “For a smart woman, you’re also a silly woman.”

“Hey! That’s mean,” she said, returning the slap on his chest.

He circled her wrist, keeping her palm there. His heart thudded under her touch.

“You should know by now that I’m not like anyone else you’ve ever met, Dahlia.”

Raising herself on one elbow, she grinned down at him. It rivaled the sun’s own warmth. “I will give you that.” Her nose scrunched.

He stared at her, taken in by the breathtaking shine in her eyes. “When you demand things of me, I can give them to you. And then when I see your surprise, I feel like I could own the entire world.”

“You would hate owning the entire world. That’s a lot of admin logistics and dealing with people.”

He gave a mock shudder and she laughed and this too, he realized, could become addictive. Making Dahlia laugh without restraint. Making her happy. Making her come.

Her laughter dwindled quickly. Her gaze drilled into his, her other hand tracing his scars with a proprietary gesture. “What does this mean, Ares?”

“It means that I desperately want to have sex with you, Dahlia.” He caught the pad of her palm with his teeth and bit into the flesh.

Her lithe body shuddered next to him, her breasts rubbing against his side again.

“I’ve been through so much trauma with the accident and the coma and all of it, you know. It could prove healing.”

“Oh, my God, you’re so bad, Ares. Where did you hide this wicked side all these years?” Then she was falling onto him, her carefree laughter sweeping him up into its warm embrace. When she began kissing him, Ares knew it was the best birthday he had ever had.

And as long as he could keep Dahlia by his side and the world at bay, he didn’t mind celebrating them.