Page 33 of The Marriage Deal (Sunset Falls #1)

ALL I CAN DO

LILAH

As soon as I slip from the blissful incoherence of the dreamworld, I know that I’m not alone. More, there’s a man wound around me. But not just any man. Briggs. My fake fiancé turned platonic-ish bed partner.

His chest is plastered to my back, his arm not only thrown around me, but tucked around my middle as though to hold me in place against him. As if any woman in my current position would ever even dream of fleeing.

Only, fleeing is exactly what I should be doing. It’s what I would be doing if I were a better woman. But it feels good to be here like this with him. It feels good to be held like this, as though I’m the only thing in this whole world worthy of clutching quite this tightly.

So, I don’t move. I hardly even breathe. I pretend to sleep as I commit this moment to my dreams.

I stay like that for a long while. More than minutes. Soaking in this moment with him.

Then he moves. It’s not a big movement. A shift in sleep, innocent.

And it burns all innocence away, because he’s no longer simply holding me. In his shift, Briggs slipped a knee between my legs, his hips flexing forward into my own. Only, it’s not just his hips. His groin, and the hard length of his cock settle in the crease of my butt.

Warmth surges in my core. Fire spills in my veins.

It’s a miracle I keep my breathing even.

The man moves again, and I bite into my bottom lip to keep a moan from spilling free. It’s still dark outside, so I’m not sure of the time. I’m too afraid to move and look. I’m too afraid to wake him.

Too afraid to face him.

He shifts, and the blunt length of his arousal presses deeper into my bottom before he stills abruptly. My heart is a hammer in my chest as I do my best to keep my breathing slow and steady.

I know he’s come aware of himself when his hand against the bare skin of my belly—beneath my nighty—curls into a tight fist before it flattens once again.

He looses a shaky breath.

It really is a miracle I keep the quiver from giving me away as he brushes the pad of his thumb across my skin. Then he slowly, carefully removes his hand from my nighty. But he doesn’t pull away.

His fingertips are gentle as a whisper as he brushes the mess of my hair away from my shoulder. I feel his touch right to the tip of my toes. And then I feel the featherlight sweep of his lips against the flesh of my shoulder.

There’s fire inside me, and yet an eruption of goosebumps pebbles my flesh. Every inch of it.

It’s all I can do to fight the shudder that longs to rip free from me. The moan that aches to spill from between my lips.

In all the ways I’ve been touched, been kissed—I’ve never been kissed like this. Never felt so wholly moved by a featherlight touch of warm lips to the skin of my shoulder.

The ache in my core isn’t an ache any longer. It’s a surge of need hotter than magma.

It spills into my panties as Briggs pulls away.

I don’t move an inch until he’s behind the closed door of the bathroom. With my heart knocking in my chest and a throb I can’t begin to ignore between my legs, I touch my fingertip to my phone on the nightstand. The screen comes alive to tell me it’s not quite four in the morning.

I bite my tongue to bite back a groan. Then I flop back on the bed. Not even Senior has stirred, and I know if I wake at this time, I’ll be dead useless by mid-afternoon.

Still, I can’t help myself as I listen to the shower turn on. I wonder if Briggs is doing what I can’t let myself do now.

Is he touching himself? Is he touching himself to thoughts of me?

“Noooo…” I groan low as I scrub my hands down my face. Then I roll over with my back to the door of the shower. If I have to see that man hot and wet…well, I might just die.

The shower turns off and not even a minute later I hear the click of the door.

I squeeze my eyes shut tight and pretend that I’m still asleep.

I listen to a drawer open and close, the sound of a zipper and then the clink of a belt buckle.

Again, a surge of wet heat I have no business feeling warms me between the legs.

I pray for deliverance.

I think I hear him pull a shirt over his head. Then there’s no movement at all, but I swear I feel him watching me. Studying me.

I don’t move. I don’t breathe.

I hear a low curse and then he’s moving. The bedroom door opens and clicks closed.

I lay completely still for a solid five minutes before I roll onto my back and expel a big breath.

I won’t be sleeping now. Sleep, officially is a lost cause.

Refusing to relieve myself to thoughts of my fake husband, I grab my phone and begin to scroll the feed for potting arrangement ideas. Then I make the switch to witchy cottage décor. It’s my happy place, and I stay there comfortably until five before I let my bladder haul me out of bed.

Then I don my robe in search of caffeine, because it’s going to be a looooong day.