Page 33 of The Wrong Husband (The Davenports #6)

Connor

I hustle her into the guest room on the first floor and shut the door behind us.

"What are you doing? I was going to woo you. I don't want you marrying me because you feel coerced."

My anger at my grandfather makes my words come out louder than I mean, but she just looks at me with her green and gold eyes.

“I haven’t been coerced." She crosses her arms and tilts her chin in challenge.

That stubborn look I’m coming to recognize clings to the curves of her cheeks like honey on bread.

Everything about her is sweet and soft. She makes me want to sweep her up in my arms, protect her, and take care of her—only, I know she’s tougher than she looks.

And she’s a brilliant doctor, cool under pressure in a medical emergency.

She’s a fiercely independent woman whose light shines bright, who thrives on helping others. Which is probably why she felt compelled to agree to my proposal. Which is what I wanted.

So why am I refusing to accept her agreement at face value? Why am I delving deeper into the reasons behind it?

Why do I want to come to her defense and make sure she doesn’t feel coerced into agreeing? I'm the one who brought up this idea in the first place, after all.

"When I asked you to marry me, you said you weren’t interested," I point out.

"Maybe, I changed my mind." Her tone is firm, but uncertainty lurks behind her eyes. “Maybe, all your courting has paid off."

"Firstly"—I raise a finger—"it’s literally a couple of weeks since I started courting you. And secondly"—I scan her features—"did you really change your mind, or did being face-to-face with Arthur make you feel like you had to?"

"Are you saying I don’t know my own mind?" Her gaze narrows. The stubbornness on her face turns to resoluteness.

I blow out a breath. "That’s not what I mean.

I simply think that, for someone who was so sure you didn’t want to marry me, you’ve changed your mind rather quickly.

And after you were so vehement in turning down my proposition, to now do an about turn—" I shake my head. "Well, it’s unexpected. Not that I don’t appreciate it—I do.

But I want to make sure you’re doing it for all the right reasons. ”

If she agrees to marry me out of duty, or guilt, or because she thinks it’s the right thing to do—I’ll have her name on paper, her body in my bed, but not her .

Not the fire in her eyes, the warmth of her laughter, the quiet trust when she finally lets someone in.

And that would be the worst kind of loss.

Because if she gives herself to me for the wrong reasons… I’ll never know if she would’ve chosen me on her own. And I can’t live with that. I need to know I matter to her. That she wants me —not just the solution I represent.

I’ve lived in shadows long enough. I won’t start my future with a lie. What I want isn’t just her yes. I want her heart. I want all of her .

“This is a matter of your life. Of your future. I want to be sure you’ve thought this through.”

She stops a foot from me and plops her hands on her hips, her stance on the verge of being belligerent. "What does it matter what my reasons are? Besides, even if I wanted to walk you through my decision-making process, most of my decisions are amygdala-driven."

"You mean, you followed your instinct?" Good thing I’m well-read enough to follow along with her medical terminology-peppered style of conversation. It increases my respect for her. It also turns me on, hugely.

It makes me want to kiss her thoroughly, then throw her down and bury myself inside of her—but that will need to wait. I’ll fuck her when she’s completely on board with having me in her life, by her side—a decision I made subconsciously, but which I know is right.

She’s special, unique. There’s no one like her. She’s the one for me, in so many ways. It won’t be easy to hold back my desire, but I want to wait until she’s a hundred percent sure that I’m the man for her. It’s why I want to question the rationale behind her so abruptly agreeing to marrying me.

"Yes, exactly. A hypothalamic response. No cortex involvement, whatsoever. It’s often what drives my actions. And many times, I can’t explain it myself, but it mostly turns out to be right."

A shadow crosses her eyes.

"Well, ninety-nine percent of the time."

"And the one percent?" I lean forward on the balls of my feet, wanting to be as close to her as possible, without being too creepy about it.

She looks away. The shadow crossing her eyes seems to extend to her face.

It’s as if a cloud is poised over her, and she’s wrapped in her own microclimate. One in which I’m not allowed. The hair on the back of my neck rises. She’s hiding something. The thought has occurred to me before, but now, I’m sure.

"Sometimes, my instinct leads me astray.” When she turns back to me, her eyes are wet. "But that doesn’t mean I trust it any less."

Her hazel eyes have turned green, and in their depths, a storm of hurt spills over the edges.

“I’ll never hurt you… Not unless it’s to cause you pleasure."

Her lips part.

"And if you trust me enough to put your faith in me, I’ll never let you down. I’ll be there to catch you in that one percent of the time when your instincts let you down."

A tear trails down her cheek, then another. Our gazes meet. The air between us crackles with emotions. The kind that can’t be put into words, but which can be understood. Electricity crackles, lacing the molecules in the space with an energy that makes the hair on my forearms rise.

My heart skips, then slams into a gallop. A rush of blood roars in my ears. Something about this moment, about the rawness in her eyes, about how her gaze clings to mine like I’m her only mooring in a maelstrom that could sweep us both away, is etched into my memory.

I’m not conscious of taking another step, or of her moving, but she’s in my arms. I grab her under her butt and lift her.

She wraps her legs about my waist and presses herself into me, so her breasts are flattened against my chest. I hold her with my palms under her sweet fleshy butt and stare into her eyes, searching them like they have the answers to the questions I’ve had from the time I was a boy.

Life. The heavens. The universe. The number 42?

Everything melds into a focus somewhere deep inside me, where I now carry her image. Then her gaze softens, her eyes growing luminous. She parts her lips, and my mouth meets hers.

I thrust my tongue over hers, dancing with hers, swiping it over her teeth, drinking from her.

Absorbing her. Storing that heady taste of her in my taste buds, my cells, my bones.

She twines her arms about my neck and kisses me right back.

The hunger in her eyes fans the embers of need inside me that sparked the moment I saw her.

I squeeze her butt as I pull her flush against my chest.

My feet seem to move of their own accord, until I have her up against the glass wall of the conservatory. I press into her, adjusting her until her core is fitted right over the throbbing tent in my pants. She must feel it, for she gasps.

I swallow the sound, tilt my head, and revel in the lushness of her lips, the expansiveness of being able to drink from her.

Her heart thuds against mine. The pulse at the base of her neck beats as fast as mine. Her curves tremble, her body shudders, and when she digs her fingernails into the base of my neck, the burn races straight to the base of my spine.

When we break apart, I’m breathing hard, like I’ve sprinted. My muscles are rigid, my cock stabbing into my pants and begging to be let out. I take in her swollen lips, her flushed features, her hair tossed about her beautiful face. And something inside me shifts.

I’ve changed since I first glimpsed her. But now, I’ve crossed a point of no return.

"Did you mean it when you said you’ll marry me?"

She nods.

"And you’re doing this of your own volition?"

She nods again.

I peruse her face, see the emotions swirling in her eyes, in her trembling lips, the way the pulse races at her throat. But I also see how aroused she is. How she clings to me like she can’t let go. How she writhes against me, trying to rub up against the ridge of my cock.

I know she wants me. That she needs my body.

That only I can satisfy the hunger I sense in her.

But I want more than her body. I want her heart.

Her soul. I want to understand her thoughts.

Her innermost desires. I want to know her secret dreams. Her darkest yearnings, the ones she won’t admit even to herself.

I want to own her. Possess her. Make her mine.

I want to stamp the mark of my possession on her, in her, so the world knows she’s mine. So she knows she’s mine.

It’s what makes me pull back from the yawning abyss of my desire. Once I dive into it, there will be no looking back. And my instinct tells me, not yet. Right now, she’s the focus.

I notch my knuckles under her chin and tilt her head up, so I can capture her gaze. I want to accept her acquiescence and rush her off to the altar, but I wouldn’t be a man if I didn’t reveal to her how much things have changed for me.

"You should realize that, while I told you this would be a marriage of convenience, I lied."