Page 54 of Love What's Left
One hand guiding her head, the other sliding under her shirt to revel in the silk of her skin, I thrust my tongue into her mouth, mimicking the act of sex and grinding my cock against her clit. Her damp heat cradles me through the thin fabric of our clothing, and my brain short-circuits. I missed her. So damn much. Even when she was right here.
I lick and devour, picking her up from the chair without taking my mouth from hers, then laying her down on the area rug and working my way across her clavicle and down her body, lifting her red T-shirt to kiss my way from her belly button up the center of her body.
My conscience tries to interject. This feels like stealing. She doesn’t know me, but I know her. I can anticipate her shiver and the way she wraps her legs around me a split-second before she does it. I don’t have to slide my fingers into her underwear to know I’ll find her wet for me.
“Sydney.” I always say her name when I have her like this, and she knows why. She knows what it means. That she’s it for me. There’ll never be another.
She’ll say my name back, next, in that teasing voice I love.
But she doesn’t whisper, “Gabriel” . . . because she doesn’t know my name.
Breaths heaving, chest aching, I force my hands to the thick rug beneath us, clenching the soft wool instead of her skin. I make myself move back up to her mouth and place another kiss there: one more gentle than the first. Then, with my body braced over hers, I bury my face in the place where her shoulder meets her neck and steal one more moment, surrounded by her taste and scent and warmth. For a few seconds longer, the curtain of her brunette waves hides me from the real world—one where my wife may yet decide trusting me was the worst decision of her life.
Fingers that tugged at my hair only seconds ago, sift through it gently now. One of her arms moves down around my waist, and she holds me against her.
I want to tear her clothes off, spread her beneath me, and eat her until she climaxes so hard she’s shaking in the aftermath. I want her mouth around my cock while she looks up at me with those big burnished-mahogany eyes. I want to be inside her and feel her walls squeeze—
Sydney interrupts my internal sexual spiral with the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard: her first real laugh since I brought her home.
I lift my head. “What’s funny?”
“That was some first kiss,” she says.
She’s laughing. I’m dying from sexual frustration. “Did I live up to my hype?”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re an expert, and you know it.”
“Mmm, I have absolutely studied you, Mrs. McRae. For instance—” I run my hand from her belly button to her sternum. “I can kiss you straight up the center of your body, and it will turn you on. But”—I flutter my fingers briefly over her rib cage—“if I try to kiss you here—”
She shrieks with giggles.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to seduce you when you won’t stop laughing?” I fake annoyance.
“Probably not hard at all,” she says slowly, but a grin wreaths her beautiful face.
Smiling, I move to lay on my side next to her on the rug, elbow bent, and my head resting in the palm of my hand. “Correct.”
She mimics my pose, then reaches up a finger to tap the annoying cleft in my chin. “I like you.”
I’ll take it and be grateful. I won’t look at it as a downgrade. “I like you too.”
Her expression turns serious. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Go ahead.”
“I have a gun.”
I blink, then lift her shirt again, roll her this way and that. Then, while she laughs and squirms, I make a show of patting her down, all the way to her ankles and back up again. “Where, exactly, are you hiding your teeny tiny firearm? Don’t tell me you need me to do a cavity search? It’s a tough job, but, for you, I’ll make the sacrifice.”
She slaps my shoulder. “It’s in my drawer. Beside the bed.”
“Ah. I know about that one. You remembered it was there?”
She shakes her head. “Found it onenight.”
“It’s for protection in case anyone gets past your guards.”
“I have i-intrusive thoughts. They scare me.” She shudders. “I’m afraid of what I could do with that gun.”
