Page 18 of Better Off Wed
This was nothing like the sex I’d had before. My mind was utterly blank. All my attention was focused on the feel of his fingers stroking my clit and his teeth closing around my bottom lip. His clothing felt coarse against my bare skin, and I fumbled with the buttons of his shirt before giving up and going for his belt. He smiled against my mouth, and a dart of pleasure went through me.
“This is a dream,” he murmured, kissing down my neck, sucking the pulse throbbing there. “You’re not real.”
“Please,” I panted, already begging. My hips gyrated against his fingers, and little fireflies of pleasure flitted through my veins. It was as if a decade of unspent lust suddenly crashedover me. All the times that my head had gotten in the way. All the times I hadn’t been enough, or been worried about how I looked or smelled, or been anxious about the pain that would surely come. All the times that I’d put my partner’s pleasure above my own, because I felt like I had to make up for my deficiencies.
All of it welled up inside and bore down on me, transforming me into a creature made of need. My fingers curled into Gideon’s shirt as I pulled him down on top of me, my back hitting the mattress, my knees spreading and folding to accommodate his hips. He propped one elbow beside my head and kept the other hand between my legs. I moaned, my fingers wrapping around his wrist to keep him where I needed him, my hips grinding to chase the fire building inside.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, eyes circling my face. “So fucking pretty, Sadie. Can’t believe you’re mine.”
I dropped my gaze from his eyes down to his hand. The skin of his hand looked dark beside my pale inner thighs, knuckles and tendons shifting as he stroked me and stroked me andstrokedme. My breath caught. The pads of his fingers slid over my clit then circled it, and I wanted to cry, it felt so good.
I pawed at his shirt, managing to rip the sides of it apart. Three buttons came undone. His chest was bronzed and breathtaking. I put my hands on him, loving the hard pack of muscle I found there, the soft abrasion of his chest hair. The tattoos on his arms crawled over one side of his chest, the right side. I slid my palm over them, avoiding his left side. He didn’t like me touching his scars. I wouldn’t do it now, when everything felt so good. When I was so close. When I couldn’t bear the thought of him pulling away.
An orgasm shimmered, a glittering haze that promised something good. I felt it building in my blood, pounding against every door in my mind. I started on his buttons again, needing to feel the heat of his skin against mine. Wanting to lick and taste and consume. I managed to get two more buttons undone before Gideon shifted his fingers.
“You’re so wet,” Gideon marveled, letting his fingers slide down to tease at my opening before returning to my bud. A small, distant alarm went off in my mind. He bent down to nuzzle at my neck. “Can’t wait to get inside you.”
“Um—” I gasped as he pressed my clit, hips arching off the bed as far as they could beneath the weight of him. The alarm grew louder.
“Can’t wait to fill you with my cock,” he went on, scraping his teeth against my pulse. “Feel you come apart when I’m deep inside you.”
Uh-oh. My eyes flew open to stare at the ceiling above.
“Gideon—” I moaned as he rubbed my clit, but the orgasm wasn’t getting any closer. Fear had started to rise inside me, and it was impossible to ignore. I had to come clean. Had to tell him the truth. “Gideon, I have to tell you something.”
“Right now?” he asked, stroking just the right spot. But it was too much now. Too sensitive. The pleasure that had been so close began to draw away from me like a wave being sucked back into the vengeful ocean.
Then his hand shifted, and he slid a finger inside me. The stretch of the intrusion was a familiar burn. My hands flew to his shoulders, fingernails biting into his skin. I could feel the smooth, hard muscle of his right shoulder, and the tight, mottled scar tissue on his left. He grunted. “So fucking tight,” he said,and dropped his forehead to my shoulder. “Fuck, Sadie. Gonna have to stretch you a bit before I?—”
Panic spiked. “Wait,” I screeched, and quickly released my fingers as he pulled away. My chest heaved as Gideon levered his top half off me, emotions quickly flitting across his face.
Confusion. Worry. What looked like a flash of understanding—and disgust. I reached for him, because I didn’t want him tostop, I just needed to explain.
Explain that I’d lied. Explain that my body wasn’t fully functional. Explain that all those things he wanted, those dirty promises he’d made, he could never make them come true.
And I thought he’d agree to file that wedding certificate once he knew? I thought I’d still get my happily-ever-after?
Tears welled in my eyes, burning my eyelids. My throat clogged up, and the words wouldn’t come.
It had feltso goodto be wanted as badly as he seemed to want me. I must’ve been weak-willed and cowardly, because I just couldn’t manage to find the words to tell him that he’d married a dud.
I took too long to answer. He twitched away with a shrug and angled his head so I couldn’t meet his eyes, keeping his scars facing the wall so his good side was to me. I could sense his fury in the room, a physical weight pressing against my naked body, making it hard to breathe. “Couldn’t go through with it after all?” he spat out, shrugging his shirt back on before turning to face me.
My brain still wasn’t working right. What was he talking about? “It’s not—I’m—I need to tell you about?—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he snapped, then turned andslammed the door on his way out. The walls crowded in on me, the air close, too cold now that he was gone, too thick.
I rolled onto my side, buried my head in my hands, and sobbed.
GIDEON
She’d stiffened as soon as her hand had slid over my left shoulder. She’d felt the knobby scar tissue, and the sensation of it had doused her lust in an instant. She was disgusted by me.
I should’ve known. Should’ve fucking seen it coming.
SIX
SADIE
