Page 17 of Beautiful Betrayal

“It was real,” he says, stepping into me, his hand flattening on my lower back, fingers tightening in my hair. “Itisreal.” His mouth comes down on my mouth, and when his tongue strokes mine, I don’t even consider holding back. I have craved this man forever it seems. I have needed him eternally. I sink into him and the kiss, I drink in the taste of him, the feel of him, the absolute perfection of him.

His hand slides up my back, settling between my shoulder blades, molding me to him. “I can’t stop needing you, Mia. I shouldn’t have tried.” His mouth is back on mine before I can even fully process those words, his tongue licking into my mouth, stroking and tasting me the way I do him. And he tastes of those words, of need and hunger, of regret and passion. Suddenly I can’t get close enough to him, I can’t get enough of him.

My hands slide under his T-shirt, a raw need clawing at me. I need and need and need some more. I shove at his shirt and he pulls it over his head, but my hands never leave his perfect body, which he spends hours in the gym making that perfect. I kiss his chest and he drags my sweater over my head, his hands settling on my face, even before it hits the ground. His lips are on mine. We’re wild and hungry, and he scoops me up and starts walking. That’s when reality hits me.

“Stop!”

He halts, his lashes lowering, and I can see him reaching for restraint. “What are we doing, Mia?” he asks softly.

“Not the bedroom.” He stands there a few beats and then starts walking again. “Grayson.”

He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t stop again until he’s laying me down on the bed we once shared, and he’s on top of me. “This is our bed. That lighthouse is our lighthouse. We’re these things,and we needusright now. So yes, Mia. In the bed,ourbed, where I plan to fuck you and make love to you as many times as humanly possible this very weekend and the rest of our lives if I have my way. If you have a problem with that, I need to know now.”

Chapter twelve

Mia

My reasons for not wanting to be in this bed fade with his declaration that it’s ours, and that he wants me in it for the rest of our lives. “The only problem I have right this minute is that you aren’t kissing me.”

He leans in, his lips a breath from mine, but he doesn’t kiss me. “Why didn’t you want to be here with me?”

“Ask me later. Kiss me now.”

“No. You think I’ve had someone else here, in our bed.” It’s not a question.

“I don’t have the right to ask.”

“Is that why you didn’t want to be here?”

“Yes,” I whisper, my hand settling on his cheek. “But I know—”

“I never brought a woman here or to my place in the city. Just you, Mia. But I can’t tell you that I didn’t try to fuck you out of my system. I needed to fuck the images of you with Ri out of my head.”

“Iwasn’twith Ri.”

“I know that now, but I didn’t then. It doesn’t matter who it was. The idea of you with someone else drove me crazy. It still does.”

“I wasn’t with anyone else,” I dare to confess, when a part of me doesn’t believe he deserves that confession and another feels I owe it to him.

He pulls back to study me. “What?”

“Never. I didn’t. Not once. And I told myself that it was because I was busy, trying to build my career, but—”

“But what, Mia?”

“I just wasn’t ever ready to let go. I didn’twantto leave you. But I had to.”

“No, baby. You didn’t, but I get that you really felt that you did. It hurts, but I get it.” His mouth comes down on mine, and I feel as if he’s breathing me in. I know I am with him. No. I’m drinking him in, arching into the sweet weight of him on top of me. We kiss with desperation, like two people who need each other to survive, and right now, I don’t know how I have survived without him. He rolls us to our sides facing each other, his fingers catching the hook of my bra and just that fast, he’s pulling it away, and his hand replaces the silk. His mouth is back on mine and sensations consume me, so many sensations colliding with emotion and need.

“Are you still on the pill?” he asks.

“Yes. I just—I am.”

“Good. For now.” He kisses me, a quick brush of lips over lips. “I need you naked. I need to feel you next to me.” He rolls me to my back and with that “for now” in the air, he moves and resettles with his lips to my stomach and this is not an accidental connection. My heart squeezes with the certainty that he’s reminding me of how many times he told me he wanted a little girl just like me. It affects me. We had so many plans. Wewere best friends. We were so many things that happened so very quickly and easily, and then it was gone.

He pulls down my pants, and all too quickly my sneakers and everything else are gone. I’m naked and not just my body. I am so very naked with this man and always have been. But as for my body, I’m not alone for long. He strips away his clothes, and I lift to my elbows to admire all that sinewy, perfect muscle before he reaches down, grabs my legs and pulls me to him. The minute my backside is on the edge of the bed, he goes down on a knee. I sit up and cup his face. “Not now. Now I need—I need—”

He cups my head and pulls my mouth to his, kissing me with a long stroke of his tongue before he says, “And I need to taste you.”

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