Page 84 of Bound in Debt
I can’t tell if she’s pissed or grateful.
Her dark curls bounce off the shoulders of the cream-colored sweater she’s wearing. A black polka-dotted skirt skates dangerously high on her upper thighs, although black tights give the illusion of modesty.
I can’t help but watch her as she comes forward. It’s not like words would change anything.
Not what her mother tried to do, what I just got fired for doing, or the tuition bill I may have paid for no reason at all.
I push my chair away from the desk, ready to receive whatever anger or gratitude she wants to give me before she knocks the bottle of Campari out of my palm and sends it crashing to the hardwood floor. The bite of the liquor flavors the air, and the spicy scent of herbs floods the room.
Her soft and alluring body straddles me in the next second. Her hands feather along the sides of my face, drawing all of my focus to her stormy eyes and plush pink lips.
“Why did you do that?” she whispers, peering at me with big, awe-filled eyes. “Why do you keep saving me? You’re not doing yourself any favors.”
I don’t know what the last bit means, but I do know I don’t want her to lose her chance to live out her imagined future because of my brother’s poor decisions and Liams reckless plans to steal everything from her.
“I selfishly wanted to visit your bakery in Paris, princess,” I justify. “Don’t go making this out to be bigger than it is.” She settles her full weight onto my thighs and I nearly forget how to speak. My cock has no such trouble, begging to bury itself in her sweet pussy.
“You’re so full of shit, Dante. And this moral crap that you’re trying to feed me is old. I’m tired of it. I want to stop tip-toeing around what you deserve and what I’m offering.”
I lift a brow. “Offering? I know all about the trust fund—” Victoria’s fingers fall to my lips, silencing me.
I can’t seem to get ahead of this girl for any length of time. I’m exhausted from staying on edge, from trying to keep up with her and predict what she might do or say next. It’s been a long time since I’ve been around a woman long enough to hold a lengthy conversation or argument. The sheer energy involved only intensifies my conviction that I don’t ever want to be married.
Not really.
Victoria’s blue eyes glimmer with equal parts confusion and contentment as she leans down to replace her fingers with that damn mouth.
“Don’t you dare kiss me,” I growl through my tightening jaw. “I don’t need?—”
“You don’t know what you need, Dante,” she murmurs under her breath, her low voice wrapping around me. It’s as if she can sense all the missing pieces of my life that have been scattered and lost for eternity, as if she thinks she can call them back for me. “I’m low enough on the list of priorities that you don’t have to worry about me. Let me worry about you.”
Then her mouth descends the last millimeters separating us, latching onto mine, and I breathe her in. A whiff of lavender, a scent becoming as familiar to me as my violin, fills my chest again.
My fingers find her thighs, tightening my hold on her covered flesh, ready to push her away if she tries taking this too far.
But the moment I allow her access to my lips, Victoria takes hold of my resolve and clenches it to death in her hand.
Her tongue slides into my mouth and I groan, unable to hide my reaction, too lost in the moment to care.
When her ass grinds back against my legs as she works to find a better angle for her kiss, I’m done for. My body refuses to listen to the warnings from my brain about the disaster this will lead to.
I meet her stroke for stroke, unable to fully cede control.
Victoria is my wife.
No matter how you twist it, we said vows before a higher power. The church and the courts recognize that shit. She is under my protection, my care.
Her body is mine to do with as I please.
But that truth comes with a set of problems that neither the law nor Holy Communion can solve. A broken heart is impossible to fix and difficult to heal. I don’t want her to look back on memories of me with regret. I want to be a fucking staple in her past, a seminal moment that she remembers fondly.
Not that it should matter.
Dragging my hands down her legs, I meet the thin nylon of her tights and follow the fabric up and under her skirt. The tight weave of the nylon snags on my calloused fingertips, but I don’t have it in me to care about putting runs in her tights. Then the texture changes and I register the warmth of bare skin as my fingers skate higher—and that’s when I realize she’s wearing thigh-high stockings, not tights at all.
I tease her, playing with the edge of one stocking by plucking at it with the fingers of my left hand. Then I slip my right hand up to tease at her hip, lightly skimming the pad of my middle finger under the lacey edge of her panties. Victoria’s mouth opens in a small gasp and I press my advantage, swooping my tongue in to get more of her sugar and sunshine taste.
“Why are you wearing these?” I murmur as my wife laps at my mouth, twisting a fistful of my hair in her greedy hand.
