Page 65 of Promised Love

It takes me a second to understand his question, and I reply, “Do you think I can meet Vienna Teager? The owner of Beauty in Food blog.”

“Sure. I’ll give you her contact details.”

Lukas and I spend another ten minutes outside, talking about the upcoming wedding. And finally, when the food is finished and the ginger ale bottle empty, there’s no reason for us to stay out any longer.

We walk inside, and like the previous nights, I go straight to the closet. I’m sifting through my underwear drawer wondering if the later Lukas mentioned in my office was now later or someday-in-the-future later.

I’m tugging the strap of my black bra from the pile when I feel his hot breath on my ear. “I didn’t want you to think that if we do this, everything has to change.”

My eyes fall closed when his lips make contact just below my ear.

“You can still think, Autumn.”

I turn around in a flash, dropping the stupid lingerie. “I want this. I want you.”

His eyes blaze at my words, and without any warning, his hot lips are on mine. I gasp and his tongue spears into my mouth. His hands drift from my face to my hair, and his grasp tightens around my ponytail.

“This is how it’ll be with me, Autumn.” The hunger in his voice shakes my core. “I’m not a twenty-two-year-old boy.”

“I don’t want anyone else. Just you.” I rise onto my toes, kissing him back.

If I weren’t so close to his face, I might have missed the mask of disbelief that takes over for a fraction of a second.

But before I can think any more on it, he holds me in his arm as if my one hundred thirty pounds is nothing and takes me out of the closet. My legs need no training and automatically lock around his waist.

Instead of going to the bed like I thought he would, he carries me to the couch.

My heart pounds when Lukas sits down, and I straddle his legs, experiencing for the first time the sheer power of his body. As he said, he is unlike boys my age. There’s an edge of control and dominance in him that brings me to my knees.

“Every morning when I get up, I see you sleeping on the couch. Do you know how fucking tempting you look?”

“Really?” I don’t know how successful I am in masking the squeak in my voice.

He nods. “But it fucks with my mind. You look so young in your sleep, reminding of the girl I married, but then in times like now, I have no shame wondering how it would be to rip these clothes from your body.”

My mouth goes dry when he grabs the hem of my pink pullover and pulls it over me, surprisingly slowly in contrast to his words.

He looks in my eyes as he drags the soft fabric over my head and tosses it off somewhere behind me. His gaze slowly drifts over my body, feeling like it’s burning my skin.

He must have felt my wandering eyes on him, because he pulls his T-shirt off from the neck and is bare chested before me in a second.

“God. You’re so damn sexy,” I blurt.

Lukas chuckles and tugs on the small satin bow on my plain white bra. “That should have been my line.”

“I won’t mind hearing you say it.”

“I’m going to say a lot of things to you, Autumn. Even though I hate to admit it, when it comes to you, I lose all self-control. My brain forgets all reasoning and all sense around you.”

Holy crap. I knew Lukas wouldn’t be a gawky teenager, but this man before me is beyond my fantasies.

“But right now,” he continues, “I have much more important things to do with my eager mouth.”

He doesn’t give me a chance to wonder what those things could be and has me taking his place on the couch in a flash. The sight of him kneeling before me is so hot that—forget butterflies—there’s a flock of birds in my stomach, struggling to escape.

Lukas removes my heels expertly, and for a second I wonder how many times he’s done that. I’m about to repeat my question from earlier and ask him how many women he’s been with in our four years of marriage.

Yeah, because I’m a masochist like that.

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