Page 1 of Reclaim Me

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RAE

The Proposal

There’s bad decisions, and then there’s bad decisions.

Ruinous, life-altering choices you know you’ll regret when it’s all said and done but somehow still manage to enjoy in the moment, and God, am I enjoying myself right now. My legs spread wide, the fabric of my birthday dress scrunched up around my waist, my panties pushed to the side because you don’t get completely undressed when you’re making a mistake, even when it’s one as deliciously salacious as this.

The flat of his tongue rolls over my clit again, and my thighs twitch around his ears. I shouldn’t be doing this. It shouldn’t feel so fucking good.

But I am, and it does.

He grips my ass with rough fingertips, lifting my pussy up to his mouth like a bite of a forbidden meal, and I scream at the top of my lungs the way I never can at home with Aaron—not because his mother or my daughter might hear—but because in all the years we’ve been together he’s never made me feel like this.

Wild. Reckless. Capable of ruining someone and desperate to be ruined in return.

No, that part of me can only be unlocked by the man between my legs. The man now holding my entire ass in the palm of one of his hands so he can use the fingers of the other to invade the walls of my dripping sex. My core contracts, and my eyes roll into the back of my head as pleasure pulses through me, incoherent words flow out of me as my body floats into a cloud of euphoria so thick it’s able to keep me suspended for long moments, keeping me from the regret that’s waiting for me on the ground.

I didn’t come here for this.

That’s the thought going through my mind as Hunter lowers me gently back down onto his desk. He doesn’t even bother to fix my dress or my panties. Just leaves me wide open, my most intimate areas on display for him. I keep my eyes on the ceiling above me, focused on the heart in the middle of the ceiling tile directly above us that has our initials written in black paint.

“You should paint over that.”

I don’t know why I’ve chosen to start the conversation I came here to have this way. It’s random and unnecessary, but it’s the only way I know how to ease into telling him he has to let me go. I reach down and fix my clothes before sitting up and facing him. He’s got his fingers clasped together, resting over the hard slabs of muscle that make up his stomach. For as long as I’ve known him, Hunter has never had a six-pack. He’s just got one of those stomachs that’s thick but solid and toned. I don’t know what you call it, but it works for him.

He doesn’t bother looking up because he knows exactly what I’m talking about. I hate that because I was hoping to buy myself a little bit of time without those eyes on my face.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because it’s…” My throat is dry from all the moaning and screaming, so I swallow before continuing. “Because it’s just a reminder of a failed past when you should be focused on the future.”

One of his brows rises, a thick, dark line that makes my cheeks heat. “Is that what this was?” He asks, waving a large, tattooed hand between us. “You focusing on the future?”

“No.” I slide off of his desk, skirting around his wide spread legs to put some space between us. “This was a momentary lapse in judgment. I didn’t come here for this.”

Hunter stands too, moving forward to delete every inch of space I’ve just given myself to breathe. Now, all the air I welcome into my lungs is infected with him, with his scent and arrogance, with his desire.

“Then what did you come here for, Rae?”

He brings his hand to my face, the same fingers that were just inside me tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. I suck in a ragged breath, and I should tell him to stop because now those fingers are moving down my neck, over my racing pulse to the pebbled nipples straining through the cotton of my sundress. Hunter cups my breast, and while I’m on the verge of coming apart in his hands, the muscles in his face don’t move an inch.

It shouldn’t matter that he appears to be so unaffected by me, but it does. It burns me up inside because I fall apart every time he touches me, every time he looks my way. I’m here with him when I should be with the man who helped me raise our daughter before Hunter ever knew she existed, but instead I’m here, courting ruin with a man who won’t show me what I do to him.

Maybe it’s madness or the pressing need for more of him, but I step closer when I should step back. I bring my hand to the nape of his neck and pull his lips down to mine when I should be coming to terms with the fact that they can’t belong to me anymore. I slip my tongue into his mouth and wait for him to give me something in return.

He doesn’t.

“Kiss me back, Hunter.”

“Why?” He murmurs against my lips, his breathing annoyingly even. I step closer, committed to this act of desperation, and that’s when I feel it. The thick, heated length of his erection nestled between us. With my free hand, I palm it, squeezing lightly just to prove to myself that it’s real. Finally, his stoic facade breaks. It’s a small fracture, a sharp intake of breath that he lets out in a low hiss that passes between his teeth, but it’s enough.

“Because we both want the same thing.”

The fire. The passion. The lost inhibitions we never miss when we’re together.

Hunter makes me regret saying anything when he steps back and shakes his head. “No, Sunshine, we don’t want the same thing.” He swipes his thumb across his chin, an act of agitation I know too well, and stares at me with dark eyes that pierce my soul. “You came here to make a mistake, to make me a mistake, but I want to be more than that. I deserve to be more than that, but you won’t let me.”

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