Page 25 of Accidental Vegas Vows

My mouth went dry. Of course I didn’t trust myself around him, not after the catastrophe of the business trip. But I also didn’t trust him around me. Clearly, the man had no boundaries when it came to getting what he wanted from a woman, and my walls around it were nothing more than a challenge for him.

And God dammit, I hated that I found that exciting.

“We just… we shouldn’t…” I started, jutting my chin out, “…be alone together. I can’t be alone with?—”

“Why?” He swallowed a few more sips before placing his mostly empty glass beside mine. One step and he was closer, sending my pulse racing. “Why can’t you be alone with me?”

I stepped back instead. “You know why.”

Again, he closed in, and again, I moved back. “Perhaps I do,” he grinned. “But I want you to say it.”

My back hit the wall as he took another step, crowding me, towering over me, giving me nowhere to go but sideways — but even that was eliminated when his hands pressed into the wall on either side of my head.

Rum, vanilla, and crushed almonds invaded my senses, and God fucking dammit, all I could think about was the way his chest looked beneath the shirt he was wearing and how sexy it had been when it was hanging limply off his shoulders. A knot formed at the back of my throat from just thinking about it.

“Damien, please,” I croaked. I couldn’t do this, couldn’t stay here, couldn’t be swarmed by him like this and expect myself to make it out the other side intact. There wasn’t a chance in hell. I needed to leave, needed to slink out of his hold, but my body had a mind of its own around him and didn’t want to react to the cues I was feeding it. My feet stayed planted. My fingers twitched toward him. My mind fucking warred.

“What exactly are you asking me for?” he purred, dipping his chin so his eyes were level with mine. “You look like you’re halfway between kicking me or touching me between my legs.”

Great. So it was obvious.

“If you don’t want this, all you have to do is say.”

I knew that. In my bones, I knew it. But I couldn’t bring myself to form the words, couldn’t even lodge them in my mouth in preparation, and even deeper than my bones, I knew I didn’t want to say them. “I can’t trust myself around you,” I breathed, trying to dig into myself for the confidence I was lacking.

One hand dipped out of view before coming up under my chin, forcing me to look up at him as he gripped onto it. “Do you need to?” he asked, dragging his thumb across my lower lip and pulling it down. A shiver went down my spine as a heavy twisting took root in my lower stomach, warming the space between my thighs. “I am your husband, after all?—”

“Not for long.” The words came out muffled from the disruption to my lips, but something shone in his eyes nonetheless. Finally, a drop of confidence. His pupils expanded and his mouth parted, those fucking crows feet deepening as he grinned.

“You’re mouthy when you’re feeling bold,” he rasped, his thumb pressing against my clenched teeth as a challenge. His ability to make me melt with a single touch made my blood run cold. The temptation to open my teeth was maddening — I wanted to do it for him again, wanted to wrap my lips and tongue around him and feel the scrape of his ring against my incisors. Fuck, I wanted to do everything he’d done to me in Vegas. I wanted to feel as alive as he’d made me feel that night. But I also wanted to bite him, wanted to tell him to fuck off, wanted to not want him. “There’s more you want to say. I can see it in the way you look at me. Do it.”

His knee pressed against mine, and for a second, I fought it. I didn’t let him through. But without even increasing the pressure, my body shifted for him, letting him invade my space. Say it. Say what you feel. “I think you’re an asshole,” I breathed, the venom I’d intended to lace the words with falling flat. “I think you’re desperate to win me over because of what I won’t give you, and I can tell.”

He leaned in closer, his lips brushing against the curve of my ear. “You think I’m desperate?” he whispered. A chill shook me, forcing a little gasp from my mouth, and he took his opportunity. His thumb slid between my teeth, pressing down firmly on my tongue and dragging along it. “Would you not call grinding on my cock in the middle of a bar desperate?”

My breath caught. He remembered that.

“Would you not say that throwing yourself at me on the balcony of the Mandalay Bay is desperate?”

He took my earlobe between his teeth, biting down and sending a little shockwave of pain through my body before releasing it. His leg came in closer, pressing between my upper thighs, and oh my God, why was I letting this happen? Why can’t I stop myself?

“Do you think marrying me to feel good about wanting to fuck me wasn’t desperate?”

My pulse pounded in my ears. He wasn’t wrong, and I fucking hated it. It was desperate — desperate and stupid, desperate and needy, desperate and debauched. He hadn’t been the sole player in that game. We’d danced that foolish dance together that night, and although I’d avoided him, we’d been doing it since.

His thumb retreated and smeared my saliva across the side of my cheek.

“Fuck you,” I whispered, not a single bit of bite in the words.

His nose brushed against mine, his lips just a breath from my mouth. “If you’re going to call me desperate, princess, then you better be fucking honest with yourself. You wanted it. You want it.”

“I can’t,” I croaked.

“You fucking can.”

His mouth met mine before I could breathe in, and fuck, it was just like it had been at the bar, just like it had been all night in Vegas. His kiss was messy and hungry, his tongue berating mine and coating it with the taste of his whiskey. I didn’t fight him.

Hands grasped my cheeks, his fingers splaying across my skin. “You can,” he said again, his words muffled against my lips.

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