Page 26 of Their UnBearable Destiny

Chapter Seven

To hell with it.

She could have found her way to his room in the dark, with her eyes closed. It had been her room before he’d returned.

When she reached for the door she didn’t hesitate to take it in her hand and turn. It swung open with an easy rush of silence and then she was there.

Inside his room.

Looking at him in the bed. Under her covers.

She reached up and tugged at the thin strap of her nightie, pulling it off her shoulder and letting it drop on its own, the fabric caught on her breast, adding just the hint of weight on her skin. It made her breath quicken. Made her pulse flare.

There was a hush of sound from the bed and she looked.

Uberto was sitting up, his legs hanging over the edge, feet firmly on the hardwood floor, the blankets haphazardly draped over his lap.

She had his attention, and the hard length of his erection tenting the blanket had hers.

Reaching up, she pulled the other strap off her shoulder and the soft tug of fabric over her breast pulled a gasp from her lips. Or maybe it was the way her nipples pebbled under the silk.

Or maybe, if she was going to be a little more honest with herself, it was the look in his eyes as he watched the silk strap fall. The look that said he was barely holding himself back.

Keeping Uberto Orsino on a leash was a heady feeling. She’d seen him rip through a tree trunk with his bare hands when they were barely teenagers, knowing he was holding all of that at bay for her? She was nearly drunk with power.

“What if,” she began to speak, taking a little step closer, feeling the wet heat of her arousal between her thighs, “I didn’t want to go back to the other room tonight, ‘Berto?” She felt his name roll over her tongue and the vibrations continued lower in her body as well. “What if I wanted to stay here?”

She watched him take in one breath and then another, his fingers digging into the bed at his sides.

“Do you want me to leave?” She heard the willingness in his voice, but saw the ache in his eyes. She had him on a string.

She shrugged, and the silk nightie slid lower on her breasts, barely holding on at the tight points of her nipples. The straps were roped around her elbows, holding her arms against her sides. One breath, one shimmy, and the silk would fall to her hips.

“Maybe I want you to stay.”

He was silent and barely breathing, holding so still he looked like he’d been carved out of living marble. The only movement she could see was the twitch of his cock under the blanket.

“Maybe I want to touch you tonight, Uberto. Maybe I want to see if we’re still a perfect fit.”

There was a thickness to the air around them, as if they were thirty-thousand feet up in their air on a plane, and her ears were ready to pop. But then she realized that the tension in her ears was his voice, the soft rolling growl that seemed to roll off of his skin instead of from his throat.

And then she knew. He wouldn’t move until she told him. He wouldn’t move until she allowed him to.

Her bear sat in the darkness, waiting for her to decide, silent and nearly patient.

“Lie down,” she told him, and watched him obey without a moment’s hesitation. When he reached for the blanket still draped over his middle she stopped him with a command. “Leave it.”

She walked the last few steps toward the bed and saw his eyes fixed on her, saw the way they went impossibly dark as the silk slipped free of her nipples and pooled at her hips. She knew he wanted her, but it wasn’t until she heard the soft tear of cotton as his fingers dug through the sheets at his sides that she knew how far she’d pushed him.

It was a sin for her to feel such pride in his desire, but she would do her penance later. Right at that moment, she wanted her reward.

Lifting one hand after another, she released her arms from the silk bonds of the slim shoulder straps and made her way to the foot of the bed.

He watched her, his eyes shifting from the hungry look of a predator, to the watchful look of prey back and forth.

Crawling up onto the bed, she felt her knee catch in the hem of her nightie and sat up long enough to push the garment off of her hips and down to her knees. When she leaned forward and braced her hands on the bed, she shook the nightie down past her knees and moved closer to him, leaving the silk behind.

A quick nudge with her hand had him spreading his legs apart, giving her room to crawl up between them.

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