Page 40 of Fiancée for the Cameras

The bed dipped at her side the same moment a wall of warmth rubbed up against her arm. She felt his fingers on her cheek, the abrasive pad of his thumb tracing her jawline. Her breath came in deep, eager pants, the scent of his sweat and soap making her nearly delirious with desire and longing. “Monica? I was an ass to you in the office,bella. Forgive me.” He whispered the words into her temple, one arm coming up behind her to hold her loosely.

Monica leaned her side into his chest, automatically seeking whatever he would give. “Forgiven,” she whispered, hiding her face in his neck. God, he smelled delicious, and she wanted to burrow under his skin.

His fingers encircled the nape of her neck, the tips digging into her scalp, and she pushed into the touch, needing that rough, fierce claiming of his. Her nipples drew into tight, painful points under her flimsy tank top at first contact with his hard chest.

She rubbed herself against him, like an animal in heat, and licked at the hollow of his throat. Usually, she didn’t even do that much. In two months of their relationship, it was always Andrea who initiated touching, kissing and playing. The few times that they had sex without any foreplay, it was because they’d engaged in it indirectly for hours on a hectic workday or at a party with little, intimate touches or sitting across from each other at his mother’s table while Romeo called them lust birds.

Always, it was he who reached for her and always, Monica was more than willing and ready for him. But today he gently but firmly pushed her away and she felt a sudden flash of anger. She’d spent two months making sure she never asked him for more than he was willing to give, never even going near the boundary he kept around himself. Except two days ago. And now again...

Turning stiff in his arms, she tried to jerk away and off the bed.

He didn’t let her. His fingers trapped her wrists and tugged—with that ever-present gentleness he always showed her—until she was prostrate against the headboard and she had no choice but to look up at him.

“I have something important to say to you,” he said, bringing her palm to his cheek and rubbing against it. He was kneeling between her thighs, and her world was reduced to this gorgeous, possessive man and his gloriously warm body. How was she supposed to walk away from this?

“I’m not in the mood for talking.”

“You’re always in the mood for talking,bella.”

“Well, not right now. I want something else. And if you won’t give it to me, I...”

He raised a brow. His mouth twitched but there was an unnerving intensity to his gaze that she’d never seen, thatarrested the juvenile taunt she’d have thrown at him. Flushing with heat and something more, she said, “If you don’t want to give me what I want, just say so.”

“When did I ever deny you anything you asked for,bella? Truly asked for?”

Dismay curled through her as his gaze held hers. He was right. Even that day in his office, she’d given him a rhetorical answer with a lot of “woulds.” She hadn’t demanded to go with him. But it was also only true because she’d never made any demands of him. And today, on the day when she had to make the hardest decision of her life, she did want something from him. She wantedhim.

She scooted closer to him. Pushing him back onto his haunches, she straddled him until his shaft was pure torment against her core. “I want to have sex, Andrea. Now. I need you inside me. Please,” she added, her gaze flitting between his eyes.

“As you wish,bella,” he said, catching her mouth in a brutally tender kiss. She was on her back on her next breath and he rocked his erection into her core, his tongue plunging into her mouth with the same erotic insistence.

Monica clung to him like a rag doll as he got rid of her tank top, leaving her in her silk panties. Then his mouth drew a line down her neck, between her breasts, and he played with them just how she liked, kneading and cupping, his tongue and teeth leaving marks on her. With a loud groan, she tugged at his hair roughly when he wouldn’t touch her where she needed it and finally, finally, his tongue circled her nipple and his lips drew the tight knot into his warm mouth and Monica bucked off the bed.

His rough stubble against the sensitive nipple made her shout his name in a brazen demand that she’d have blushed at any other time. But more than just desire beat through her. Was itbrushed with a stroke of grief and pain at what she was losing? Was it loss if she never had it in the first place?

Urgency beat through her veins, a desperate need to bottle everything from this moment so that it would last her a lifetime. And for the first time in their relationship, she didn’t want to passively wait for him.

When his fingers dipped into her folds and stroked her clit in those mind-numbing circles she liked, it took her everything to jackknife herself into a sitting position and push at his chest. “I want to touch you,” she announced.

He catered to her with a wicked smile and shifted to lean back against the headboard, lacing his hands behind his head. Licking her lips, Monica tugged at his sweatpants and he lifted his hips until they got rid of them. Then holding his gaze, she wrapped her fingers around his cock.

Arousal thrummed through her as if it were his fingers touching her intimately, instead of the opposite. He was all thick hardness wrapped in soft, velvet-like skin here, the exact opposite of the man he was everywhere else. Already, she could see the tightness around his mouth, hear the rough grunts of his breaths, feel the infinitesimal thrust of his hips when she stroked her fist all the way to the base and then up, until she was squeezing the soft head. “Monica, look at me,” he said, his words a gravelly whisper that slid along her skin like pings of electricity. “You don’t have to do everything today,bella.”

“I want to, Andrea. I want to taste you and suck...” Here, she blushed beetroot red, no doubt. “And do all that stuff that men want their lovers to do. I want you to...come inside my mouth, or on my face or wherever you want to. I want to make your filthiest fantasies come true. I want to be everything you need.”

His hands circled her nape, bringing her up to him so his mouth could take hers in a rough, hard kiss that told stories ofhis actual wishes. “We have time for you to do all this,bella. And you’re already everything I want.”

Tears pooled in her eyes as those simple words speared through her with the force of a silken thrust. Those were the words she wanted to hear, but in a different context. Her stupid, stupid heart. “I want to do it now,” she said on a thready whisper.

Leaning down, she licked at the soft head and before he could recover with a curse and a grunt, she opened her mouth and sucked him in. He was salty and musky and he stretched her mouth too wide but God, the sounds he made, the filthy curses that fell from his lips, the “good girl, just like that,” he kept saying, made the little discomfort worth every inch of it.

Monica followed his instructions to the letter, and could feel his body draw tighter, his hips thrust up when he lost control, his erection hitting the roof of her mouth, his need to go deeper and harder, his thighs rock hard against her nails.

His fingers tightened in her scalp, rougher than ever before, a breath before he was pushing her back into the mattress and with one rough stroke that almost pushed her off the bed, he entered her.

The sensation of being claimed by him like this... It was the most connected she’d felt to her body, to the world around her, and yet somehow, utterly divine, as if her soul couldn’t remain untouched. A lone tear escaped her and fled into the bedsheets.

“I was rough.Cristo, did I hurt you?”

---