Page 22 of So Wrong It Must Be Right

But he couldn’t stop.

He covered her body with his, absorbing the soft way her body gave in to his. Exulting in this feeling of connection that she gave him.

Tonight, for this little period of time, he was just going to consider her his. His fantasy. His dream come to life. The rest of it didn’t matter, and he wasn’t going to let it matter. He was going to get through this suffocating grief by finding pleasure somewhere. In D.

Without getting off of her, he reached over and found the box of condoms he’d purchased earlier knowing this was the only way . . . When even farming wouldn’t take the edge off of his grief, he knew that this was all he had. A million deleted emails, and the fact was, he needed the reality now. The reality of her.

He shoved apart his still unbuttoned and unzipped jeans and tugged down his boxers. But before he could sheath himself, Dinah plucked the condom wrapper out of his hands and ripped the packet open, pulling the condom out. With her bottom lip between her teeth, slowly and agonizingly, she rolled the condom onto his erection.

She was the sexiest woman he’d ever known, adventurous and mischievous, sweet and dirty, this perfect mix of a million things, and it was too much, really. She was, in her entirety, too damn much. Enoughtoo muchto pause, to question . . .

“What was your favorite one?” she asked, her fingers delicately trailing up and down his arms.

“My favorite one?” He knew what she meant. His favorite fantasy. His favorite of whatever scenarios they’d written to each other. But it was hard to choose for a lot of reasons. Each exchange between them had been a reaction to something going on in his life. A certain need, and it was a little embarrassing to admit that today he didn’t need anything dark or dirty particularly. He just needed someone, and in this case, that someone had to be her. Had to be.

She reached out and pushed some hair off his forehead, a comforting and familiar gesture. A gesture of care they didn’t share. Couldn’t. Something that spoke of a deeper relationship than they had. All they had were fake words.

“I always have a hard time picking a favorite,” she said when he never answered. “It sort of depends on the situation, doesn’t it?”

It wasn’t a shock she would echo his own thoughts. For whatever ways their whole thing was a fantasy built on randomly exchanged emails, there had been a truthfulness to some of their words. A truthfulness he hadn’t even admitted to himself at the time, but it was easy to confide in this person who wasn’t real. This person he’d never know.

Except here she was. She was here and real and this was far more complicated than the fantasy had ever been.

But he wasn’t walking away from that complication. No, he kept going headlong into it, no matter how often, during the daylight hours, he told himself to stay away.

He didn’t want to think up one of his favorites, and he didn’t want to think about complications and hardships. All he wanted to do was lose himself in her. So instead of answering her question or responding to her statement, he dropped his mouth to hers.

He didn’t say anything. Not as he kissed her, softly, languorously, exploring her mouth with no hurry or frenzy. He didn’t speak as his mouth drifted down her neck to the soft swell of her breasts. Not as he entered her and breathed in her sweet little sigh.

There were no words and no fake memories. There was only the soft slide of his body against hers. Only the tender brush of her palms and fingertips up and down his back. They didn’t race. They didn’t play. It was something deeper, and more, and no matter how much he knew he couldn’t afford those things, it was exactly what he needed in this moment.

When she came, it was soft and sweet and sighing. And when he came, it was the same.

He kicked off his pants and moved next to her on the bed, more than a little bit reluctant to roll away from her and go to clean himself up.

But it wasn’t like the other night when she’d scurried off his bed and he’d gotten off of her immediately. Instead, they both lay there. Their shoulders touching, their legs brushing, but not exactly cuddling or curling into each other.

Carter stared at the ceiling, and when he dared to sneak a glance at her, she was doing the same.

But she didn’t get up to move, and even though he shouldn’t—couldn’t—he pressed a kiss to her temple and whispered the last word he should ever utter in this situation.

“Stay.”

When he rolled off the bed to get rid of the condom, he wasn’t all that sure she would listen. He wasn’t sure hewantedher to listen. He only knew that . . . that . . . Scratch that. He knew nothing. He knew nothing at all.

When he came back from the little bathroom, she was still lying naked on his bed. Still staring at the ceiling, clearly not quite certain this was what she should be doing.

But still here, doing it anyway.

He slid next to her on the bed, and this time he wrapped an arm around her. She curled into him. It was a mistake on every level, but neither of them made a move to fix it.

Chapter 7

Dinah woke up in a bed that was not her own and cursed herself silly. Of all the epic mistakes in her life, this really topped the list. Sleeping with him . . . It had been excusable the first time. She might’ve even been able to rationalize it the second time.

There was nothing excusable or able to be rationalized about spending the night in Carter Trask’s bed. So many things could go wrong here, and why was she risking what she loved above all else? Just because the man knew how to give her a couple of orgasms?

On the plus side, Carter was not in bed next to her. She woke up in his bed completely alone.

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