Page 94 of The Re-Proposal

“You should be.” He brushes his lips against my cheek and down the column of my throat. His scruff is delightfully rough against my skin.

Hands still captured above my head, I arch my neck to give him more access. He rewards me by flicking his tongue against my ear.

“The princess should always be scared of the villain, Ris.”

Villain.

The term fits a cruel man like Cody.

The man who left me at the altar.

The man who never showed up or called again.

The man who took ten years to apologize.

“C-Cody, we can’t.” I sit up.

“We can.” His voice curls over me like forbidden fruit. “I know you feel this too, Ris.” He circles my wrist with his slender fingers and drags me forward. I gasp when I land on top of his sweatpants, knees digging into either side of his hips. He guides me up and down his lap and I whimper.

“See?” He runs his nose down my neck again. “You’re so ready for me.”

I let out a guttural sigh as he undulates his hips in a dirty promise for more.

“Give in, princess.”

“I can’t.”

“You want to,” he says, his lips hovering over my collarbone.

“No, I don’t.” This time, when he rocks into me, I meet him there. My hair flings forward. Curls stick to the sweat on my cheek.

“That’s right, Ris. Come to the dark side.”

I moan, totally undone. “You’re going to ruin me.”

“And it’s going to feel so,” he slides my body up to his chest, “so”—past his neck now—“good.”

I grip the headboards, eyes closed, ready to be ravaged when…

An alarm goes off.

My eyes scream open and I realize I’m gripping my pillows in two fists. The other side of the bed is empty.

It was all a dream?

Disappointment roars through me, but it’s no match for the throbbing between my legs. I glance around guiltily as if mom’s going to jump out of the closet and yell, ‘you know better than that, Clarissa. Stay away from him’.

As my breath slows, I sit up gingerly.

Sunshine oozes through my window, shouldering rudely past the thin, dinky curtains that I kept telling myself I would throw out.

They’re too thin. Too flimsy.

Just like the stupid excuses I made to Cody last night.

Because, thankfully, that’s the only time he was here.

Let’s pretend that dream never happened, shall we?

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