Page 31 of His Forgotten Wife
He didn’t know whether it was healthy or not, but she was definitely becoming an obsession to him. And he found it mildly alarming that there was nothing he could do to stop it.
“Why did you want to spend time alone with me?” she said, raising her chin. Suspicious little creature knew he was up to no good.
Slowly, pushing away the edges of her wrap, he reached for her waist. He wanted to touch the tight dip and the silky skin there. Her breath hitched audibly. “I noted that you didn’t bring me a birthday present this year.”
Soft pink dusted the tops of her cheeks while loose strands framed her fragile face. She rolled her eyes and Ares wanted to tug her braid and kiss the sarcasm out of her. “You hate it when I drag you to a restaurant and present you with a gag gift every year. You moan for days about it after as if I tormented you. You tell people who visit you at the office horrible stories about my gifts.”
“Yeah, but now I’m used to it. I look forward to it even.”
She folded her arms at her midriff, unintentionally emphasizing the upper curves of her breasts. Ares kept his gaze on her eyes through conscious effort while his fingers itched to trace those curves. “Okay. What do you want?” she demanded.
“Come closer. You aren’t scared of me, are you?”
“Of course not,” she said, her brown eyes turning a deeper amber in the sun.
“And you will tell me if anything I do is not okay?”
“Yes.” Her eyes flitted between his. “Ares, what is it that you want?”
“I want to touch you.”
Dolly wondered if somehow Ares had figured out how to tap into the deepest part of her psyche and decided to persuade her by using that. “Touch me how?” She blurted the question before she could curb it.
A grin danced at the edges of his mouth. The rascal pretended to frown, as if he was giving it a lot of thought. But she knew his tells from years of watching him and his answer was ready.
“Like a lover,” he said, his eyes darkening.
She pulled back as if she could read his intentions.
He held her gaze without looking away, as if he didn’t care what she saw in it. She licked her lip and swallowed and like alaser pointer, it focused on her mouth. His hand reached out, gently wiping the beads dancing over her upper lip. She felt like a pinned specimen, every breath and movement under complete scrutiny.
Then there was the fact that she had waited for so long for him to feel like this. To want to touch her and kiss her and…to want her, simply.
And yet, when she’d admitted something similar, he had been soangry. So put off. So was this change because of the new Ares the accident and the coma seemed to have unleashed? Or was he testing her to catch her out?
No, that was too cruel. Even for how blunt and cutting Ares could be.
“Dahlia?” he prompted, something careful in the way he said her name.
“Let’s get this straight. Just so I’m not floating around in some feverish, fantastical dream,” she said, voice turning hoarse, “you want to touch me like a lover would?”
“Have you had feverish fantastical dreams about me?” he pounced, that bad-boy swagger back.
“That’s not the answer to my question.”
“Yes, I want to. I want to more than touch you, Dahlia. I want to kiss you and pleasure you and…do other filthy things to you.”
Her heart gave a wild kick in her chest, her belly churning. “Since when?” she said, unable to hide the flicker, no, the live flame, of interest that lit her up.
Now his frown was real. “Why does that matter?”
“Because,” she said, nearly shouting the word, “I want to know if this is some kind of game you’re playing. You know, to…” The sudden hard glint in his eyes made her choose her words carefully. “Change my mind. To stop me from leaving.”
“Wouldn’t wisdom advise the opposite?” he said, bitterness punctuating each word. “That entangling sexually with yourexecutive assistant—the woman you’re fake-engaged to and one who knows all your professional secrets—is the most dangerous thing to do?”
“It would,” she said, heat streaking her cheeks. “I just…” She stared at him, the words refusing to come. She was too tempted.
But there was also the reminder of how she’d barely survived his rejection before the accident. Tangling with him now was like playing with fire.
