Page 55 of Charmingly Obsessed
The soft wool fabric of my dress reaches my hip bones. Mykola presses his cheek against mine, his stubble a surprisingly erotic rasp against my skin.
He paints warm, tender strokes of reassurance across my face with his lips, his breath. I don’t dare exhale. I don’t dare move a muscle.
Then, with the slightest, almost imperceptible tilt of his head, he exhales sharply. Lets go of my dress. And pushes himself up onto one elbow, breaking the intoxicating spell.
What… what did I do wrong?
Panic crashes over me before he even speaks. It doesn’t matter that his smile, when he finally offers one, is soft, patient, almost… understanding.
“Diana,” Frez murmurs, his voice rough, laced with a husky amusement that somehow makes the panic worse. His fingers, gentle now, sweep through my tangled hair, tucking a stray strand behind my ear. “Let go of the sheets, sunshine.” He glances down at my white-knuckled grip on the bedding. “I get it. They’re Egyptian cotton. Probably much more seductive thana finance-obsessed, socially awkward bore like me. But still. Give me your hand. I promise, I’ll only bite it a little.”
I look down at my hand. My nails are buried deep into the pristine white cotton. Mortified, I release my death grip. “Sorry,” I reply, my voice stiff, formal. “I just… I thought you were going to take it off.”
“It?” He raises a questioning eyebrow, the amusement deepening in his eyes.
“The dress!” I nearly yell, the word exploding out of me, fueled by a volatile cocktail of shame, frustration, and a bewildering, overwhelming desire.
Because… because I already crawled so far out of my carefully constructed shell for him. And now everything is tangled and confusing and terrifying again. A roiling sea of emotions I can’t swim across, can’t contain, can’t understand. And no one – no one – is responsible for any of it exceptme. My stupid, broken, hopelessly inadequate self.
I kiss him. Fiercely. Desperately. As if completing some crucial, pre-ordained step in a grand, cosmic plan. But it’s both intoxicatingly sweet and agonizingly painful, and I don’t want to surface for air. I want to drown in him. In this.
I try to mimic him, everything he did to me earlier. In the kitchen. On the table. I even nip at his cheek, a clumsy imitation of his possessive bites. And then we’re kissing wildly again, desperately, mouths open, tongues tangling. He presses me back into the mattress, his weight a comforting, possessive pressure. And it’s perfect. Truly, unbelievably, terrifyingly the best, most intense thing in the entire goddamn world. But I have a plan. My own desperate, misguided plan.
He has to like it if I touch his cock… or if I do it again… the way I did in the living room… Then maybe… maybe I can make up for all this mess. This awkwardness with the dress, the undressing, everything. My stupid, crippling insecurities.
Heat flares through me again.
I even start sliding down the bed, a deliberate, inching movement towards his waist, towards the hard, enticing bulge straining against the fly of his jeans.
I’m almost proud of my quick, desperate thinking. Frez doesn’t catch on right away. He was too lost in the kiss, his eyes closed, his breathing ragged.
I sweep my hair over one shoulder, then barely, tentatively, ghost my lips over the thick ridge of his erection through the denim. I give a gentle, experimental squeeze with my hand – because last time, in the living room, that had made his breathing hitch, had made him groan my name…
Frez grabs my wrists. Pulls me up. Hard. Fast. I don’t even have a chance to resist.
He shifts his weight, pinning me easily beneath him, his eyes blazing down at me. His unfocused, passion-hazed gaze tries to harden into something stern, something… disapproving?
“Diana,” he asks, his voice uncharacteristically rough, almost… strained. “Do you remember what we agreed? Just a little while ago? That you could tell me anything? Anything at all?”
I take a deep, shaky breath and meet his intense, searching gaze. “I… I stole a ream of expensive Vergé paper from the office supply closet once. For my sketches.” There. A confession. Not the one he wants, probably. But it’s something.
A muscle twitches in his jaw. “My wife can’t steal anything from my office. It’s her office too, Diana. Anything she wants. Anything she needs.”
“It was a long time ago,” I mumble, feeling foolish.
“Doesn’t matter.” He sighs, a deep, weary sound, glancing away for a moment, towards the rain-streaked windows. “And you didn’tjusttake the paper from my office, did you?” he mutters, almost to himself. “It just took ten goddamn years offmy life, pulling you away from… from that… but we don’t do sacrifices here, Diana. Not… not against someone’s will.” His jaw tightens, his gaze snapping back to mine, fierce and possessive.
“There was no sacrifice against my will. That… what happened in the living room… that was the best sex of my entire life. Fifteen minutes ago. If you don’t want… me to… touch you… like that… again…”
He shifts his weight, his hips pressing intimately against mine, effectively locking me beneath him. He tilts my head where he wants it, with a gentle but firm pressure of his hand against my jaw. “I’ll show you what I want, Diana,” he growls, right before his mouth crashes down on mine again. “I want you to feel… I want you to… God, I just want you.”
Our intertwined hands move on their own, fingers exploring, tracing, learning. Slowly. Tentatively.
Everything else, every other part of us, is the epicenter ofan explosion.
This is just… something that happens. Like the way primitive, cave-dwelling teenagers must have first discovered the raw, untamed fire of flesh. Instinctive. Overwhelming. Irresistible.
My dress is hiked up to my waist again. My fingers dig into the hard, corded muscle of his bicep. And for some reason, I keep craning my neck, arching into his touch, needing more.
