Page 36 of Cinderella's Secret Baby

When she got Peyton settled for the night, she found him waiting for her in their bedroom.

They barely spoke. She was so desperate for reassurance she went straight into his arms. Whatever emotions were churning within him translated into white-hot passion. His hard arms caught her close, and his hungry mouth ravished hers.

She sobbed with relief. Here she didn’t have to think about what a misfit she was in his life. Here they were equals.

At least, that’s what she thought as he carried her to the bed. As they stripped and he came down to cover her, she pressed his shoulders, urging him to fall onto his back.

She was no shy virgin any longer. They had become familiar enough with each other’s bodies that she didn’t hesitate to pour herself over him, slithering her nudity against him and sweeping her hands over his shoulders and ribs and stomach. She was being more aggressive than she ever had been, caressing and kissing across his chest. His rib cage expanded beneath her lips as he drew a deep, shaken breath.

She loved it. She smiled and stroked her hands lower, caressed his powerful thighs and the flesh between, hearing him growl in pleasure. When she shifted lower to take him in her mouth, his hand on her shoulder tightened and he groaned like she was his salvation. Like he needed this.Her.

Excitement and sweet exaltation poured through her. She did everything she could to drive him wild, reveling in the intimacy. In the trust it implied. She was always the one to break first, but this time she would take him into that vulnerable place and know that she gave himthis.

“Stop,” he said in a jagged voice.

She lifted her head, feeling almost drugged, she was so lost to the act. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you want?” His harsh question, delivered in that gravelly tone, didn’t make sense.

“You.” Wasn’t that obvious?

“Take me, then.” He dragged her up and atop him. “Do you need—No,” he said with satisfaction as he caressed between her straddled thighs and found her slippery with desire. “You’re more than ready, aren’t you?”

So ready. She was shivering, holding still for his explorations because it felt so good. So necessary.

He held himself for her to impale upon and she groaned out as his thickness filled her.

This was better, she agreed hazily. She wanted them to be together when they finished. She began to move, losing herself in these rhythms they had taught each other. This was where they were not just equal, but the same. They wanted and sought as one. They reached and rose and lifted each other toward that pinnacle, arriving—

She shattered, dimly aware of his hips lifting hard beneath her. His hands gripped her waist, firm and unyielding. His grimace was one of ultimate control as he withheld his own release, leaving her to shudder and cry out and lose herself while he watched.

As she folded limply onto him, he rolled her beneath him and slowly began to pump, bringing her still-quivering senses sharply back to life. He knew exactly how to touch her, when to scrape his teeth on her neck and where to trail his fingertips on her breasts to make her nipples peak and sting. He knew how to lift her hips so the angle of his penetration hit a spot that had her arching with acute pleasure, a cry of anguished joy torn from her throat.

Then, only then, when he had her again on the brink of another explosive orgasm, did he allow himself to let go and take her over the edge with him.

That culmination, shared with him this time, was so powerful and glorious, it brought tears to her eyes.

But the sting lingered behind her eyelids when they were both weak and panting on the sheets. They weren’t equals, she acknowledged, trying to swallow back the lump in her throat. She might be helpless to the chemistry that gripped them both, but he was impervious to it. Or at least, not as susceptible.

Maybe he had reasons for refusing to give up his control to her. Maybe he was determined to controlsomething, given he was blindsided and helpless to do anything where his best friend and former bride were concerned.

Maybe she would know if he told her, but he only spooned her into his front and exhaled as his arm grew heavy across her waist.

Despite her physical satisfaction and growing lethargy, her lashes stayed wet and her mind continued to churn with angst. She was hurt and she was frustrated that he wouldn’t share with her and she knew why it ate at her so relentlessly.

She was starting to fall for him.

Oh, who was she kidding? She had begun falling for him last year, when she had let a man she’d only just met take her virginity. She had been angry and scorned and deeply hurt when he didn’t want to see her again. When he had told her he was marrying someone else, the rejection, the sense of a chance missed, had leveled her. She had blamed her weepiness on losing Jasper, but a large part of her depression at that time had been because there had been no more chance with the only man who interested her.

Then she had had his baby and had felt even more connected to him. That’s why she had let him put her on this bullet train into his life. Here was her chance to see what they might have had.

But they had nothing.

That was the harsh reality she was beginning to face.

Perhaps not nothing, but a lot less than she had dreamed of.

As she realized what sorts of romantic ideals she had let form over that week of their honeymoon—that he might come to love her—she quietly cringed at how childish that vision had been.

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