Page 46 of Marriage Bargain With Her Brazilian Boss (Billion-Dollar Fairy Tales)

His rough, calloused hands took hers, as her eyes got used to the darkness of the bedroom. He’d been standing by the bed on her side, bending over to kiss her. A thread of fear wound through her and words rushed out through a dry mouth. “Are you leaving?”

“No. Of course not. I only meant to check on you, make sure you didn’t tangle yourself up in the sheets. You’re the most violently active person in sleep.”

“Oh,” she whispered, feeling a flicker of joy at her chest. In the big scheme of things, it wasn’t a big deal that he knew her sleep habits or that he’d wanted to check on her. But to her silly heart, it was a huge thing.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you. Go back to sleep,querida.”

When he’d have pulled away, Nush tightened her grasp of him. “No, wait.”

His white smile flashed in the darkness and she breathed out in relief. She saw him thrust his hand through his hair, and sigh. “I demolished the entire bottle of wine, I’m in a sullen mood and sleep is far away for me, Nush. I’ll only disturb yours.”

Swallowing, Nush pushed up until she was half sitting, supported by her elbow and his tight grip. “I didn’t mean to upset you by raking up... Earlier, I mean,” she said, wanting to soothe him.

Caio rarely ever let her see him in a dark mood and clearly, she’d breached some invisible boundary she hadn’t even known existed.

“You didn’t upset me. It’s not something that’s...ever far from my mind.”

Nush swallowed the urge to say that that was by design. His ruthless pursuit of the company, this house even...he’d made the loss of everything a part of himself. He’d turned it into the fuel that drove him. And like a virus, it thrived inside him.

His thumb traced the plump veins on the back of her hand, the touch infinitely gentle. “It’s okay if you do upset me.”

“I know that,” she said, grinning cheekily. “I just meant that I didn’t mean to upset you tonight. Especially not when I want you in a favorable mood.”

His grin made her feel as if she’d won the biggest prize in the world. “And why did you want me in a favorable mood?”

“I’m bad at this, Caio,” she said, hiding half her face in the pillow. “Fighting with you, I excel at. Throwing dirty talk in your face to rile you up, give me a diploma already. But this...the real thing... I need you to drive this.”

His palm covered the other half of her face, encasing it completely. Nush had imagined all kinds of scenarios between them and yet she’d never expected the tenderness with which he constantly touched her. And that made her realize that he did touch her a lot. Outside of sexual context. As if it were as necessary as breath.

Her chest felt like an enlarged balloon, full of wonder and joy and more.

“You’re better at it than you think you are.”

“Then stay, please.” She placed a kiss at the center of his palm, and then licked the spot. His indrawn breath filled the air around them. Egged on by it, Nush dug her teeth into the thick pad of his palm and the tension radiating from him increased a hundredfold. Then she blew on the hurt she’d given him, pressing soft kisses to his wrist.

His thumb traced her lips and then plunged into her mouth. She gave it the same thorough treatment, nipping and biting and licking, sucking on it, until his harsh breathing was a symphony in the room.

“I am a little drunk, Princesa. I might not be—”

“Jesus, Caio, when will you understand that I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted another person? Even myself at times.” Her voice had risen, something electric arcing through her words.

Bringing her hand to his face, Caio buried it in her palm. “That’s what makes this so hard. I’m not sure I deserve it.”

“I told you. That’s not how any of this works. There’s no deserving when it comes to...” She swallowed the words that automatically rose to her lips, feeling as if she’d suddenly been plunged into ice-cold water. “Stop making me beg you.”

“Turn on the night lamp,” he said, command and desire in it making his voice deeper and heavier than she’d ever heard before.

She remained silent, and unmoving, suddenly nervous at the prospect of what she’d wondered for years. It wasn’t that she was insecure about her body so much as she wanted to please him. Having tried multiple times with not-quite-unpleasant partners, and then freezing halfway through, she didn’t want to face the same mental block again with Caio of all people.

The lamp turned on and she blinked. When she lifted her eyes, Caio was leaning over her, his broad chest tantalizingly bare and within reach. He bent and took her mouth in a gentle, soft kiss that made her heart crawl up into her throat. “I will be as gentle as you need, Princesa.”

“Tell me what you like, please,” she whispered against the tug of his teeth, her body arching off the bed toward him like a magnet.

“Touch me. Whatever you want to do to me will please me, Nush. That you want me like you do makes me half-hard most of the time.”

Nush didn’t have to be told again. She ran her hands over his chest in mindless circles, relishing everything about him. Christ, every inch of him was delineated and defined. The hard, defined pecs, the springy hair sprinkled throughout, the rippling definition of his abdomen muscles, the taut musculature of his back and the dark trail of hair lower that disappeared into his jeans...everything about him appealed to her starved senses. Every cell in her arched up to feel and absorb as much of him as possible.

His rough growl at her mouth when she raked her fingernails down his stomach egged her on. Everything was contrasts—the roughness of his kiss and the softness of his lips, the light bursting behind her eyes and the darkness that surrounded them, the bubbling lightness that spread through her that she was finally, finally, doing this with the man she’d wanted for so long.

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