Page 57 of The Forbidden Bride He Stole

There was something about those raw, desperate words that actually terrified her. That pushed her to the brink.

But then she couldn’t think anymore because he was kissing down her back again, lowering himself beneath her and spreading her legs wide. He licked her, right where she was wet and needy for him, and she gasped. As his tongue penetrated her slick channel, followed by his fingers. She pressed her palms against the glass and canted her hips back toward him as he moved one hand around to the front where he circled that sensitive bud between her legs as he continued to torment her with his clever tongue.

“That isn’t what I asked,” she panted, hovering on the edge of a climax.

“You want to end this, because you don’t like to live in the space. I understand that. Because in this space, you’re wrenched apart. The most vulnerable that you can be. Does it help you to know that I’m the same? I can’t think.” He licked her then, deep. She shuddered, coming apart at the seams, her climax tearing through her like a train.

Rending her asunder.

“Is it better now?” he asked.

“No,” she panted. “You know it isn’t.”

“You are not my ward anymore. It isn’t my job to coddle you. To take care of you. You promised that you would give me what I needed just the same as I gave it to you. So you have to prove it now. Don’t get impatient.”

He returned his attention to pleasuring her, and she ended up lost. Held there in space. Everything zeroed in on this moment. The dissonance of the whole world moving around out there, in plain sight, while she could fathom nothing bigger or more important than what Apollo was doing between her thighs, adding to the intensity of the moment.

There were no years between them. No gap in experience. They had become one creature, striving toward satisfaction. Striving toward completion. And more than that, reaching. For a connection of their souls. Because nothing else would actually satisfy.

He stood, and moved against her, pressing his hand over hers on the glass, and positioning his hardness at the entrance to her body. He wrapped one arm around her and held her tight as he thrust into her.

“Apollo,” she cried out.

“Hannah,” he growled in return.

Her body was pressed against the glass, the whole world spread out before her, Apollo at her back. It was like a metaphor for this entire situation, and for just a moment it pulled her from the glory of the pleasure that he was building within her.

It was the truth of it. The whole world was out there. All of the things that she could be. If she wasn’t tied to him. If she wasn’t continually tethered to the life that her father chose for her.

With what she had now she could do anything. Be anything. She could have as much day-to-day involvement in the company as she wanted. As much or as little. She could stay here. She could go back to Athens. She could go anywhere. She could take a hundred lovers or decide to take a vow of celibacy. All of it was up to her. Out there. And then there was him. Strong and solid at her back, moving within her, and he really was the other choice. Because there would be no limitless freedom with Apollo. She would be Penelope.

Waiting at home while he lived his life. Feeling hollow while she waited for him to figure out if he could love her in return. Truly.

The world or Apollo.

Herself or this all-consuming need that would always demand that her feelings be tangled around him.

She knew what she wanted. Or rather, she knew what she wished she wanted. She also knew that in this moment, she had chosen him. For this time, she had chosen him.

Because the board didn’t really believe that they were married, and there was no impetus for them to live together as man and wife. They certainly didn’t need to play games in her office.

But it didn’t feel like a game. It felt like he was demanding that she strip herself bare, deeper than clothes, deeper than skin. It felt like he was asking for her to give pieces of her very soul, and had she given enough?

Hadn’t she given enough? To a man who had promised he could never love her, what would ever be enough?

Just don’t love him. Please don’t love him.

Maybe it wasn’t love. Maybe it didn’t have to be.

She repeated that to herself. An endless tattoo that rolled through her as he thrust inside of her. Taking her. Over and over again.

Just don’t love him.

And then she could no longer fight the rising tide of need within her.

And it crashed over her like a wave. Endless.

Rolling on and on.

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