Page 56 of The Forbidden Bride He Stole

They weren’t this.

And so there was absolutely no benefit to holding herself separate.

She began to slowly unbutton her shirt and let it fall away.

Then she unzipped her pencil skirt, and consigned it to the floor as well. She stepped out of her high heels, leaving herself so much smaller than him.

He watched her, the tension and color mounting in his face. She could see his arousal building. She moved to him, and gripped the knot on his tie, loosening it slowly, her eyes meeting his as she did. She had so many questions. Had anyone ever done this for him? Surely in the years since he had stopped being an escort he had women on hand to service him. To give him exactly what he wanted, and yet for some reason he had never been able to let himself be carried away by it. He had always been held back by those well-crafted defense mechanisms he couldn’t disengage.

His trauma was more powerful than the need that he felt. But with them it wasn’t. Maybe it was because he trusted her.

In that sense, she did matter. And she could take that. She could use that to soothe some of the loneliness inside of her. It was safe enough.

It was safe enough as long as it was sex.

Because like he had said, it wasn’t a handshake. But neither of them were foolish enough to believe that it was love.

This mattered. It was emotional. And it was normal for her to feel things. It was okay. It wasn’t something she needed to run from.

Slowly, she began to work the buttons on the shirt, exposing his well-muscled chest to her hungry gaze. He was the epitome of masculine beauty, but it wasn’t why she found herself drawn to him. There were many beautiful men. Just like sculptures. You could look at them and feel an appreciation for the aesthetics of them, but feel no passion toward them. What they had was something else. Something elemental. And she grabbed onto that, and held it tightly, because it was perhaps the one thing that made her feel singular in this moment, in her entire life.

There were many beautiful men. Just like there were many beautiful women. But none of them had made him feel this.

And none of them had ever made her feel this.

This was something special between them. It was not a dispassionate, crude coupling simply about release. Though she wanted release.

She prized the journey. The hitch in his breath. The way his heart beat hard beneath her palm. The way her own heart rate sped up, and her breathing became shallow. The slide of fabric as she pushed his shirt and jacket from his shoulders. The anticipation she felt when his hand went to his belt and he began to undo it slowly. When he undid the button on his slacks and lowered the zipper, when he stood naked before her, well-muscled thighs and heavy masculinity sending her brain into a tailspin, an explosion of fireworks popping off within her.

They hadn’t touched. Not really. She realized she wanted something more than surrender. To give him something, everything.

And then he wrapped his arms around her and she pulled him tightly to her body, the feeling of his rough, hard body making her gasp. He was so glorious. And this was overwhelming. He kissed her. Consumed her. It was deep and hot and slick, and everything she could have ever wanted. She clung to him, and found herself being walked backward, toward those windows. He turned her sharply, her vision blurring as she looked down at the scene below.

“All of this is still happening,” he whispered in her ear, smoothing his hands down her spine, down to cup her ass. “The world is still turning. Can you believe it?”

“No,” she whispered, her breath leaving a cloud behind on the glass.

He kissed her neck, and pressed his body against hers, the cold glass making her nipples tight. She squirmed, unable to find satisfaction, and need building between her thighs.

He continued his featherlight exploration of her body, his lips on her shoulder, his fingertips tracing circles down her spine. Never touching her anywhere intimately. Never touching her where she needed him most. She could feel the hard, hot column of his arousal pressing into her rear, but he did not advance further.

He kissed her lightly, all over her back, knelt down behind her, his large hands cupping the rounded globes there, but he did not kiss her where she wanted him to, and he did not linger. He rose back up, slowly pushing her hair to the side, slowly running his fingers through the silken strands. She was shivering. Poised on the edge of a knife. Ready to come if he breathed too heavily. She was shaking. Violently.

“Apollo,” she whispered. Making an even larger cloud against the glass. He moved his large hand around to her stomach, and pushed her back firmly against him, let her feel just how hard he was. She moaned, rolling her hips, seeking something. More of him. More of everything.

“Ask nicely,” he whispered.

“You know what I want,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “I do. And I want it too. More than anything. But you need to ask.”

She breathed out, watching that cloud on the glass again. Then slowly, she lifted her finger, and began to write.Please.

He chuckled. “Please what?”

Slowly, deliberately, she wrote anF. And then continued with her request, which was bold and something that pushed her beyond her previously defined limits.

“I want to do so much more than that,” he said. “Do you know, I can’t sleep when I’m away from you? I can’t think. I don’t understand how this happened. I don’t understand how I’ve known you all this time, and now everything has shifted. Changed. I don’t understand.”

---