It was too brief. Didn’t satisfy more than the most base claim. And when he pulled back, ire still surging hot through his veins, he met Megan’s eyes, daring her next response.
She stared up at him through air thick with tension, her expression stunned, hands resting at his chest and abdomen.
“You’re really angry.”
“Incensed,” he assured, not just trying to sweet-talk her, but meaning it completely.
“And you still want me.” Her fingers closed around the fabric of his T-shirt. “Us.” Her pupils shot wide and the breath trembling past her lips whispered of unfulfilled desire. “This.”
Heat licked across the space between them, burning away his restraint until there was nothing left but the single soul-deep truth that had been at the heart of it from the start. “Beyond reason or rationale.”
And then there was only the hard press of one body against the next. Megan’s mouth opened beneath the crush of his own. Her hands grappling to get higher, to wind tight in his hair, as he flattened her against the wall, hoisting her legs around his hips.
This was the kiss from that first night. This was the reality-shattering, blood-burning, hungry demand for more that had him ready to walk over coals to get it.
This was the woman he married.
Then, without breaking the contact of their lips, Megan told him what he’d been aching to hear. “I’m not a coward and I’m not a liar.”
The sweet taste of her claim rushed over his tongue, and he returned it with his own guttural demand. “Prove it.”
Another kiss and this time her tongue rubbed against his, soft and wet and so damn eager it stoked their desire to fever pitch.
Megan’s restless hands stole down his back, grasping at the cotton of his shirt and tugging it high as Connor braced her against the wall, reaching overhead fast to the bunched fabric and jerking it off. Swooping in to the kiss he couldn’t get enough of, Connor stopped at the barrier of Megan’s delicate fingers between their lips.
Pulling them free so only that scant half inch remained, she spoke again. “I’m not a quitter.”
He caught the back of her head with his palm and held her still to search those beautiful blue eyes. “Then stay, Megan. Stay and give us the chance we deserve.”
Megan’s arms linked tight around his neck.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered urgently against his ear. “You were right about what I’ve been doing. Focusing on what could go wrong instead of appreciating what’s right. I thought if I showed you the worst of who I was—” She broke off, shaking her head before looking back at him imploringly. “I’ve been trying to play it so smart, but all I’ve been is stupid and scared.”
His hands moved to her waist, holding her tight as though she weren’t already holding him. As though he couldn’t quite believe...she was actually fighting for them.
“Megan, tell me what you want.” He could give it to her. Whatever she needed. Anything.
Her eyes, so wide and honest and deep, searched his and then darkened as they dropped to his mouth, lingered there for one agonizing beat. “I want you.”
* * *
Megan’s head fell to the side as Connor devoured her neck, his mouth moving over her with a carnal intensity he’d shielded her from through every previous encounter they’d shared. All this time she’d been so sure he was giving her seduction his best effort, when in truth he’d been the one holding back.
This...she never would have been able to resist.
Standing in her panties at the edge of the bed, Connor wearing only those sexy boxers that made her mouth water, she trembled at the feel of her palms sliding over the terrain of his bare chest. The hard ridges of his abdomen ticking tight beneath her fingertips.
His body was so perfect she didn’t know where to touch first, what to taste.
All of him.
That was what she wanted.
What she needed.
“I’m going to make love to you, Megan.” His palms coasted over the lines of her body, leaving a path of warm friction sensitized in their wake. “With my hands...”
God, his touch was so good.
“...with my mouth...” His lips closed over the sensitive hollow at her collarbone, the gentle suction making her groan and squirm.
“Please.”
“...with my body...”
And then he was guiding her to the bed, his broad chest meeting hers in one teasing kiss of flesh before he held himself above her. His mouth blazed a trail of heat and need from her neck down to her breast.
“So beautiful, Megan,” he murmured, his lips brushing back and forth over the straining bud of her nipple before circling it with the firm point of his tongue and then licking, slowly, lower.
Over her ribs.
Around the small well of her navel.
Across the slight jut of her hip bone.
And then along the scalloped edge of her panties.
All the while she watched, held rapt by the vision of this gorgeous man indulging in his free rein over her body.
His hands coasted over her hips, knees, calves, touching her reverently as though in truth he meant to cover every inch of skin. Fingers sliding around her ankles and then back up, it wasn’t until he’d reached her knees she realized the strategic shift of his arms from the outside of her legs to the inside, and even as she watched, he was coaxing her knees farther apart, opening her to him as he dropped kisses down the lacy V at the center of her panties, teasing her through the fabric with the warm wash of his breath...the press of his kiss.
“Oh, God, Connor,” she moaned at the firm stroke of his tongue over the silky panel covering her.
Running his lips back and forth across the damp of her panties, he groaned. “I love it when you say my name right.”
She gave in to a breathless laugh at his words, but then lost hold of the thought at the next wet stroke of his tongue.
A needy ache was building low in her belly, a tension without limit.
Fingers moving into the strands of his hair, she tried to urge him upward. “I want—”
Catching her wrists, he guided them back to their previous position above her. Holding her there for a beat that said stay more clearly than the voiced word itself.
Connor’s fingers curled around her panties to peel them from her hips and slip them off her legs. His eyes, dark with hunger and glinting with determination, were mesmerizing as they met hers.
“I’m going to kiss you like this, sweetheart...the way I’ve wanted to from the start. Long and slow and deep...” he said, the sensual threat of his wicked half smile doing things even his touch hadn’t accomplished.
Then, with a look so devilish she shivered, he added, “And French.”
“Connor!” she gasped at the first wet velvet rub of his tongue. But the only reply was another hot lick. Her hands flew to his hair, his shoulders, the bed beside her hips, grasping and desperate beneath the most exquisite openmouthed kiss she’d ever experienced.
It was thorough. Spectacular. Her body was on fire around the slow thrusts, the curling licks and languorous strokes of his tongue. Then he was touching her at the same time. Circling his thumb at her opening and then slowly, firmly pressing inside as his kiss concentrated on the throbbing center of her need.
“Oh, God!” she cried out at the feel of him both inside her body and out.
It had been so long since she’d had a man’s attention this way, but never had it been like this.
Need coiled low in her belly, each deliberate thrust of Connor’s thumb intensifying the sensation until her hips were rising to meet him. Her pleasure cresting.
Her breath broke into ragged pants.
She was almost there. Sinking her teeth into the swell of her bottom lip to keep from screaming, Megan gripped the bedspread beneath her.
“Let go, Megan. I want to hear you.” Another deliberate lick through the center of her, this one spiraling around that point of need so primed she didn’t
know if she could bear the exquisite pleasure the contact brought her.
Cries of need and desperation ripped past her lips, echoed around the walls of the room and rained down over them. Letting go with Connor like this was too good, too intense. So much more than she’d known was possible.
The pressure building within her touched every cell in her body, rubbed against the confines of her form and pushed steadily at the places she never expected it to reach. Places she thought far deeper, more tender and too forbidden for any man to find. Places she hadn’t even known existed herself.
Her head thrashed, the sounds escaping her little more than incoherent pleas.
And then Connor closed his lips around that singular spot and gently sucked.
Starbursts exploded behind her eyes and she shattered. Her mind went blank and her body spasmed hard around and beneath Connor’s touch as her thighs gripped his shoulders through wave after wave of release.
It was endless. Satisfaction like she’d never known. Loving like she’d never had. And yet it wasn’t enough. Her body, so sated with pleasure, continued to ache. Everything inside her pulling toward the man who defied all logic.
Reaching out, she cupped Connor’s hard jaw as he leaned over her, sliding his hand under her bottom to lift and reposition her at the center of the bed.
A moment later he’d rolled on a condom. Then, poised at her opening, he shifted his hips, penetrating her with the thick head of his erection. Gasping at the first shallow thrust stretching her wide, she clutched at his powerful shoulders.
He felt so good.
Connor rocked back, then eased forward again, setting a rhythm that took him incrementally deeper with each stroke until finally he was buried to the hilt within her, joining them as completely as two bodies could be.
Looking down into her eyes, he vowed, “No more holding back, Megan. Neither of us. I want it all.”
So full she could barely breathe, she gasped the single word echoing through her heart, “Anything.”
His mouth descended on hers, searing her with a hot kiss before breaking away. “Everything, Megan.”
* * *
Megan opened her eyes to the sight of one large masculine hand engulfing her smaller one, both tucked close to her face. Hard muscle and powerful strength warmed her back and tangled with her limbs as steady breaths caressed the bare skin of her shoulder.
It was heaven.
And she’d almost thrown it away.
The heavy arm thrown over her side tightened, alerting her that Connor was awake. Turning to face him, she was struck by the intimacy of their heads sharing a single pillow as the late-morning sun spilled across the bed.
Looking into the too-symmetrical perfection of her husband’s face, she asked, “Are you still mad at me?”
Connor rolled onto his back, but kept his face turned to hers so she saw when his half smile tipped the balance. “No. I’m not much of a grudge holder. Or much of a fighter, for that matter. If you really want to know, this is the first time I’ve ever fought with a woman.”
“Ever?” she asked, not quite sure what to make of that. “Are you that easygoing?”
He swallowed and looked up to the ceiling. “Yes and no.”
Then, looking back to her, he clarified. “It’s true that little stuff doesn’t bother me much. I mean, there are things to get upset about and things that just don’t matter so much. But before you...I was never invested in a relationship like this.”
“It’s that different with us?”
“Yeah. So how about you, Megan—still scared?”
This time it was Megan who looked to the ceiling.
“Yes. But you’re worth the risk.”
Pulling her hand up so it rested on his chest, Connor played with her ring a moment, the look on his face telling her there was more on his mind. Something that perhaps wasn’t so easy to say.
He frowned and his focus on her ring intensified, as though looking at it was somehow an anchor against his thoughts. Then, after a moment, he cleared his throat. “I get it, you know. What scares you about this. Us. Me.
“You don’t want to end up putting your faith in a guy like your mom married—who’s going to make you promises and then walk away. You don’t want to let yourself get hurt that way again. And the fact that you’re trusting me— Megan, I swear, I’m not going to let you down.”
“I know,” she whispered, sensing Connor’s growing tension, but unsure what was driving it. “Connor, what’s going on?”
He cleared his throat again and then turned to face her. Those dark eyes, achingly open to her. “I want you to know that I understand where you’re coming from because I know how it feels to be left behind. To let yourself need someone and have them leave.”
There was a long pause while Megan wondered if he was going to say any more. In the end she couldn’t bear it any longer. “Why, Connor?”
“I think...I think I’ve I told you about my mother,” he started.
Megan’s heart began to thump. “She died when you were young.”
A nod. “What I didn’t tell you... What I don’t tell...anyone is that she took her own life.”
Megan sat up in the bed, tucking her knees beneath her as her hand flattened against Connor’s heart. “Oh, Connor. I’m so, so sorry.”
Patting her hand, he gave her an appreciative nod and pulled her back down against his chest. “Thank you, sweetheart. She’d been very unhappy for a long time. And eventually, it was too much for her.”
“But you were only thirteen.”
Her stomach knotted. Suddenly, so many pieces fell into place. Connor’s bond with Jeff. His resentment toward a man who didn’t deserve the title father. Why he understood how difficult it was for her to trust.
There were a lot of ways a person could be left. And her husband had firsthand experience with one of the worst.
“I’ve had a long time to come to terms with it. And like I said, I don’t really talk about it. But you’re putting your faith in me. Trusting me. And you deserve to know that I understand what that means.”
Throat tight, she nodded against his chest. He was talking about her trusting him, but in that moment, all Megan could see was the trust Connor had just put in her.
She was going to be worthy of it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE HOT SPRAY OF THE SHOWER blasted his face as, hands against the marble wall, Connor tried to pry his thoughts from under the duvet and the sexy little nymph he’d left buried beneath it. Five was too early to wake her with the kind of kiss on his mind. Especially since she’d woken him around two with a custom version of her own.
God help him, she was incredible.
Even better, insatiable.
And the level of compatibility between them—undiluted by vanilla vodka and unfettered by the doubts Megan had finally found her way around this past week—was off the charts. Beyond expectation.
He’d known she was smart. Had been impressed by her ability to intelligently discuss nearly any topic to come up, add her own unique perspective, find the humor in related connections. But now that she’d relaxed into the trial, she’d truly opened up...and that brain of hers blew his mind.
Megan made him want more than he’d imagined he could with a wife. And because of who she was—how she was—he could relax and enjoy...without worrying about leading her on.
Because his sweet, sharp, smoking-hot wife had the very same limitations he did.
Neither one of them fell in love.
Like neither one of them wanted anything more than exactly what they had.
Okay, that wasn’t quite true. Connor wanted more.
He wanted this trial behind them and any lingering doubts that kept Megan from putting it there assuaged.
He wanted her pregnant.
At the idea alone, he groaned. Megan growing big and round with his baby. So damn hot.
Okay, the DNA portion of this merger and acquisition had to wait, but the rest...
>
Water streaming down his face, he shot a look toward the room they shared. She had woken him first. In his book, turnabout was fair play. His hand was already on the knob for the tap, when he remembered Megan had to work today.
Like he had to work today.
One of them at least should get more than three hours of sleep...eventually.
Wisps of cool air slipped through the steam an instant before Megan’s slender arms wrapped around his waist, and her breasts, warm and hard-tipped, pillowed against his back.
“Good morning, Mr. Reed,” she murmured, pausing for a decadent little lick over his spine. “Thought you could sneak out without my good-morning kiss?”
He turned, taking her in his arms so the water would reach her, as well.
She was sleep ruffled, sexy and soft. Her bare, wet skin a temptation he wondered if he’d ever be able to resist.
“Not a chance.” Sinking into a slow, deep kiss, his body hardened and his mind blanked of anything beyond all the creative ways he could get her to say his name in the next hour.
Work could wait.
* * *
“One night in Las Vegas? And you knew?” came the delighted question from Georgette Houston, her bright eyes darting eagerly from Megan to Connor and back again.
Nearly six weeks into a marriage based, at least in part, on Connor’s desire to have a fundraiser-ready wife on hand to balance the social against his business, and this intimate dinner squeezed in before Connor’s trip to Ontario and her looming deadline was their first night out with another couple. Larry and Georgette Houston. Both in their mid-fifties and both treating Connor and Megan more like family than a longtime business associate with a deal to pitch and his tagalong wife.
Megan opened her mouth to answer, happy to share the sanitized version of their meeting—as it had been told to her, anyway—when Connor beat her to the punch, a goofy grin hanging on his one-sided smile.