Her tongue moved across his, and he flipped her over onto her back, the urge to be buried deep inside her taking over him. His hand moved to cup a breast, and he kneaded it like his life depended on it, loving the sounds escaping her throat as his other hand moved to her thigh, gripping it tightly. Madi moaned as her hands gripped his biceps, and when she pulled back for a breath, his mouth descended to her throat. He licked and sucked and had her hips arching up against his, making his desire for her rage like a fire fed by kerosene. He growled as he thrust back, scowling at the barrier of his boxers separating their bare flesh.
Her head flew back, and she gasped when his lips moved lower where he gently bit into the mound of her breast. “Oh, yes, Brett,” she practically whimpered.
Her desperation fueled his own as his hand moved up the back of her thigh to grip her bottom, but a little voice in the back of his head grew louder and louder and finally screamed. Suddenly, he stopped and looked back at her face.
His hand moved from her breast to her cheek, and he cupped it gently, letting his breathing calm some before he spoke. He frowned at her questioning face and said the most honest thing he’d ever said to her, “Not like this, Madi. We can’t.”
She gulped, shame reddening her features.
“I want to. Trust me! You can feel how much I wanna be with you, angel.” He thrust his raging boner softly into her pelvis. “But not here, not like this.” Brett shook his head. “I won’t be the man you fuck to prove something to yourself. I’m sorry.”
Madi’s lip quivered in humility, but he wasn’t done.
“When I make love to you, it will be because you want me to. You can’t allow this insecurity you’re feeling right now to do this to yourself—to me, to us.” When Madi frowned, he finally confessed the secret that had threatened to suffocate him for so long. “I’m too in love with you to have waited this long for a simple one-night stand. I won’t be your rebound. I won’t be second any longer, and I sure as hell won’t be the one to compare you to another woman.” She swallowed hard, and he did too. “Don’t you see, Madi? It wouldn’t even be possible because no one holds a candle to you in my eyes. They never have.”
He watched her face go from surprise, to acknowledgement, to acceptance. She looked away and fought the tears that came to her Caribbean blue-green eyes. He knew she was rife with mortification, but he couldn’t have their first time be under these circumstances. He didn’t want her just for tonight, he wanted her forever, for always—and having sex with her on these terms would only hurt them both in the long run.
“Fine,” she scoffed and lifted her chin, looking back into his face. “If you won’t do it. Then I’ll find someone who will!”
It made so much sense now. All of it. How Brett had been acting all this time…hell, all their lives. In high school, in college, at her wedding… Brett’s ex-girlfriend, Hailey, showing up to her office the morning after they’d broken up, telling Madi she was a, “very lucky woman.” It was as if a veil had been uncovered, the revelation to a magic trick, to every action and reaction Brett had ever had.
Madi felt her heart soaring even as Brett smirked, “Oh, I don’t think so, Sunflower. Maybe you didn’t hear me. I’m in love with you, and I don’t plan on sharing you. Not now. Not ever.” His eyes sparkled, brighter than she’d ever seen them.
He was in love with her, and he was confessing it—and damn the confession felt surreal, amazing. She gulped.
“You won’t be finding anyone to do your dirty deed.”
Madi had no time to respond as he brought her hands up and over her head, pinning her wrists with his big palm. She grunted, but before she could speak, he was kissing her again, eagerly, slowly, sipping her lips as if they gave him his very life. She moaned as his other hand came to her breast and squeezed possessively.
“Mmm, Brett,” she cooed when he pulled back for a breath, his mouth moving to her cheek, her jaw, her throat.
“Brett isn’t here, Sunflower. I think I should show you the owner of the lair you’ve entered.” Brett’s grin was triumphant as he shifted and opened a drawer of the nightstand, pulling a tie from it. He began to loop it around one of Madi’s wrist and tied it to the bed post. He pulled another tie from the drawer then did the same with the other wrist. “Tonight, you’re here with Zeus, darlin’.”
“But you said…” Madi gasped as Brett gripped her breast tightly again in his big palm. He lowered his head to her nipple, pulling the hardened peak into his hot mouth and teasing the tip with his tongue. He nipped and sucked and licked her into a quivering stupor while his other hand tortured the opposite breast.
“Mmm, you’re delicious, Sunflower,” he murmured as his eyes flashed jade fire.
Her hips began to arch up against him even as he chuckled and switched breasts, overwhelming her in sweet torment.
Finally, he pulled back just enough to look up at her, his hand moving down her side. “I said I wasn’t being the man you fuck to prove something to yourself. I said
