Page 51 of Merlot Marriage

“Why not?” I keep kissing along her jaw, dotting extra kisses in the space beneath her chin just for fun.

Her ears turn as pink as the rest of her skin, and she pulls as far away as she can. “Because it’s embarrassing?”

“It’s embarrassing that I flipped you over my shoulder?” I loosen one hand and slide it between her ass and her calves, threatening to pick her up and flip her over me. She squeaks and sits down hard, trapping my arm.

Fortunately for me, this position has her collarbones and breasts at the perfect height for my lips and tongue to explore. Especially with the delightful way her dress plunges low, inviting me in.

“Philip,” she whispers but doesn’t pull away. “It’s embarrassing that we had sex while Sydney was passed out drunk in the other room.”

My arms and legs slacken with surprise at her point of view, and she pulls free. “One, she was not passed out drunk, she was just sleepy drunk.” Ophie snorts at my perspective but doesn’t argue. “And two, I just can’t resist you. No one on earth could possibly have enough willpower to walk away from you.”

“That’s bullshit. People walk away from me all the time.” Just like she’s willing to walk away from me, apparently. She snorts and tries to pull away, but I catch her before she can get far, this time pulling her across my lap before capturing her lips in a deep kiss.

“If they walk away from you, then they don’t matter, liefling.” I kiss her again. “But most importantly,Icouldn’t walk away from you. Not when everything between us was so new.” I feel likethere’s more to uncover here, but her lips and body are too much temptation for me to resist.

So we stop talking and start kissing. A good old-fashioned make-out session with Ophie draped across me, her ass nestled between my thighs. The kind that used to get me in trouble with the girls at school as a teenager. Well, the girls didn’t seem to mind—it was their brothers who objected when I didn’t follow up the making out with a declaration of everlasting love.

Tonight, it’s working to distract me from all the questions we’re carefully not asking. Or answering.

My fingers are already working their way underneath Ophie’s dress, and I can feel her heat ready to welcome me. She squirms, rubbing my dick just right through my jeans. “Yes,” she breathes, throwing her head back as my fingers skate across her underwear, already damp.

Unable to resist teasing, I slide my fingers beneath the edge of her panties, barely grazing her lower lips. I brace and lift her close enough to whisper in her ear. “And did you tell her that you’re madly in love with me?”

Ophie opens one eye, barely turning her head to look at me, and smirks. “I told her the truth—”

My heart races at her words. The truth? The real truth? That we got married on a whim, and there’s a possibility that maybe we’ve been in love this whole time?

She bites my ear, swirling her tongue against the sensitive nerves there, before whispering, “I told her that we were just banging.”

I didn’t think my heart could break at the same time my dick could get hard. I thought men weren’t good at multitasking.

My breath escapes in a low moan, half from the sensation of her lips against my skin and half from sadness. But I force myself not to react, not to correct or contradict her. It doesn’t matter that my feelings are deeper, that I want more.

This was the reminder I needed that Ophie doesn’t want a romantic relationship with me. And I don’t want to lose her. Losing her would leave me anchorless, adrift in a sea of choices with no idea which way to turn.

So I push aside my feelings and concentrate on the feel of her wet heat and the way my stroking fingers make her moan. She kisses me again, our tongues dancing as our mouths meet. I keep stroking her, two digits slipping inside while my thumb finds her clit.

Mouths still fused, she vibrates with pleasure against my lips. My thumb continues circling as her humming gets higher pitched and her back stiffens.

With an inarticulate cry, she pulls back, her nails digging into my shoulders as she falls apart. There’s a faint contraction around my fingers and her breathing peaks then slows.

“Definitely the best sex of my life,” she murmurs before her eyes come back into focus and I pull her dress straight. “Not that I would tell Cassie.”

The broken pieces of my poor heart flap sadly inside my chest. I must make some kind of noise because her eyes snap to my face and narrow.

“What’s wrong?”

I lean in and capture her lips in a sweet kiss. “Nothing.”

As soon as our lips part, Ophie shifts, turning to get a better look at me. “Something’s wrong. You have that eye thing.”

“What eye thing?” I touch the side of my face. What is she talking about?

She points to the side of her eye. “When you’re worried, or there’s something you’re not telling me, your eyes get tight right here.” She moves to touch the side of my face. “It’s like squinting but not.”

“I’m not doing an eye thing.” Relaxing my face is hard, and I don’t want to admit that I can feel the tension around my eyes loosen when I make a conscious effort. “And nothing is wrong.”

As she wriggles, her sit bones dig painfully into my thighs. “Philip. Are you mad I told Cassie? She guessed. Apparently, I wasn’t checking out Jaxon enough. And you know I’m a terrible liar.”

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