Page 14 of Not In Love

And now, on his knees in front of her, he saw more than what she showed the world. He saw the vulnerability she hid under the steel core.

He gripped her calves gently as she began to back away. “This is too complicated and not worth?—”

“Don’t speak too soon, Doc.” Palms spread wide, he ran them over the backs of her legs slowly. “I think we’ve proved over the last three years that we can put aside our personal grudges and make it about Tia, no?”

“You have personal grudges against me?”

“As if you don’t,” he said, laughing at her adorably miffed expression.

She arched a brow, lips curling faintly, eyes glittering. “This is just to work this… thing out of our systems. If you get me off, then I get you off too. You aren’t doing me a favor.”

He grinned. No one could call her cunning. “No, I’m doing myself a favor.”

“How’s that?”

He took a deep breath and the scent of her turned his voice husky. “I’ve been dying for a taste of you, Kash. Dying to know how you scream and how you look when you fall apart on my tongue. When you let go, for once.”

“Don’t be so cocky,” she said, swaying a little. “This isn’t as easy as you think.”

He laughed and saw the slight twitch of her lips that she buried with her teeth. “I know what’s been going on with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t come, yeah?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded.

He traced his fingers over the seam of her shorts. “Good thing I’ve always liked a challenge.”

“A challenge, huh?” She licked her lower lip. His stomach tightened at the hunger etched into the strong angles of her face. “I’ll take that anytime over pity.”

He laughed, before scoring his teeth down the front of her thigh. When she jerked at the contact, he filled his hands with her glorious ass to kept her steady.

“Only one night.” Her hand came into his hair and gripped. A rush of electric sensation filled his entire body. “Just so I can get over this hump. Just so you can tell yourself that you had me pinned.”

“Just so you remember for the rest of your life how it felt to fall apart on my tongue,” he said, tugging at the elastic of her shorts again.

Then, pulse roaring, Diego got to work.

CHAPTER5

Kash could feel her pulse hammering everywhere—beneath her skin, between her legs, in her throat.

Diego’s hands lingered over her hips like he’d been dreaming of this exact moment. Eyes bright with resolve, he looked at her as if she were the answer to his prayer, which only baffled her further.

Most of her life, she’d kept her head down, relentlessly tunneling toward the next task to be done, the next hurdle to jump over, the next thing to take care of. She’d preferred occasional flings over serious dating in her twenties, focusing instead on med school, on helping her mother keep a roof over their heads. Her thirties had been spent climbing the ladder, consolidating her position.

Even Simon, who had genuinely liked her, had loved the glossy surface of her perfection, had admired her ambition, and her painfully acquired sophistication.

To him, she had been an asset as his wife.

It was only Diego that relentlessly dug past the veneer that had become second skin.

Her body was still buzzing from the way he’d stripped her of all pretensions, drilling down to her desperation. As if all he wanted was the base truth of her desires and nothing more.

Her lips tingled from the possessive bite of his kiss, her mind reeling at how he kneeled at her feet, creating the illusion of control she needed while the exact opposite was true.

“Brace your hands on the wall,” he murmured silkily.

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