Page 7 of Return To Love

Holding her gaze, he licked them up.

Still trembling, she pressed the glass of water to her cheek. “Thank you,” she said primly, shying her gaze from his. “That was…fantastic.”

Tenderness filled his chest. Wrapping an arm around her, he pulled her close. Now, she smelled like sex and jasmine and red wine…a cocktail of scents that made his cock throb. “That was just the starter.” When she stiffened, he braced himself and gave her the out she might need. “If you don’t want to spend the night with me, I…understand.”

She faced him, emotions flashing through her eyes. “I do. But I don’t want to talk about…us. I want the fantasy to continue.”

Chapter Four

The walkacross half the block to the luxury hotel took them close to fifteen minutes on the snow-laden sidewalks. Around them, the world looked like the inside of a snow globe, all twinkling lights and iridescent snowflakes against a velvet-dark night.

Mona’s overheated body relished the bitingly crisp air while her heart…desperately needed a reprieve from the feelings overload. Tucked under Dom’s protective arm, her knee-length jacket pulled tight around her, she let her tangled thoughts take over.

Even with aftershocks making her core tingle, she couldn’t believe she had come like that in public, Dom’s fingers buried deep inside her. He’d strummed her like he played the guitar, with the confidence of a man who knew just where to pluck to create what note.

It was the last thing she’d expected of tonight,of him. Clearly, the change in her husband wasn’t just on the outside.

Not too late for them,her heart chanted hopefully.

For the rest of the dinner, they had fed each other the delicious appetizers and discussed fluffy stuff about their summers. When she’d probed, Dom had admitted to not just hiring a personal trainer to re-haul his physical health and hiring a new CEO for his company, but also to seeing a therapist to sort himself out.

Her illness and recovery, the break she’d insisted on, even their twins Sanjana & Sid—sophomores at UW and USC—hadn’t entered the conversation. It was childish to not want to return to their actual lives, but she didn’t care.

The last two years had chewed her up and spat her out, with the only saving grace being the admission that her marriage was in big trouble. Her best friends, Chaaru and Kash, had come through for her, propping her up on the days she felt low, encouraging her to see her recovery as a new chance, letting her vent about the state of her marriage without judgment.

Dom hadn’t liked her condition to continue the fantasy for the rest of the night, but he was indulging her. Hope and worry warred within her.

This fantasy night was a splendid way to rekindle their connection and she adored him for it. Especially since the man was as stubborn as an ox about change. But there was…more to address between them. More that needed to be healed.

There was time for that, she told herself.

Right now, what she wanted was to make the night as mind-blowing for him as he’d done for her. Her heart thumped with extra verve as she delved through the annals of their sex life to figure out how to knock the socks off of him, to make him lose himself in her without thinking that she had to be handled carefully.

She needed to feel like the woman that fueled his deepest, dirtiest fantasy.

“You look happy,” Dom said, plucking her out of her research reverie.

Cuddling deeper into his side, Mona stretched upward and dug her teeth into his chin. The sandalwood scent of his cologne seemed to fill the empty crevices of her very soul.

“Sweet and slow or hard and fast?” she said, mimicking his questions.

The flashing lights from the decorations around them cast fascinating shadows on his face. But she didn’t miss how his throat bobbed up and down or how his nostrils flared with poorly disguised need.

“Tonight’s about you,” he said, rubbing his jaw against her cheek.

“About us,” she said, pulling back, struggling against the sudden vulnerability that clamped her throat. “I want to,need to, feel like I please you, arouse you, as a woman.” She was breaking her own condition, but she couldn’t help it.

He shook his head, anguish swirling in the depths of his eyes. “Sweetheart, that’s never been-”

She pressed a finger against his stiff lips. “Answer the question, please.”

Pulling her close, he traced the shell of her ear. “Hard and fast first. Then deep and slow.”

“Greedy,” she said, warm despite the snowflakes kissing her nose. “I like it.”

He laughed and the sound—hearty and deep and as familiar as her heartbeat—stole through her, opening up a deep cavern of longing.

She tightened her arm around his waist, loving the rough nap of his sweater against her cheek. Suddenly, her life felt like it was full of colors and textures and new sensations. A kaleidoscope of possibilities—something she hadn’t imagined possible a two years ago—when she’d been bedridden and frightened out of her wits.

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