Page 43 of Reclaiming Izabel

Her arousal hit my nose. If anything, we had this.

I could work with this. Win back her love, her trust.

“Drake…”

“Shh…I’ve got you, baby.”

“I…Oh, God.”

I buried my face between her legs, pushing her underwear aside, and tasted sweet heaven. Her legs convulsed around my head as I continued to eat her, savor her, sucking her clit, diving into a honeysuckle sweetness I’d missed for three years. Her cries of pleasure pierced the room, only fueling the thrust of my tongue inside her.

Her fingers gripped my hair as her hips bucked against my mouth. I prolonged her orgasm. When her legs relaxed on my back, I eased up and swiped my tongue over my mouth, certain it was glistening with her juices.

Undoing my zipper, I gave relief to my raging erection that couldn’t wait to be sucked into her heat. But first I was going to kiss her slow and sweet. I bent over her when a suppressed sob made me pause.

A chilled fist squeezed my heart.

“Iza?”

“Not like this,” she choked between sobs, the back of her hand over her mouth. “Not like this.”

My erection deflated as her despair threw cold water over my lust. Izabel pushed up on her elbows, pulling on her torn sweater to cover herself up. Sorrow streamed down her cheeks, making me feel like shit.

She didn’t want me? Had I misread her response? I tucked myself back into my jeans and zipped up.

I stared at her, helpless at the face of her tears.

“Not like this,” she repeated for a third time. “I’m attracted to you.” Her slender throat bobbed. “My body knows you. It can’t say no even when my mind and my heart are screaming to stop.” Heaving sharply to control her emotions, she expelled a long sigh, before she raised anguish-filled eyes that made me flinch. “But I want to be sure. If you take me now, we’ll be reducing our marriage to a one-night stand. Because this”—she pointed between the two of us—“is what it will feel like.”

Her words cut through me as sharp as my KA-BAR blade severing my carotid artery. I bled. My mind, body, and heart belonged to her and only her, and it gutted me she didn’t feel the same.

“Three years…I fought my way back to you, Izabel, but I’m drowning here. I want my wife back.” I lifted an arm and let it drop in a hopeless gesture. “Deep inside, I know it’s a me problem. I have to give you time to adjust to my return. I don’t know what else to do. But I can’t be the only one fighting. For us to stand a chance, you need to let go of this resentment for me, for what I’ve done. You need to fight for us, too.” Pain throbbed deep within the marrow of my bones. “I can’t walk away from you because I’ve done nothing but fight to get back to you.”Jesus, I’m rambling in circles. “You need time. I get it. But inthe meantime, this”—I pointed between us just as she had done earlier—“is destroying me.”

I said my piece. There was nothing left for me to say or do. I didn’t expect to snap my fingers and everything would be fixed, but it was who I was. Her husband. I didn’t know how to be anyone else.

I looked at the stairs beyond her shoulders. “The main bedroom is on the second floor. If you prefer a smaller room, mine is the next one over.”

I backed away from her slowly. Alarm crossed her face.

“Where are you going?”

“I need”—I vented a shaky breath—“to clear my head.”

“Drake?”

I ignored her pleading tone and headed for the door.

“Drake!”

I refused to turn around. I refused to break down in front of her. I wanted it all, not the crumbs she would give me out of pity.

I didn’t want her pity.

The yearning inside me threatened to send me to my knees. I yanked the door open and slammed it behind me.

chapter

twelve

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