Page 61 of Forgotten Desires

To lay her down, strip her bare, make her scream my name. Maybe it would erase the memory of the past, and give her a wedding night filled with passion where she wakes up with me still there.

Her body moves closer, my hands holding her hips as our kisses become deeper. Brynn’s fingers grip the back of my neck, pulling me tight. The feel of her breasts against my chest has me releasing a long moan.

“Brynn, you don’t . . .”

“Just this once. It’s our wedding night.”

One time is never going to be enough, and as much as I want her, more than my next breath, not tonight, not like this.

Not when she’s just feeling the effects of the day and will blame me later for it.

“Brynn, we can’t.”

She pulls back. “What? Why?”

I push her hair back, running my thumb against her shoulder. “Because you set the rules and the only reason you’re breaking them is because you’re emotional and exhausted.”

“That’s not?—”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not ever going to be the man who takes advantage of you. If or when this happens between us, it won’t be because you found out I bought this house or kept the football. It won’t be because you’ve been run ragged trying to deal with the wedding, an engagement you didn’t plan on, and the stress of becoming my wife. I won’t be another guy to use you that way.”

I know about her past, about the man who used her and then discarded her. I also, in some ways, fall into that category. In my mind, it wasn’t that way. I did what I did to protect her from my reality, but my sister showed me how it would look from Brynn’s angle.

Another man who slept with her and then walked away.

“No matter if I want this?” she presses.

I move my hand back up to her cheek. “Will you want this tomorrow? Will you hate me when you realize you didn’t want this in a few days? Can you actually answer any of that right now and know you’ll mean it? No matter how much I want this—you—I won’t take anything from you.”

Even if it fucking kills me.

sixteen

BRYNLEE

Istare into his crystal blue eyes—my husband, the man I have wanted for so long—and hear his questions bouncing around in my head like a pinball machine.

Tomorrow, if I woke up naked beside him, would I regret it? I don’t think I would, but . . . ugh. The one thing I do know is that sleeping with him will only make those pesky feelings I’m trying to avoid resurface.

Instead of answering all the questions, I give him one response, and there is no question that it’s the truth. “I wouldn’t hate you, Crew. Even if tomorrow we woke up and I thought it was a mistake, I wouldn’t ever hate you. I’ve tried so hard to hate you.”

His grin is soft and his thumb moves against my cheek again. “I’m pretty sure you hated me before.”

“No, I didn’t. I loved you far too much to hate you.”

That was stupid to say. Maybe I am over-emotional since it’s my wedding night.

“If we went back to the day I left, I bet you’d say different.”

I sigh. “Probably, but I don’t want to go back in time. I don’t want to remember how much it hurt. We can’t change the things that hurt us then, so I refuse to dwell on it. Yes, you hurt me. Yes, I was angry, and more than anything, confused. Time healed some of those wounds and—” I glance around. “Being back here is both happy and sad.”

“Tell me about the happy,” he urges, adjusting me so I’m beside him.

Like it’s the most natural thing, I shift, pushing him to lie down, and I curl up against him, my head on his chest. “You kissed me for the first time out that door.”

“You asked me if it was possible to love someone so fast in that kitchen.” He brings up what I said two nights before he left.

I smile, remembering him wrapping his arms around my middle as I tried to cook. The way his scruff felt against my neck when he kissed me. “You told me it was not only possible, it was happening to us.”

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