Page 150 of Toxic Temptation
The plea in her voice undoes me completely. “Yeah,” I whisper, pressing my forehead to hers. “I can do that.”
I position myself at her entrance, the head of my cock pressing against her wetness. She’s so ready for me, so perfect, that it takes every ounce of self-control not to just drive into her.
“Look at me,” I command softly.
Her eyes open, meeting mine. There’s trust there, and desire, and something that might be love if either of us was brave enough to name it.
When I know I have her, haveallof her, I slide in slowly, savoring every inch. The feeling of her wrapped around me is indescribable—hot and tight and perfect. It’s coming home to a place I never knew I’d been searching for.
“You’re so beautiful,” I tell her, meaning every word. “So fucking perfect.”
A tear slides down her cheek, and I kiss it away. The salt taste mingles with the sweetness of her skin.
“I’m scared,” she admits in a voice so small I almost miss it.
“Of what?”
“Of this. Of you.” Her thumb traces my bottom lip. “Of how much I want you to stay.”
Blyat’.I want to stay, too. Want to wake up with her in my arms and make her coffee and watch her put Luka to bed every night.
But I’m a dangerous man in a dangerous world, and she’s too good for the darkness I carry. She deserves someone who can give her a normal life. Someone who won’t put her in harm’s way just by loving her.
Not that I’m capable of love.
Not anymore.
“I’m here now,” I say instead, starting to move inside her with slow, deliberate strokes. “Let me take care of you tonight.”
She nods, and I lose myself in the feel of her. She responds to every touch, every kiss, every whispered word. I make love to her—because that’s what this is, even if neither of us is ready to admit it—until she’s boneless and sated beneath me.
When I finally let myself follow her over the edge, it’s with her name on my lips.
Afterward, we lie tangled together in the darkness, her head on my chest, my fingers combing through her hair.
“Jeremy said something else today,” she says quietly.
“What?”
“That my father wasn’t the man I thought he was.” Her voice is steady, but I can feel the tension in her body. “That maybe I didn’t know him at all.”
“And you’re worried he might be right.”
It’s not a question. I can hear the doubt in her voice, see it in the way she won’t meet my eyes.
“Dad always seemed so moral. So committed to helping people. But when he got sick, when he needed that liver…” She trails off, shaking her head. “He just gave up. Refused the transplant. Said he’d lived a full life and didn’t want to take an organ from someone younger.”
“That sounds pretty moral to me.”
“Does it? Or does it sound like someone with guilty secrets he didn’t want to live with anymore?”
I tilt her chin up, forcing her to look at me. “Your father was a good man, Vesper. I can tell just by looking at you. You’re the best person I know, and you don’t get that way by accident.”
Fresh tears spill down her cheeks. “What if you’re wrong? What if everything I believed about him was a lie?”
“Then we’ll deal with it. Together.”
We both freeze. “Together” implies a future we haven’t discussed. A relationship that extends beyond our fake arrangement.
