Page 60 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

Her hands moved down to his belt buckle, and she undid it as quickly as possible, not all that quick with unsteady fingers. She unfastened the button on his jeans, unzipped them, and before she could lose her nerve, pushed her fingers down beneath his underwear. He was hot, and hard, and as suspected from her tour of him through his jeans last night—huge. Her internal muscles clenched tight, imagining him inside of her.

She wanted him so much.

She had never wanted anyone like this before.

She was on fire with it. The need for him. The need for this.

She didn’t know herself.

But it struck her then that it might not be because the ability to feel this was new. It was just because she hadn’t known about it before. Because she had been a girl who had fallen into a relationship with a boy that had been defined by something else. And this was about her. It wasn’t about pleasing him. She hoped he enjoyed it. Judging by the feel of him, hot and heavy in her hands, he was definitely on board with what was going on. But what she cared about was what she wanted.

She wanted him.

She wanted to take this moment out of time to be wild. To follow the desires that she felt raging through her.

And suddenly, she found herself being picked up by her hips and laid down firmly on the center of the mattress. Stripped bare.

And he growled, his eyes appraising her closely. And if she had been worried about what he thought, she might be embarrassed.

But there was no time to feel embarrassed. And she just... She just didn’t feel embarrassed. Because his masculine appreciation was apparent. It couldn’t be denied.

She found herself letting her knees fall open, letting him see her.

She had no idea where that had come from. That urge, that impulse, and the bravery to follow through with it. But it was there. Part of her. She was struck then to discover that she contained such multitudes. That she had only been with one man, and hadn’t had sex for six years. Did her best not to think about any of it, but also contained this. This deeply exciting well of desire that drove her. Pushed her. And the curiosity within her to wish to explore this. To push boundaries. These beautiful boundaries. She hadn’t felt like a woman...

Ever.

The word whispered through her, a truth she had been looking for.

It would be easy to say that being a mother had subsumed her identity, but that wouldn’t be true. She had never identified as a woman, independent and free all on her own. She had defined her stability by her relationship with Carter, which was why it had been so difficult to lose him.

They didn’t share this wild attraction. They didn’t share a deep, abiding love that made her ache whenever she thought of him. She hadn’t been heartbroken to lose him, not in that sense.

It was something else.

It was security. It was the thing that made her matter.

Because if Carter Colfax loved her, then maybe she wasn’t just a foster child that no one had wanted to keep.

But then he hadn’t wanted to keep her, and she had scrambled to find another source of identity, and that had been being Benny’s mother. It had mattered so much to her. And it was a good thing. A wonderful thing. A beautiful thing. She loved her son.

But she didn’t know who she was, standing on her own. In this moment that was just her and Brody, a man she owed nothing to, a man she wanted nothing from—apart from his body—it was all about the woman who she wanted to be. Who did she want to be in this moment?

Brave and bold, wanton because she could be. Desired and lusted after, because she was beautiful. Not anybody’s project, not anybody’s object of pity.

She wanted to be wholly herself, comfortable in her own skin, and separate from any other piece of her identity. At least, now. Not someone’s ex-wife. Not someone’s mother. Not someone’s discarded daughter.

But Elizabeth. Completely herself.

He looked at her, the glint in his eyes getting wicked as he leaned forward, hooked his arms under her thighs and dragged her toward him. “I’ve been thinking about this.”

And then he buried his head between her legs and started to lick her.

She screamed. Short, sharp, and shocked.

Because she had never. They had never. It had never been...

She couldn’t even follow that thought all the way through to its logical conclusion, all she could do was clutch his hair, arch her hips against his mouth, pray that he never stopped.

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