Page 63 of Better Off Wed
His scars. I’d forgotten. I could see some of them on his neck and the side of his head, but I’d spent so long looking at him that I no longer reallysawthem. They were just part of who he was, part of the man who turned me inside out. But he was self-conscious, and he didn’t want me to see his body.
I couldn’t help the sting of it; I’d bared myself to him—literally—and told him all my dirty little secrets. He evidently didn’t feel comfortable enough to do the same.
But with a deep breath, I let go of that feeling and moved my hand away from his shirt buttons.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I just—not tonight.” His hands swept up my sides and back down again, learning the shape of me. “Not when you’re here, like this.”
“This all seems very one-sided,” I quipped, arching a brow as I tried to use humor to hide my disappointment.
Gideon hummed, sliding one hand between my legs and making me gasp. “It’s not one-sided,” he said in a low voice. “Believe me, I’m getting just as much out of this as you are.”
My breaths were coming faster now, hips rolling as he used his fingers to make sparks ignite between my legs. “I find that hard to believe,” I answered.
He spread his legs wider, pushing my knees apart. It was just past the point of comfort, and it made his touch feel all themore intense. I clung to his shoulders and leaned my forehead against his, fighting for every breath. Gideon’s free hand slid up my side and covered my breast. He squeezed it as he stroked me, then rolled my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. I shuddered.
“I could watch you like this for hours,” Gideon told me in a low rumble. “So fucking beautiful, Sadie. I can’t believe you’re mine.” The pressure of his hand between my legs increased. I gasped.
“Yours,” I agreed, unable to form complex thoughts.
He hummed, pressing and rolling my clit with his fingers. “My wife.” He pressed a kiss to my lips. My jaw. My neck. “My wife who’s so pretty when she’s desperate. Aren’t you?”
“Rude,” I panted. My hands curled into the fine white fabric of his shirt. My hips rocked, needing more. It was rude, but he was right. Iwasdesperate.
It was as if his attention had opened the floodgates, and now I could see just how much I’d denied myself in my previous relationships. I’d kept score, and the score had always been lopsided. My partner got ten orgasms for every one that I allowed myself. I’d worry if it took me too long to reach my peak, thinking he was bored. I’d get on my knees and suck him off, but it was out of duty rather than desire. Trying to make up for the fact that my vagina didn’t work right.
This was different.
Gideon looked at me with a mix of lust and reverence. He stroked my body until I whimpered and shook above him. As he exhaled, eyes hungry as they watched me, I finally believed that this was enough for him. ThatIwas enough for him.
It was a feeling of safety that I’d never experienced before.Here, in this room, with this man, I was enough. I didn’t have to give him anything. I didn’t have to work to make up for my body. I could justbe.
The feeling overwhelmed me, and on its heels was an orgasm so intense it stole my breath. Gideon urged me on, his hands on my body, his lips on my shoulder, my clavicle, my neck. He murmured sweet words to me. “Beautiful,” he rasped. “So beautiful, baby. Could watch you do this every day for the rest of my life.”
He didn’t mean it, of course. This arranged marriage was still on shaky ground. But it felt so good to hear him say those words, to bask in the feeling of being enough.
My orgasm ebbed, and I rolled my forehead against his shoulder. He smelled divine. Like sweat and spice and man. I wanted to lick him. My fingers clenched and released over his biceps, body still rocking gently against his. Gideon’s hands swept over my thighs, stroking my ass and then up on either side of my spine. I loved the way he touched me.
“I want to make you feel good,” I admitted in a whisper.
Gideon turned his head to brush his lips against my temple. “What part of you thinks I don’t already feel good, Sadie?”
I huffed, leaning my cheek against his shoulder. Settling on top of him, straddled over his lap, I felt one specific part of him that seemed to be experiencing some hardship. I rocked against him, and fireflies of desire flitted through me once more.
“Insatiable,” he chided, then grunted when I pressed my core down on his clothed cock. He leaned his head back on the couch cushions as I rode him in slow waves, watching me through half-lidded eyes. His cheeks were brushed with red, and the only sign of tension was the hard thudding of his pulsein the side of his throat. When he spoke, his voice was a low rumble. “You lied on your application,” he noted, hands sliding back down to shape my curves.
I rocked against him and bit my lip. “A little,” I admitted.
“You weren’t supposed to want this.” He exhaled as I ground myself against his crotch. “You weren’t supposed to want me.”
“It was a shock to us both,” I quipped, a little breathless. Desire still coiled tight in the space below my navel, and I chased it with every rock of my hips. I’d orgasmed harder than I had with any partner before, and still I wanted more. That was greedy, wasn’t it? But how could I stop, when Gideon looked at me like that? When he touched me with those hands like he never wanted this to end?
“I feel like I’m going to wake up any minute here,” he said, fingers spasming on my curves. He gripped me harder, spreading my cheeks, changing the angle of my hips so the pressure increased where I needed it. I whimpered, half out of my mind.
“I wish I could—” I stopped myself as my eyes began to prickle. “I wish?—”
“Hey.” His hand swept up to my neck, my jaw, my cheek. He tangled his fingers in my hair and brought me closer for a kiss. “You’re perfect, Sadie. Just like this.”
“Let me feel it,” I begged in a whisper.
