Page 17 of Better Off Wed
SADIE
Time stood still. I trembled in my new husband’s arms, balancing on a cliff’s edge. Vulnerability wasn’t something I was comfortable with. I’d built a moat around myself over the years, an attempt at self-preservation. My work persona was glamorous and untouchable. Around my family, I was sardonic and unflappable. I didn’t have friends to be vulnerable with. Not real ones.
Henry had slithered through my defenses by creating hairline cracks in them that he pried open with comments and criticisms. Over the years, I’d exposed my soft center to him; all the ways that I felt I wasn’t enough. How much it hurt that I couldn’t be the woman he wanted me to be. How much of a failure I was for having a body that just wouldn’t do what it was supposed to do.
He’d been loving and understanding…until he wasn’t. He’d used his connections in the wedding industry to send a steady stream of brides to my business, then almost gleefully cut them off when we broke up. He’d made me trust him with my secrets and then used them to control me.
I’d vowed to never put myself in that position again.
And yet in just a couple of hours, Gideon had managed to get me to open the gates and drop the drawbridge. I was asking—begging—for him to kiss me. Hold me. Love me.
Sex was never just sex for me. It had always been a complicated knot of emotion and compulsion. But I still wanted it right now, with him.
His throat bobbed on a hard swallow, eyes studying mine. Around my waist, his hands tightened. Warmth soaked into my skin at his touch, and I couldn’t help the soft exhale that slipped past my lips. Gideon’s hair was silky and thick between my fingers. My body bowed toward him as I ached for more contact.
Just when the threat of rejection loomed large enough to make panic tighten around the base of my spine, Gideon let out a harsh breath, murmured a curse, and kissed me.
The world tilted. Heat scorched through me, and both my arms tightened around his neck. His hands spasmed around me then slid lower, pawing my curves in a rough, possessive grip. Gideon’s kiss was claiming. He groaned into my mouth and swept his tongue against mine. He pulled me closer. Tighter.
Nothing had ever felt so good. I panted his name as he kissed my jaw, my neck. His hands grabbed and squeezed, and a line of fire blazed down the middle of me. Iached. Then he slid a hand up my side to grip my breast. I gasped at the possessiveness of his touch, pulling my head back slightly to look into his eyes.
They were dark. Black. “This what you want?” he rasped,his voice making everything from my shoulders to my knees go numb.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“You want your husband to fuck you on your wedding night?”
The rumble of his voice made desire spike inside me, but a thin tendril of fear began to snake through me. I hadn’t told him about my issue. But I swallowed convulsively, and the words couldn’t come. So I just told him the simple truth, pushed it past my lips in a breathy rasp. “Yes.”
He grunted, then tugged the strap of my dress off my shoulder, exposed my breast, and took it into his mouth. His other arm banded around my waist as I arched back to give him better access. His hot tongue laved my nipple, his free hand plumping my breast. I could feel his thumb sinking into my flesh, his fingers splayed over the side of my chest and across my ribs. It was like a brand. His skin was so hot I could think of nothing except how good it felt to feel it against mine.
My fingers curled into his hair and clawed at his shirt. My thighs rubbed together, restless, needy.
He hummed, pleasure vibrating in his tone. “Desperate for it,” he murmured.
I tried to huff out a laugh, but it was hardly more than a short exhale. “No need to gloat.”
“Been a while,” he said, and I wasn’t sure if he was talking about me or himself. I thought I detected a bit of vulnerability in his tone too. I pulled back to search his eyes, and he took the opportunity to kiss my lips once more. I lost myself in the taste of him, the strength of his arms, the scent of his skin. There wasneed in the way he palmed my breast. Desire in the low, rumbling groan that sounded as if it were ripped from his throat.
A little voice began to whisper,What if he lied on the questionnaire too? What if he wants this as badly as you do?
A man who was a one out of ten for sexual desire didn’t kiss like this. He didn’t stroke and palm and touch the way Gideon did. He didn’t make noises like touching me was the last thing he wanted to do before dying happy.
Gideon was more than hungry. He wasfamished.He drank in our kisses like I was the best thing he’d ever tasted. He touched me like my body had been crafted from his wildest fantasies. I clung to him, lust building inside me like an electrical storm. My thoughts were nothing but a low hum, and my body moved of its own volition.
When my fingers wrapped around his clothed cock, Gideon bit out another curse. His hands slid to my waist, fingers tightening to hold me there, and he glanced down between us. My fingers clenched around his hard length as my chest rose and fell with every exhale. My nipple glistened, wet from his ministrations, my carefully crafted dress a rumpled mess.
Tension pulled taut between us. There was still time to recover. Sure, I was half-undressed, but I could scoop my strap back onto my shoulder and cover myself. That would be the safe thing to do. The smart thing to do. I couldn’t take another rejection.
But Gideon moved first. His hands slid to the back of my dress, where the invisible zipper held the fabric closed. He tugged it down and brushed the other strap from my shoulder. I shifted, letting the fabric puddle at my feet.
Then he blinked.
“It’s shapewear,” I explained, fumbling. I slipped my thumbs into the top of the nylon fabric where it rested just below my breasts. I shimmied, embarrassed. “I have proper lingerie in my suitcase. I meant to change into it, if we…if this…” I stopped talking when Gideon took over, sliding the tight fabric over my hips and down my legs, taking my underwear with it. Then his hand was there, between my thighs, and my ability to speak stumbled and died. He crowded me against the bed, stroking at the wetness of my core, his free hand digging into my hair to tilt my head back so he could kiss me.
And just like the moment when he picked me up and carried me down the aisle, I realized I loved being manhandled by him. I loved the way his strong thighs bracketed mine and kept me from spreading my legs the way I wanted to. Loved how he curled his fingers into my hair and caused little pinpricks of pain on my scalp. Loved the way he kissed, wet and messy and hard.
Loved his big, hot hand between my legs.
