CHAPTER THREE

Focus

I cracked my eyelids open, squinting against the light peering through the window. Xavier’s arm was draped over my chest. His warm breath blew in soft puffs against my neck. So comfortable. So warm.

I stretched, and his lips found the divot between my throat and shoulder, causing me to shiver.

“Good morning, my queen.”

Inhaling, I savored the feel of him—the deep tone of his voice and the scent of his cologne.

“Elaine?”

I tried to turn toward him, but he held me in place. “Yes?”

“I know that you’re not ready to talk about marriage.” He kissed my neck again.

The tickling sensation of his morning stubble coaxed forth a contented sigh, but I couldn’t let him distract me.

“But will you hear me out?” He nibbled my earlobe.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to will coherence. It was far too early for a discussion like this. “About what? Xavier, I am yours. I’m here with you now. I made that choice, why do you need marriage?”

He sucked on the skin behind my ear and pressed his cock against my ass.

“Because, after you fell asleep last night, I turned on the news. They did a feature on Western Labs’ new potential use for the drug. They flashed my picture on the screen, and introduced me as a widower and said that I was one of the most eligible bachelors in the world. But I’m not, Elaine. I’m yours. I want to tell the world I belong to you. But even more than that, I want to be able to tell them that you belong to me.”

“But as long as you know the truth, that’s all that really matters, right?”

“Marriage will take away the doubt you’ve been having, because the world will know I belong to you.”

“Why is this so important to you?”

“I’m going back to that house after I drop you off in the city. I need to finish looking through those documents. Who knows what I’ll find?”

I grasped his hand and squeezed it hard. “Let me look at you.”

He released his grip and I turned in his arms, and what I saw surprised me. Tears swam in his eyes. “Xavier, please tell me what’s wrong. What do you expect to find that will make a difference?”

“I don’t know.” He pulled me closer and buried his face in my neck. His reaction was so strange. “You’ll be staying in the city with Marco. It’s for the best.” He pulled back to look at me. “I don’t want to leave you, but I can’t focus when you’re near. I’m sorry. Please, don’t hate me for it.”

“Why would I hate you? And what does this have to do with marriage?”

“Because when you look anywhere, the newspaper, the media, the world can remind you that you are the only one for me. I know how angry you got last time when I became wrapped up in things. I want to give you something that will tell you I’m always coming back and that there is only you. As much as I want it for me, I want it for you more.” He kissed the tip of my nose.

“Xavier, even if I wanted to marry you, we can’t. Not until all of this with the Society is resolved. We have no idea what’s going to happen. You spent a considerable amount of effort, at my expense if you’ll remember, convincing them that I mean nothing to you.”

“You’re a council member. Tell the leadership you’re marrying me to control me, like Lydia did. That’s all our marriage was—a way for her to keep tabs on me.”

“We don’t even know what their reaction is going to be to my taking a seat. It’s far too premature to establish a plan like that. Besides, it wasn’t your fixation, Xavier. It was the lack of communication that caused my trust to waiver. You, failing to tell me that you were alive and that you still wanted to be with me, shook my belief. I know you say that you don’t understand conventional relationships, but not calling a woman after having sex with her means you don’t want her. If I knew you were going to be back and understood why you were staying away, I wouldn’t have been angry at all.”

“But you said you still have doubts. I want to take them away.”

“Xavier…” I said his name on an exasperated sigh.

He captured my lips, silencing me. His hands clutched me to him, kissing his way from my lips to my ear. “I don’t want either of us to ever have any doubts. I don’t want to have this anxiety that somehow if I step away, you’ll be gone. I don’t ever want you to think I’ve abandoned you. I know I can’t live without you, and I want every reassurance that it will never happen.”

Xavier lifted my bare thigh, draping my leg over his hip. I smiled as he rubbed smooth lines over the line of my hip. So exhausted from traveling, we went straight to sleep the night before. Though we didn’t make love, he had insisted on sleeping in the nude so he could feel my skin against his as we slept. His cock pressed against my entrance. He stared into my eyes. “Please…”

“Xavier, you don’t have to ask to make love to me. If for any reason I don’t want to, I’ll tell you.”

He cupped my face. “I don’t ever want to assume.”

I laughed. He was such a conundrum—ruled by extremes—confidence and insecurity. Never knowing which one he’d show me made him unpredictable. I knew in order to survive him I’d have to learn to be the same. Relinquishing control when his confidence was in charge, and at other times, being the strength he needed to keep him from deconstructing. I would have to be his counterbalance. “I’m naked, in bed with you, and my leg is resting on your hip. If you don’t fuck me, I’m going to be very disappointed.”

He groaned, rubbing his cock through my wetness. “I love you so fucking much.” While peppering my face and neck with kisses, he continued to tease me, threatening to enter, but stopping just short.

I loved watching his expressions when we made love—every bite of his lip, every inhalation, every smile. It was exhilarating being the focus of his intensity.

“I’m going to miss you.” His hand squeezed my ass and he closed his eyes.

“I’ll miss you too. You can always call me.”

He growled and ran his nose along my jaw. “Oh I will… I remember the last phone call you took while I was away, when you were at the cabin with Sebastian…”

“Ummm…yes, I remember.” My hand gripped his back, urging him toward the place I wanted him most.

He stayed just out of reach, sliding his cock back and forth over my entrance and clit—a delicious teasing. “Sebastian still owes me a repeat performance of what he did to you to make you scream.”

“If you’re looking for an objection, you’re gonna have to look somewhere else.”

He growled. “You liked fucking him, didn’t you?”

I bit my lip and nodded.

“Wait until we get back to the city…” He moaned and his right hand grasped my breast.

“Have plans for me, do you?”

He pressed the head of his cock just inside my entrance. “Oh yes.” He shifted, lowered his weight onto me, and cupped my face. “Elaine, I don’t want you to think for one moment that I don’t know how understanding I’m asking you to be. I know for certain most women wouldn’t be capable of seeing the wonders of our strange relationship, let alone accept my past and the burdens that follow me. Somehow, I just knew you’d embrace me, them…us. I’m a man of science. I don’t believe in fate, but I find myself at a loss for any other plausible answer.” He placed a soft kiss under my chin.

Oscar’s words echoed through my head, coincidence is rarely attributed to fate. I wondered how much of a hand Lydia played in our meeting. Was it possible that we were orchestrated to meet, programmed to love one another?

His gaze returned to my eyes. “I never want to diminish the complexity of it all—what I’ve asked you to do. But if you want to know why I’m so worried about losing you, it’s that I know without a doubt, there is no one else for me. You see past everything I’m supposed to be, see me for who I am, and help me to learn more about myself every day.” His hips pressed tighter against mine. “I love you.” He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around my shoulders, embracing me.

“I love you, too,” I whispered in his ear.

With that, he slid into me, taking his time, savoring our love. Stilling, once he filled me completely, to affirm our devotion to each other. There was plenty of time to indulge our lust. This is what he needed before our separation. That confirmation and validation of what we had, that connection unique to the two of us—that magnetism that brought us together in the first place. He found his reassurance in my words, my body, and my love.

His skin against mine comforted any echoes of doubt. His breath on my neck—electric. His musky scent made me long for him more. There had been a connection between us from that first moment. I had always attributed my infatuation to who he was—the great Dr. Xavier Vincent—but that didn’t explain this. What was it that attracted us to each other? How could a connection so unnatural feel so right?

With his body wrapped around mine, still moving inside me, he said, “Elaine, I don’t think you realize what being with you like this means to me.”

“Xavier, you’re the world’s most eligible bachelor. You could have sex with any woman you want.”

He kissed me under my jaw. “Do you honestly think any other women would bother to see me for who I am? They’d fall in love with my money or fame. You didn’t come looking for me. You weren’t chasing me. I fell in love with you that night in the Opera House when you had no reason to try to save me. When you looked into my eyes, you saw me, vulnerable, broken. You gave me your love without question…you sealed your fate. There’s no chance of your getting away after that.” His hips moved in long fluid thrusts. “There is no one else.”

I inclined my head and kissed him. His beautiful, adoring words. “I’m glad. I’m happy to be yours, but I meant sex. Any woman would happily have sex with you.”

He pulled me closer. “My queen, this isn’t sex. I’ve watched people have sex for most of my adult life, and I’ve never seen anyone look at their partner the way you look at me. I nearly drown in your touch, not from lust but with the comfort you bring my soul. You’re just going to have to let me spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”

“Well, you’re off to a fine start.”

He growled. “Best I get to working on that spectacular finish.”

I shot him a seductive grin. “Give me your best shot, Doctor.”

He thrust into me hard and deep. “Oh, I plan on it.” He pulled out for a moment, pulled me down the bed, and stretched my arms out above my head, holding them in one of his, before sliding back into me. “You feel so good.”

The feral look in his eyes excited me.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I keep having this fantasy about watching Sebastian and Marco tie you up and fuck you. That’s the wonderful thing about our relationship. I get to make love to you like this—soft and tender, but I also get the exhilaration that only lust can deliver when I watch them fuck you. It’s the best of both worlds.” He increased the rhythm, forcing gasps from my lips with each impact. He held my wrists in an iron-tight grip; his body stretched out atop mine. “Just another reason why you were meant to be mine.”

It was impossible not to surrender to him. His intensity consumed me, filled me with so much emotion. He was the destruction of my past and the completion of my future wrapped in one act of deliverance. His building crescendo made my back arch, and I responded to his reassuring words with a breathy whisper, “I love you, Xavier. I always will.”

My arms tensed as he drove me harder. I spread my legs wider, giving him deeper access. My climax blindsided me when he shifted positions, sending electricity through my body. I clutched him with my thighs as my body quaked with desire, but he held me in place.

“God, you’re so beautiful.” He set a fevered rhythm.

I smiled at him. “So good, Xavier. You make me feel so good.”

“Yes,” he said on a breathy exhale.

I shifted my hips, giving him deeper access. “God, I can feel you so deep, Xavier. So full.”

“Tell me what you want. I want to hear you say it.” His thrusts became hard, deep, syncopated thrusts.

“I want you to come inside me, Xavier. I love you. I want you to fill me.”

“Yes, my queen.” Several more thrusts and his chest rumbled with a strained roar; he tossed his head back as he buried himself deep inside me. “Fuck, Elaine… I’m coming. For you. Only you.” He pulsed inside me and squeezed my wrists in a crushing grip while he bit his lip.

I welcomed his offering while I savored his expression. There was something honest in the vulnerability of his climax; that he gave it only to me was a true gift.

His thrusts slowed and he released my hands. He focused on my eyes. “I’m going to miss you while I’m pouring through all that paperwork. But you need to find out what your father knows. Besides, I’m sure Marco and Sebastian have missed you.” He pushed into me, coaxing a gasp from my lips and then stilled. “They’re probably dreaming about being buried inside you like I am right now. Sebastian called last night while you were sleeping. He told me I should spread your legs while you’re sleeping, slide my fingers into you and fuck you awake.”

I shivered.

“But I told him you needed your rest and that he could try it himself when he’s with you.” He smiled. “Just promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

He bent down and kissed me. “You’ll call me each night with all the details. I want to share your experiences.”

I smiled and said, “Sure,” but shook my head in disbelief. Would I ever get used to our arrangement?