Gretchen

Ironfield Renaissance

Room 301

9:00 PM

(Yes, this is a booty call.)

It felt prudent labeling the night as a booty call because God knew I’d made the mistake before.

But tonight meant so much more than meaningless, animalistic sex.

Tonight was about how much I wanted him forever.

I’d had a revelation. After the last time I’d peed on the stick, nearly losing my sanity while waiting for the five minutes to tick-tock their way into my soul, and after enduring that crushing despair as the word negative appeared once more, I’d realized this plan…

Was probably going to take a while.

And our arrangement was more heartbreaking than I’d thought.

The sex had been good. Really good. And every minute I spent in Marius’s arms was better than the last. But being with him, getting so close to him…

Only proved that I was still so very alone.

That ended now.

We were fixing this. Us. The relationship.

Marius thought he could keep me at a distance, but I knew he felt the same way for me as I felt for him. And if I didn’t confront him tonight, if I didn’t share that secret…

I’d never have the courage to do it again.

But once he heard those words, everything would change. The pressure would alleviate. We could face the problems head-on. Find strength in each other.

And we’d finally ask the question we feared the most.

Why couldn’t I get pregnant.

He knocked on the door just as I poured the champagne. If the alcohol didn’t convince him I was serious, the devilishly red negligée would do the trick. Hell, I’d already given him everything else. My future. My virginity.

My heart.

A small smile tempted his lips as he appraised the teddy. His eyes studied me, head-to-toe, like he memorized my every curve. I didn’t mind the stare though I much preferred a closer inspection. He was in for a long night, and I wasn’t letting him go without a very thorough, very detailed exploration.

I handed him a glass of champagne. “Glad you can make it.”

Marius downed the drink with a single gulp. That was one way to get started. I did the same, but nerves and an empty stomach rushed the bubbles straight to my head.

“Gretchen…”

I pressed my fingers against his lips. “You know what I want.”

“You leave very little to the imagination.”

“Sometimes it takes a lot to get through to you.” I tugged him towards the bed. He hesitated with a heavy breath. “But after tonight, you’re going to understand me perfectly. You’re the only man who can.”

“Are we celebrating?”

I didn’t want to answer that. It was the only question he ever asked me. Had it happened yet? Did it feel like it’d worked? What were the chances? Is there a possibility?

He watched me sip the champagne. “Oh.”

“We can try again.”

I guided him onto the bed and stood between his legs. The teddy didn’t fit well, but that only excited him. A thin, silken strap glided over my shoulder. His fingers traced it, the warmth circling straight to my belly.

Did he notice how my breathing trembled around him? How I stared at him, needing to hold his arms so tight when he drew his eyes to mine?

He’d speak, and I’d melt.

He’d kiss me, and I’d crumble.

But he didn’t believe me. Didn’t want to see.

It was like he didn’t want this to be real.

Why?

“It’s been a couple long months,” I whispered.

Hard months. Discouraging months. And now every time he rolled away from me, it felt as if I’d done something wrong. Or that something was wrong with me. The pressure, stress, and absolute loneliness destroyed me.

I took his hand, kissing his fingers. “Sometimes…it takes a little extra time. I know it’ll be complicated in DC, but we’ll manage. We don’t need to rush or worry. We’ll do this together, Marius. I’m here for as long as it takes.”

He reached for me, and I crashed against his chest. Our lips met, but my quiet kiss revealed entirely too much.

But he had to feel it. Had to know.

We belonged together. Absolutely. Forever. Me pressed against him, his hand caressing my curves.

Nothing had ever felt so right.

I slipped over his lap, straddling him with nothing between my most delicate parts and the denim of his jeans. The smallest, barest graze of his knee bumped against my slit. I gasped. A dizzying excitement shivered through my core, and he’d barely touched me.

Just the idea of him crushed me. I sunk against him once more, desperate to be warmed, kissed, filled.

Why didn’t he understand this? Why didn’t he trust us?

“Gretchen, you have no idea how badly I want you…” His words ached in a solemn whisper. “But…”

I wouldn’t let him speak it. I stole his kiss and drove myself against his lap. The teddy slipped, and I ground against his jeans. His hardness grew, desperate and hot.

His profanity turned confession.

“Fuck me,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

I’d accept any apology as long as he kissed me with such intensity. Marius gripped my negligée and ripped, tearing the silk. I gasped as the material slid over my skin, the red contrasting so beautifully against my dark skin.

And then I was nude.

Exposed.

His.

Marius groaned, seizing my kiss as he flipped me onto the bed. My legs parted for him like always. Eager. Desperate.

My desire should have shamed me, but I’d longed for his touch, his stare. Marius fought his own discomfort to kneel on the floor beside the bed, pulling me close so he could dive into my slit.

His tongue flicked. His every lick became a soulful, deliberate exploration. He was delicate. Harsh. Quick. Slow. Everything at once and so ravenous as he suckled against my clit.

“Sweetness…” His words broke. “I don’t deserve this.”

He feasted upon me with an absolute vulgar enthusiasm. Sucking. Slurping. Tasting. His tongue sunk deep into me as if to claim every drop of cream in my burning core.

“I’m yours.” My voice trembled as he punished my clit with a furious desperation. “I’ve been yours since the moment I met you. I knew what we could have together.”

His grip tightened on my hips. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re not hurting me. This is…”

“I shouldn’t be doing this to you.” The sorrow in his words masked a growl, dangerous and enthralling. “I shouldn’t have done this to you.”

For a man so strong, so primal, Marius suffered from too much guilt for his passions.

But why?

All I wanted was to feel him inside me—pounding, pulsing, taking me with every brutal power he possessed. I was his, and I needed to be claimed and fucked every way he had promised. The ways that made babies, the ways that didn’t, the ways that shamed us, the ways that thrilled us.

And Marius wanted it too. Despite his hesitations and apologies, he stared at me with that deliberate, animalistic lust that hungered for my dark curves and soft heat. He loved to pin me beneath him. He craved my excitement, my desire.

The need crippled me. I was so achingly, heartbreakingly desperate for him I reached to my own slit to ease the ache.

He tried to pull away, but his hands betrayed him. He gripped my hips as if I were the one trying to escape.

“I don’t know if you’ll ever forgive me,” he whispered.

“Leave me hanging and I’ll hate you forever.”

“I can’t keep doing this to you, sweetness. I can’t keep taking you. Can’t keep destroying you, degrading you like this.”

Degrading me? I reached for him. “Marius, what we do together, what we’re trying to make, is beautiful.”

He leaned over me, hand on his belt. His fingers actually shook.

My poor sailor.

I pushed him away from his jeans and freed him myself. His cock sizzled in my hand, heavy and violently hard.

“Why deny this?” I whispered. “Why deny how we feel? The only thing that shames us is how we refuse to surrender to this. Let me pleasure you. Let me…”

Love you.

Marius gritted his teeth. Pained. “All I want is to get lost inside you. To fuck to you. To punish you for being patient, kind…generous.”

“It’s not a punishment to be in your arms.”

“Not for you…but every night I’m in hell.”

God, what had happened to this man? He’d been alone for so long, pushing everyone away, denying himself even the most superficial of comfort.

What had he lost overseas?

What was he trying to prove?

I pulled him over me, wrapping my legs around his waist. He entered me with a single, harsh thrust. Head to hilt. The complete slice of my aching, silken slick.

The strike stole my breath, but I arched, determined to take him all.

And it only made Marius hate himself more.

He ground against me, pushing hard, punishing me for daring to ask for the entire length of his monstrous cock. I couldn’t breathe, but words escaped me anyway.

Why speak when I could moan?

Why admit my feelings when I could hide in pleasure?

Three words. Three silly little words. They might have soothed the rutting beast ramming inside me.

Or they might have destroyed him forever.

I didn’t speak, terrified of what I might learn. Who was this man I loved?

A stranger in my heart.

A beast in my bed.

The man of my dreams.

The biggest mistake of my life.

My whisper ached with every pounded thrust. “You have to let me in, Marius.”

He grunted, sweat beading his brow. He didn’t slow his pace, and he refused to look at me. His eyes shut, and he clenched the comforter as he drew his hips into mine. The position hurt him. Always did. Standing at the edge of the bed, refusing to relax, to accept my help.

I would’ve offered to get on top, but he never would have allowed that loss of control. It was as if the suggestion humiliated him. Damned him.

But I didn’t care about the leg.

I only wanted the man.

A dangerous pleasure sliced through me. It captured my voice, strained my breath in my chest, and weakened me to his desire. I arched as he thrust into me. Harder. Faster. Desperate and delightful.

I was so close to coming…so close to escaping to that perfect, blissful oblivion where fears and anxieties and insecurities couldn’t find us.

But I didn’t surrender to it. Couldn’t. Not before I said it. Not before he knew how I felt.

“Marius…”

With a frustrated profanity, he captured my mouth in his. He couldn’t hear my words, but he tasted them. Every breath, every swipe of my tongue, every nibble of my lips.

“Don’t…” He pleaded with me.

“Please, Marius.”

“Don’t say it.”

“Then feel it.”

With a furious slam, he struck the bed with his fist. It didn’t slow his assault, only infuriated him. His strides thrashed quick, wild. He buried himself inside me, but each new grunt only drove him further from me.

My heart ached.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. He refused to hold me. “We can do this. We can work through it together.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I tried to push away, but he didn’t let me. He crossed my arms over my chest and pinned me beneath him. His strokes drove into me as fiercely and angrily as he could move.

His jaw clenched.

And his eyes…

I’d never seen him so broken.

“Just come for me.” His whisper rasped the words from reluctant lips. “Come for me, Gretchen. Please. Once more.”

Like I could resist him. I tried to fight the pleasure. I bit my lip. Rolled my hips. Nothing stopped his relentless assault. Nothing tempered that surging, crashing, boiling heat destroying me from within.

“Why only once?” I groaned. “We have all the time in the world. Now. Months from now. We’ll have DC…”

His expression twisted.

Words lowered.

Thrusts slowed.

“I’m not taking the job.”

My heart nearly stopped. “You’re…not?”

His voice lowered. “I don’t need a baby anymore, Gretchen…and you don’t need me.”

He leaned down and stole my shock with a kiss. His ragged breath dragged from his lungs, and his heart beat out-of-sync with mine.

What was happening?

Marius pressed hard against my hips and demanded the pleasure from me. I refused. I fought. I begged for answers.

But I couldn’t resist him. His touch thrilled me, his cock stretched me, and his wild, raging motions tore through my every defense.

He wasn’t just hiding anymore. He was running. And I could do nothing to stop him.

The orgasm rushed through me. Cold. Harsh. Ripped from my unwilling core with a cry of dismay.

My body tensed, desperate to be held, caressed, cherished. He offered me nothing, just the fierce throbbing of his hardened cock. The damn bliss raked through me. I bit my lip until I tasted blood, but the shivers crippled me. Again and again. More intense than before. A crash of ecstasy shredded my sanity and reduced me to tears.

Marius held me tight as he jetted inside me.

For the last time.

He hardly finished before he backed away. Running already.

His hands trembled as he rebuttoned his pants and slipped into the shadows.

I stared at him, gasping for air. “What are you doing? You didn’t take the job?”

He rubbed his face. It didn’t help. His expression had twisted, disgusted and dark with shame.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve done enough to you.”

I wasn’t letting him do this. “You haven’t done a thing to me, Marius Payne. Nothing I didn’t ask for. Nothing I didn’t want.”

His stare was lost in a misery I couldn’t dispel. “You might feel that way now, but in the future…you’re gonna realize what I did. How I took advantage of you. What I stole from you. I lied to you. I’ve ruined you.”

“I am not ruined! This was about us, Marius. About a baby—”

“—I don’t want a baby.”

“But...”

“I don’t want to put you through this. I…can’t…do this to you anymore.” His words broke. “I’m so sorry, Gretchen.”

“Marius…”

“I’m a selfish, terrible man, and I should have let you go weeks ago. But I was weak. You were so goddamned beautiful, and I had to feel you one last time.”

I stood, but my legs weakened. I nearly collapsed to the floor. “Don’t you dare walk away from me.”

“It was stupid, Gretchen. Idiotic. All of it. It was a mistake to even try to bring a child into this world, and I’m just…”

“Don’t say it.”

“I’m relieved it never happened.”

I sunk onto the bed. My nudity offended me now, suddenly crass and dirty. I lifted the comforter, but my arms didn’t have the strength to cover myself.

“Don’t say that,” I whispered. “God, Marius. Do you even hear yourself? Tell me what’s wrong!”

“I’m not asking you to forgive me…”

“For what?”

He refused to answer. “Don’t forgive me. Just…forget me.”

He said nothing else, didn’t even look back before he walked out of my life forever.

I’d had him in my bed, but I’d taken him into my soul. I’d loved him. Ached for him. Came for him.

And I’d never felt so empty.

This wasn’t the way I was supposed to love.

And this wasn’t the way it was supposed to end.

For so long, I’d fantasized about falling in love…

But I’d never imagined how easily my heart could break.