CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The door fell closed with a loud creak. In seconds, his hands were on her face, her breasts, her waist. Everywhere.

He pressed her to the wall of the foyer, trapping her with his body, touching her all over, as if he could memorize the feel of her curves with his palms. She writhed against him, and he groaned, low and deep in his throat.

As he lifted her arms over her head, pinning her wrists with his hands, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was an all too vivid dream. Everything with her felt so insanely good it bordered on unreal.

How many times had he fantasized about this? How many nights had he taken her to bed in his mind, his own fist a pale substitute for this woman? She was a jewel, as brilliant and beautiful, her eyes sparkling. Her body was lush and warm, and her hungry lips hunted for his mouth. Her breath, her pants, her noises played in his ears like a sultry song.

His lips were fused to hers, her body was sealed tight to him, and he didn’t intend to let her go.

He kissed her like the world was ending, but it was only the beginning of something entirely new between them. He couldn’t get close enough to her, and he could barely accept that she—his what if girl, though she was all woman—was moaning softly in his mouth, pressing her breasts to his chest.

With his hand caging hers above her head, he pushed against her, craving this frenzied foreplay of clothed bodies, of clawing at each other to get close. God, he wanted her with a desire that couldn’t even be measured. It felt like the kind of want that could scale mountains, invade countries, and send men and women to the moon. He broke the kiss, breathless, and held her face in his hand, getting lost in her emerald eyes.

“I’ve dreamed about this so much for so long. I can’t believe it’s real,” he said, fighting so hard to hold in all the other feelings. If she knew how much and how deeply the need to be with her had defined him, had driven him to learn new ways of living, he might scare her away.

His muscles tensed from the restraint inside him as he reined in all the words he wanted to say. It was too soon, too much to share.

“But I’m real, Michael,” she said, breaking free of his grip to place her hands on his face. “Feel me. Touch me. I’m here.”

He closed his eyes, and his skin turned electric from the tender possession in her touch. No one had ever made him feel this way. All the other women were right. They had been completely right in their assessment when they’d said to him: You’re in love with someone else.

He was.

Irrevocably.

This was his fate in life, to fall in love with the same woman over and over.

A rush of air escaped his lungs with the sharp, clear realization. He was in love with Annalise once more. He’d been madly in love with her before, and now it was happening all over again as he fell for the woman she had become—for her fragile but strong heart, her open mind, her willingness to try, her compassion, and her understanding of him.

He was dying to tell her, to imprint on her flesh: I’m in love with you.

Instead, when he opened his eyes, he chose his words carefully. “All I want is to touch you. To feel how real you are.” He tugged off her dress, drinking in the sight of her in a black bra and nothing else.

A groan rumbled up his chest, then he dropped his face to her collarbone and slid his hand between her legs, the temperature in him soaring as he touched her silky heat. Lightly he stroked, teasing her, drawing out gasps and moans, sexy little sighs and sweet, heady murmurs. He pushed the cup of her bra over one breast, freeing a nipple and sucking it deep, then nipping her.

With each bite across her flesh, he imagined tattooing her with words. The words he wouldn’t give voice to, he left as marks. A kiss on her throat. A long suck on the swell of her breast. A pinch of his teeth on her neck. Each one said, I’m so in love with you.

“Michael?”

His name was a question. He looked up, dazed from touching her. She spread her hands across his chest, her fingers toying with the buttons on his shirt. “I don’t want to use a condom. I want to feel you completely. I’m on the pill, and I’m safe,” she said, meeting his eyes. Hers shone with desire.

His mind and body latched onto the image of sliding into her, no barriers. His dick grew impossibly harder, straining against the zipper, fighting its way to get to the Promised Land.

That land just got even sexier.

He swallowed thickly, nodding. “I’m safe. I haven’t been with anyone in a year.”

Her eyes went wide. “You haven’t?”

“That surprises you?”

As she worked open the buttons on his shirt, she said, “You’re so handsome, I can’t imagine you would be alone.”

“I’m not a player, Annalise,” he said roughly, as her long fingers undressed him.

“No, you’re not a player. You’ve never been one. You always had your eyes on the woman you were with, and only her.” She said it generally, as if the statement applied to his approach to relationships, and it did. But God, if she only knew it fit her precisely.

“Look at you,” she murmured as she opened his shirt. Dipping her face to his chest, she planted kisses on his pecs, biting a nipple. He hissed in a breath. “You are so strong,” she said, dragging her fingernails across his muscles as she pushed off his shirt.

“You’re going to ruin me with all your compliments.”

“Your body,” she continued, as her eyes roamed over his chest and arms. “I love it. I love looking at you. I love touching you.”

And he loved being touched by her. More than anything in the world. Especially when her hands went there, to his belt, unbuckling it then unzipping his jeans. He helped push them down then off his feet, along with his shoes.

He glanced at her, then back at himself. “Feels like we’ve been here before. I’m kind of thinking we want to get to the next level of naked.”

She laughed. “You mean the completely naked level?”

“Yes, that one,” he said, and led her to the bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress, and looped his hands behind her back, unhooking her bra, letting it fall to the floor. His hands shot out and cupped her breasts, pinching the nipples as she arched into him. He raised his face and stared up at her, still in awe that she wasn’t a mirage.

“You’re here,” he said in disbelief.

“I’m here,” she echoed.

Naked before him, totally revealed, and the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He wanted to kiss every inch of her body, to catalogue each feature, from the tiny little appendix scar on her belly, to the small spray of freckles on her chest, to the strength in her legs.

“Michael, this isn’t fair. Please take your clothes off.”

He stood and shoved down his boxers. Her eyes blazed darkly as she stared at his cock, licking her lips. Fuck. He wanted to live in this moment, to return to it again and again—her unabashed lust. Her deep desire. Her stare made him hotter, made him burn. He reached down and stroked his cock, letting her watch and loving her reaction.

“Are you thinking of me?” she said naughtily. “When you do that?”

“Now. And always.”

She trembled and then joined him, wrapping her hand over his, stroking along with him. “I think of you so much now. I’m so worked up being near you. So wound up. You drive me crazy with want.”

He gripped her shoulders, guided her to the bed, and regarded her naked frame.

“Fuck.” He groaned as she lay back on the sheets, resting on her elbows. “So beautiful. All I want is to make you feel so fucking good.”

“You already do,” she said, then raised her knees and let them fall open.

He was helpless to resist. He bent down and buried his face between her thighs once more, kissing and licking her sweetness, rubbing his stubble all over her slick, wet heat. She moaned and rocked her hips into him, faster, harder, then just wilder. Her hips shot up as he thrust his fingers inside her and sucked her sweet clit between his lips until she came, flooding his tongue, her pleasure all over his face.

Seconds later he crawled up her, wedged himself between her legs, and dragged the head of his cock through her heat.

She gasped, her head falling back against the pillow, her lips parted.

“So greedy,” he said as he toyed with her, loving the feel of her wet pussy against his hard dick. This was what he’d craved for so long. The chance to be with her. The thrill of fucking the woman he’d never stopped loving.

“Please don’t tease me. I need you. I need you now,” she said, so desperate, so sexy, so beautiful.

“Je te veux tellement,” he said, repeating the phrase she’d shared on the plane.

She trembled, whispering desperately, “Say it again.”

“Je te veux tellement,” he said roughly.

“You’re even sexier when you speak my language.”

“I’m only speaking the truth. I want you so much. So fucking much.”

“Have me. Take me.”

He eased inside her in one hot, tight thrust.

Then the earth stopped spinning. The stars melted away from the sky. Gravity had no hold on him because he was falling, falling, falling into her.

After all these years. After all this time. It was exquisite and so unbelievably fucking good. She gasped, her breath spilling out as she made the first move, her hips rising up, her legs wrapping around him.

“Closer. Come closer,” she whispered, and he lowered himself, their chests nearly touching as he braced on his elbows, flexing forward in slow, steady thrusts, taking his time, savoring the feel of her bare, sweet pussy.

Their heated bodies moved together. He was lit up everywhere, his entire being electrified as he pushed in and out, then deeper, hitting her right where she went wild, her back bowing off the bed, her mouth falling open, and a beautiful groan that became his name.

“Say it.” He growled. “Say it now.”

“Baise-moi plus fort.”

God, it was music from her. It was heady and thrilling to hear her say those words.

“I knew you’d sound crazy for me when you said it like this,” he groaned, then buried his face in her neck, kissing, biting, marking.

“I am. I’m crazy for you,” she said, and then it was her turn to nip. She went for his collarbone, and he nearly exploded. He loved her roughness, and she knew it because seconds later her hands were on his shoulders, then she dragged her nails down his back, digging into his flesh.

“Let me feel you all over me,” he said as he fucked her faster, harder.

She ran her nails down to his ass, curling her hands around him. He pushed deeper, the start of his orgasm barreling through his body. She arched up, grabbing his head, crushing his mouth in a crazed, fierce kiss, full of teeth and tongue and madness. Then she let go, his name tumbling from her lips in a raptured cry as she shattered beneath him, arms and legs grabbing, twisting, tugging him even closer, like she’d never get enough.

Her need for him set him off, igniting a mind-blowing orgasm that blurred his vision and torched his veins as he followed her there, in perfect fucking bliss.

Like heaven on earth.

He collapsed on her, a sweaty, tangled mess of limbs, and lips, and desire, sated at last.

She ran her hands through his hair and sighed softly against him. It was unequivocally the best night of his life, but he also winced inside with the awareness of how much harder it would be to say good-bye now that he’d experienced all of her.

Until she said the next words.