Wanna Be Yours Read online

  “God. Did you know that?”

  She nodded. “Yes. He’d made it very clear that he was not looking to replace her in his heart. Only his bed.”

  He flinched. “Oh.”

  “He was a handsome man with a lot of money, and I, I am ashamed to say, was a shallow girl who thought that would make it all okay. And it was, for a time. I had free access to the bank accounts. Clothes. Travel. Whatever I wanted. His second wife had full custody of his children, two little girls who, according to his irritatingly old-fashioned dictates, would not inherit his company or any assets beyond what he’d already put aside for them in trust. I didn’t have to play at motherhood before I was ready.” She paused in her memories. “I had everything I could have wanted, but I was bored. Dissatisfied. Lonely, Eric. I was so desperately lonely. He traveled often. Worked long hours. When he was at home, he rarely had time to ‘entertain’ me, as he put it. So, I decided to have a child. I thought, well, at least I’d have something to occupy my time. I was nineteen.”

  “This is…” He shook his head and leaned to put his arms on his knees. His head bent briefly before he looked up at her. “I have to say, it’s hard to imagine all of this going on, Madeline. None of this sounds like you.”

  “Oh, it was me. Then. I do realize it sounds like a story out of the 1890’s, not the 1990’s. The funny thing was, I was raised and educated in America and Britain. My parents had met in England, where my father was going to university. They were not old-fashioned. I fancied myself a feminist, if you can imagine that.”

  “I have no problem imagining you as a strong woman who considers herself completely equal to any man,” he said.

  Madeline straddled him on the couch to take his face in her hands once more. “Do you know how lovely it is that you did not say ‘superior’?”

  He tipped his head back to offer his mouth. “You’ve never made me feel like you think you’re better than me, just because you’re on top.”

  She kissed him, drawing at his tongue with her lips until he slipped it into her mouth. She bit lightly, loving the way he gasped. His hands tightened on her hips. His cock pressed her as she ground herself against his lap.

  She’d meant to tell him more of her story, but heat had risen suddenly between them, and she no longer wanted to deny it. She rocked her hips. The kiss deepened. She bit his tongue again, harder this time, and was rewarded with a groan.

  “I want you,” she told him. “Here. Now. Fuck me.”

  She thought he might hesitate or at least be surprised, but Eric moved quickly to unbuckle his belt. Unzipped. They worked together, moving in perfect unison to get his trousers around his thighs and her panties to the side. He was inside her immediately with a single thrust, so deep it was her turn to gasp.

  “Yes,” she said, repeating the word over and over as he fucked deep into her.

  His hands gripped her waist. Their tongues tangled. She ran her hand through his hair, then anchored her fingers in its dark thickness. She pulled. His mouth opened, and she sucked his tongue. Bit it again. Harder this time, hard enough to make him cry out, muffled into the demanding embrace of her mouth.

  She didn’t have to tell him to move a hand between them, to use his thumb on her clit. He found the sweet spot with unerring precision, rubbing in time to his thrusts so that she was on the edge in mere minutes. Then she was over it. Shaking, she cried out. Her body moved, and she was helpless to stop herself from riding him harder, harder, as she kissed him. Pain, sparkling like a far-off star, rushed through her as she cut her lip on his teeth. It didn’t matter. She could not, would not stop until the pleasure had eased. His cock felt impossibly hard inside her.

  Eric came with a stifled cry and thrust a few more times before going still. His head fell back on the couch. His eyes closed, mouth open, he gulped at the air. Slowly, the tightness of his grip on her hip lessened, and he moved his hand from between them.

  She buried her face in his shoulder, her lips pressed to his skin. She closed her own eyes, drifting in the aftermath of ecstasy. Her knees clutched his sides. His softening cock stayed inside her, and she didn’t want to shift even though this position was going to cause her calves and thighs to cramp soon. She didn’t want to lose him from her body.

  Not just yet.

  Fifteen

  The fucking on the couch had left them both so spent they’d fallen asleep for a few minutes before Eric had roused himself. He’d carefully woken his lady — that was how he’d been thinking of her without admitting it for the past few weeks, but at last it felt as though he had the right to. It occurred to him that he should apologize for calling her “Ma’am” without permission, but he hadn’t wanted to bring it up just then. Madeline’s sleepy, adorable smile had rewarded him as he shifted them both off the couch and invited her upstairs to his bed.

  He hadn’t been sure she would agree. They’d always been at her house, before. In her bed. Part of him had been expecting her to decline in favor of leaving, so he’d been thrilled when she’d stripped naked and slipped into his bed, where she promptly curled up and reached behind her to urge him to spoon her. Thank God he’d had the foresight to put on fresh sheets. Now, with the fresh scent of her hair in his face and the glorious warm curves of her body pressing his, he couldn’t remember a time when he’d been so content.

  Eric kissed the back of her neck. His hand had fallen naturally to the curve of her naked hip. Madeline had bent her knees to press her perfect toes against his feet. Her breathing, steady and slow, soothed him. He woke with a start to find the bed empty next to him. He sat, the covers a tangle around his feet, panicked.

  Madeline turned from the window, where she was outlined in silver moonlight. “Shhh, sweetheart. I’m still here.”

  She crossed to the bed and climbed in beside him. Her hand went flat to his chest, over his fast-beating heart. She leaned to kiss him gently.

  “I wouldn’t ever just leave without waking you,” she told him.

  “Good.” He wrapped his arms around her and settled them both on the pillows. He brushed his lips over her temple.

  She nestled against him. “Eric.”

  “Yes,” he said after a pause.

  Madeline twisted to look up at him. “Do you believe in fate?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “No? You work in an emergency room. You never think, if only this person had turned left instead of right, they wouldn’t be here now?” She trailed her fingertips over his chest to rest her hand on his belly.

  Warmth at her touch spread through him. His cock, previously sated, began to stir. “Do you mean if I think that people deserve what happens to them?”

  “Not exactly. I mean…” she sighed and shook her head. She toyed with the hairs of his lower belly, sending more tendrils of arousal through him. “I believe the choices you make lead you down one path or another. Everything you choose affects what happens. We are here now because of choices I made years ago. Same with you. If we hadn’t made those choices, we would not have been able to make this one here. Now. Together.”

  He arched a little beneath her wandering hand. “Well, whatever choices you made to get you here right now, I’m glad you did.”

  Madeline made a small, soft sound. Eric twisted to look down at her. She tipped her face toward him. “Kiss.”

  He did, but also asked, “aren’t you?”

  “Glad I’m here with you? Happy I made the choices I did?”

  “Yes,” he said and wondered at once if he wanted to hear the answer.

  “I am very happy to be here with you, right now. Like this. Yes. About my previous choices, I can’t say that I’m happy with them. No. At the time I felt as though I had no choice. I felt out of control. I felt lost and desperate, and what I chose then brought me a lot of pain, over and over again. I did not learn my lesson the first time through, or even the second. Or, I am ashamed to admit, the third. Fourth. That I ended up here with you, in this moment, is a blessing, but to be honest,