The Unexpected Wife - Jess Michaels Page 0,29

he so desperately, foolishly wanted to do just that.

Abigail scrambled to follow, but he held up a hand. “Let me.”

The room at large stared at him and he shifted beneath their now-focused regard. He was showing his hand. Revealing himself in a way he didn’t do. He’d trained himself not to do it over the years when he worked on a case.

But something in Celeste broke all that. In that moment, at least, he didn’t care what they saw or what they thought. She was more important.

He scowled at the questioning faces and stalked from the room, twisting and turning through the halls, looking for her in each open room. At last he came to the back of the house and a large drawing room there. She wasn’t inside, but he saw the door that connected to the terrace was open within. He slipped through it and there she was, standing with her fists gripped on the stone wall of the balcony, face turned toward the sunlight, eyes closed.

When he got closer, he realized a tear slid down her cheek, and he caught his breath as he reached for her. “Celeste.”

She opened her eyes but kept her face upturned and away from his. “You don’t owe me tenderness, you know,” she whispered in a broken tone. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“I’m not counting debt,” he said as he turned her gently. She looked up into his face for a moment and then rested her forehead against his chest. He folded his arms around her and held her.

They stood there for a lifetime, with her breath coming short, her hands clenching and unclenching against his chest, him smoothing her hair. At last she seemed to calm herself and she lifted her face to his again.

The last time she’d done this, she’d kissed him. He’d been able to rein in control over himself then. Now he wasn’t certain he could do the same. He wanted so desperately to offer her nothing more than comfort. He didn’t want to let the deeper, darker desires he felt for her overtake his moment. But when he moved to pull away, to distance himself from her, she tugged him closer.

“Owen,” she whispered, and her breath stirred his lips because he was already leaning down into her, too close, too powerful, too out of control.

He captured her mouth, telling himself it would be a brief kiss, nothing more. He wouldn’t let it be more. But he wasn’t the one in charge, it seemed, just like the last time. Her arms came around his neck, her mouth opened, she demanded and he was too weak to her not to give exactly what she wanted.

He took her mouth as he hadn’t allowed himself to before, tasting her, teasing her, driving into her the same way he so wanted to do without clothes, without hesitations.

She didn’t mince or pull away. Instead, she melted into him. Dueled with his tongue, let out a low, hungry moan that seemed to burn through his bloodstream and settle heavily in his cock. He burned for her and he realized in that instant that if he kept dancing around her, eventually that fire would rage out of control. It would lead to the inevitable. It would lead to his bed.

He broke away from her with great difficulty and they stared at each other, panting. Her pupils were dilated and she rested a hand against her flushed throat.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped even though it was a lie. “I shouldn’t have—”

She shook her head. “Oh, please don’t. I wanted this. I wanted you to touch me. To kiss me. I don’t regret it. If you do, then…” She blushed. “Well, then I suppose I owe you the apology because I keep doing this like a little fool.”

“You’re not a fool.” He shook his head. “And I don’t regret it. I just don’t want it to…to cause more pain than you’ve already endured.”

She worried her lip and he barely contained the groan that rushed to his lips. Did she not know what that little motion did to a man? More specifically, did to him?

“If this is pain, then let me feel it,” she whispered.

He cupped her chin, exploring that lovely face, memorizing every facet of the blue in her eyes. He bent his head and kissed her again, savoring the sweetness of her flavor, the softness of her lips and the gentle sweep of her tongue against his.

This time when they broke apart, it wasn’t desperate or driven.