shoulders—too rough, I know, I’m going to bruise her, but I can’t get inside her deep enough, hard enough. I pull her down onto my shaft, the pressure building as I surge into her hot, tight body again and again…
“Oh, fuck…”
Sensation explodes through me. She tightens around my cock as I come inside her with a force that feels like it could rip me apart. She whispers something I can’t hear past the pounding of my heart.
I collapse on top of her, pressing my face to her throat, her breasts rising and falling against my chest. She winds her arms around me. Her breath stirs the hair sticking to my damp forehead.
Rain spills down the windows. I inhale the scent of my wife, absorb the crush of her body beneath mine, the unbelievably soft, yielding feel of her.
As the world comes slowly back into focus, bitter self-disgust starts crawling up my throat. Even now, I can’t control myself, can’t treat my wife with care.
I push away from her and get to my feet, unable to look at her as I pull on my boxers. Tension thickens the air.
I turn. She’s sitting up, putting her bra on. The sight of her breasts fills me with a combination of pain and renewed lust.
Fuck. Despite the complicated shit Liv and I have been through, never once has my desire for her changed. I’ve felt other negative things toward her—anger, sadness, irritation, resentment, impatience, frustration—but nothing has ever affected my intense craving and need for her.
In fact, our struggles have fueled my lust for my wife, deepened and intensified it. Every time I touch her, it’s more than simple pleasure. It’s a reminder that she’s mine, body and soul. She is more than my greatest love, my obsession, the center of my being. She belongs to me, in me, with me. Yesterday. Now. Forever.
And pain at the sight of her naked breasts is a fucking arrow plunging straight into my chest.
She lifts her arms to tighten the band around her ponytail, glancing up at the same time. Our gazes collide. A shadow falls over her eyes, as if with that one look, she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
Of course she does.
“Dean.” She gestures for me to come closer.
My heart feels like a fist. I back away from her, my throat constricting. I hate not knowing what to do for her. I hate that she thinks there’s nothing I can do.
“Dean. Come here. Please.”
I move closer to her, but not even her body heat can warm the chill spreading through me from the inside out. She wraps her legs around my waist and slides her hands over my shoulders, up to the sides of my neck.
She lifts my face to look at her. If I gaze into her brown eyes long enough, I’ll discover all the secrets of the universe.
“I’m scared,” Liv says. “Terrified. I will be until we get through this nightmare. Until we see hope again. I’m scared of this disease, of the treatment, of surgery and tests and whatever else has to happen.”
She moves her hands up into my hair and presses her forehead against mine.
“But I want you to know this,” she continues. “I will never, never, be afraid of you. I will never fear anything you feel, anything you say, anything you do. Never. Believe that, professor, because it’s the truth. You are the only place in the world where I feel safe. You always will be.”
My heart cracks. Once upon a time, I’d known I could protect her. I’d known how to defend the goddamned castle. I’d known without a doubt I could keep my wife safe. But now?
Nothing is safe anymore. Least of all me.
Chapter 18
Olivia
He can hardly look at me. At breakfast, his gaze touches on the bruises exposed by the scooped collar of my nightgown, and his expression darkens with self-directed disgust.
“Dean.” I curl my hand around his wrist as he stands at the central island, making a sandwich for Nicholas’s lunch. “It’s okay.”
His jaw tightens. “Nothing about this is okay.”
“Yes, it is.” I slide my fingers over his forearm. “You and I are okay. We will always be okay, no matter what happens. We know that. And the only way you can ever hurt me is by shutting me out. Please don’t do that. Not now.”
The tension in his arm eases a little, but I know the source of his aggravation runs too deep to be easily excavated. The stark truth is that he can’t