43
Ihad never known how powerful it was before to have the most handsome man in the room on your arm, but the way everyone turned to watch us as we walked in told me everything I needed to know.
I squeezed his hand and bit my lip and then glanced down at the rings weighing down my finger. They were gorgeous and no doubt cost more than my entire condo, and I felt sad that I wouldn’t be able to hold onto them after … well, after this was over. But for now, I was going to focus on having a good night and showing off my gorgeous husband to all these stuffy patrons of the library.
“Amaya.” Tatania, one of my colleagues, emerged from the crowd to greet me. She glanced over at Kristo, her gaze lingering on him for a moment too long. I didn’t mind. He did look amazing in that tuxedo.
“Good to see you.” I smiled at her. “So, where’s the bar?”
With that, the night took off, and to my surprise, I actually enjoyed it with him by my side. I felt like a movie star, knowing that the most handsome man in the room was the one who had come here with me. I couldn’t stop smiling when I saw the way they were looking at him, shooting desirous glances in his direction like he was a first-edition copy they couldn’t wait to put up on the shelves.
And of course, Kristo was beyond charming the entire night. I had seen him sweet-talk people before, but this was something else entirely. He was so smooth, so cool, so in-control, that practically everyone we ended up chatting with was hanging on his every word by the time he was done. He made them laugh the loudest, lean in the closest. He was the life of the party, and I couldn’t have been prouder to have him as my date. I felt so in love with him, my head hurt a little, even as I tried to remind myself this was all a game to him. But that was hard to do when I saw the way people looked at us as husband and wife. It left me wanting things I shouldn’t have wanted.
What struck me more than anything else was the way that every time I drifted away from him, he would find me again and not because he was nervous about being left all alone in this place. No, he just seemed to want me by his side. He was constantly touching me, his hand around my waist, his fingers locking with mine, that constant connection as though he wanted me to know he was here and he wasn’t going anywhere. I wasn’t sure if it was possessive or comforting, but I found I liked it, that his presence here was a good thing for me.
For the next nine months, at least. I ignored that nagging little thought at the back of my mind and focused on this, on having fun for the rest of the evening. How many times would I get to come to an event like this with the sexiest guy in the room on my arm, and the most charming one to boot? I was going to enjoy it while I still had the chance.
Eventually, the night drew to a close. There had been a silent auction, and it seemed as though we had made a decent amount, even if I had to hold Kristo back from bidding on anything too insane.
“Hey, maybe I want a yacht,” he protested as I tugged him away from the auction.
“Like you don’t have one already,” I pointed out, and he grinned.
“Fair point.”
I’d had a couple of glasses of champagne by the time the night finished up, and I could feel the bubbles racing around my head and those matched with the way that he was looking at me right then were enough to get me overheated all of a sudden. His hand on my waist wasn’t enough. I needed more, all of it, everything, and I had every intention of making it happen.
The limo driver came back around to pick us up, and Kristo held the door open for me.
“What a gentleman.” I giggled as I tumbled into the back seat.
“Is it gentlemanly if I’m just doing it so I can stare at your ass?” he wondered aloud, and my heart flipped in my chest. He always seemed in such careful, considered control of himself that it would never fail to catch me off-guard when he spoke so crudely and so sharply to me. I flushed.
“I guess I’ll have to teach you exactly how you need to treat your wife,” I murmured as he closed the door behind us, and he turned his attention to me once again.
“I guess you will,” he agreed, and just like that, he was on me. My heart was pounding in my chest as I pulled him toward me, running my fingers through his hair, parting my lips so I could coax his tongue into my mouth. How could he feel this good, even after all this time? The warm, soft leather of the seats matched with the hungry urgency of his hands, and it took everything I had in me not to swoon over on the spot right there and then. This was so good. I’d always wondered what it would be like to get hot and heavy in the back of a limo, and now I knew. If it was with Kristo, it was about the sexiest thing in the world.
His hands were grasping at the hem of my dress, guiding it up a little, fingers sinking into my thighs as he groaned against my mouth.
“I’ve wanted you out of this dress since the minute I saw you in it,” he growled. “You look just like you did that first night. Except I get to remember it this time.”
I moaned softly, and he kissed me again, this time rougher than before, the tiny mist of stubble on his chin rubbing my face raw. I could already imagine what it would feel like between my thighs, running down my body…
All at once, the limo pulled to a halt, and we sprang apart like a couple of horny teenagers caught in the act.
“Shit, we’re here,” he muttered, and he quickly fixed himself so it wasn’t too obvious to everyone looking that we’d been making out in the back of the car. He thanked the driver, gave him a huge tip, and then practically lifted me out of the back seat so we could head up to the apartment together.
I had never seen that look in his eyes before, never once in my life. It was like he would have taken me right there against the building if he could, like the desire was so intense, it was clouding his circuits a little. And what turned me on more than anything was knowing this was what had been running through his brain the entire night, that all that time he had been playing the good, decent man, he had been running over exactly how he was going to get me naked in his mind.
He opened the door, and we tumbled through, and he was tugging at my dress again at once.
“How do I get this thing off?” he demanded. I laughed and turned my back to him.
“The zipper here,” I told him, pointing, and he ripped it down like it had personally offended him and then slid his hands beneath the fabric, guiding the dress away from my body with a groan of approval. I closed my eyes, and for the briefest moment, I thought I could almost remember that first night, the first time he had stripped me down when this had been enough for us to believe we wanted to get married to one another.
But the dress fell away and so did the memory, and I turned around to kiss him again. He lifted me off the ground, and I wrapped my legs around him, all but naked, as he carried me toward the bedroom. And I knew I was going to be in for one hell of a night.