the words.” In an intimate gesture that set fire to her skin, he tugged the delicate neckline with rough fingers. It gave in with a tear and a rasp—thousands of dollars and ripped now. The upper swell of her breast bared to his slumberous gaze. He bent his arrogant head and pressed a hot kiss to the flesh. Nipped it with his teeth.
Need knotted at her nipples, making them achy and tight. Her sex pulsed, wet and aching.
Clio had never known such liquid desire, as if her skin and sinew was all filled with want. Want for him. Want for the one man she shouldn’t want.
Want for the man who had given her everything, but really nothing.
“Tell me that you want me to tear that dress off of you completely, bella.” Anger colored his words. “Tell me to run my hands and mouth over every inch of your skin, tell me to sink into your heat until it is all either of us can feel.” Contempt punctured the heat in his words. “Tell me to give us both the relief that we’re both so desperately craving.
“Tell me and your every wish will be my command, bella.”
Utter resignation reverberated in the way he held her loosely against him, in the way he sighed against her willing flesh. And it was that resignation, that shuddering exhale as if he was giving in to the inevitable even as he hated it, that cleared the haze from Clio’s head.
Had she known that this moment was coming? Was this the only way she could think of having him, when she could absolve herself of all responsibility? Was this how she had let Jackson walk all over her?
Would she always let life happen to her, rather than take charge of it?
Shame cooled her skin, leaving her shaking. Tugging the torn lace of her dress upward, she stumbled back. Her breathing out of sync, she tried to collect her aroused senses together.
She wanted to be held and kissed and touched by him so much that it was a cavernous chasm inside her.
But not like this.
No. This was not fair to either of them.
She looked up and met his glittering gaze, every inch of her vibrating with need. “When I look back at this night a decade later, I want to remember something else other than your self-disgust that you want me and my desperate attempt to escape it, as you put it so well.”
“Clio—”
“Yes you do, Stefan. You hate that you want me when it isn’t your will, don’t you?” She blinked, striving for strength. “I want to have one thing that will make me proud about today. I want you to leave. Thank you for saving me from myself once again.”
The flesh over the angular bones of his face, already so lean and spare, tightened even further, until he was all jutting angles and brooding arrogance. He went still, inch by inch, ridding himself of that glittering want and desire, ridding himself of any emotion.
That growing stillness in him, that willpower in action—it was the most disconcerting thing she had ever seen.
“As you wish,” he said with one lingering look before he turned and left.
She could almost believe that her words had pierced him. Almost.
Roughly tugging at the bodice of a dress that could have probably fed a starving family for a few months, Clio sank to the bed and covered her face.
As caustic as his analysis of her life had been, Stefan had stopped them from making an irrevocable mistake.
She should be glad for it. All she needed was to convince herself of it.
* * *
Standing under the ice-cold shower spray, Stefan shivered. His teeth chattered in his mouth, his skin grew goose bumps. If he looked down, he would probably see that his balls had forever turned blue.
But even the possibility of permanent damage to his manhood couldn’t erase the picture of his wife from his mind.
He had never seen a more beautiful woman. Her vulnerability shone in her eyes, her desire too pure and real to be anything but temptation, her struggle to be better than herself a wonder for him to watch.
Neither could he curb the small flicker of warmth in his chest.
Was this what Clio would do for him?
Punish him, torture him and yet push him toward being a better man than he had been this past decade?
That he had resisted her, that he hadn’t given in to his need and taken what she had so freely offered, that he had protected her, even from himself, he would count as a win; he would count it as a little bit of honor still left in him.
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