She swallowed past the knot of emotion in her throat, trying to force it back down. Trying not to allow a few simple words the power to leave her vulnerable.
Then after a moment, Connor closed the distance between them, pulling her into his chest. “I’m sorry I had to break my promise to you. But I meant what I said about taking care of you. I won’t stand by while someone hurts you.”
“I could have handled it.” She’d been doing it her whole life.
“Why should you?”
“Gail deserved to have her wedding day.” And more than that, because he’d agreed to let her!
“Yes, but so did you.” Connor caught her face in his hands, tipping it back so she was looking up at him. “Just because you don’t remember doesn’t mean it doesn’t count.”
Everything he said sounded so right. Tempted her to trust. To leap. But the void she was looking out over was simply too great to ignore.
Searching his eyes, she asked the question that was the crux of her fears and reluctance. “What if you change your mind?”
“That’s the point, Megan. I won’t.
“Commitment—” he rubbed the bridge of his nose as he let out a thoughtful sigh “—it’s very important to me. I’m not looking to fill some temporary position, Megan. I want a wife who will stand by me for the duration.” Only, then something in his expression shifted. His eyes went distant for a beat before snapping back to hers. Sharper. More intense. “Maybe if you had more time...”
“You mean date?” she asked, knowing she wouldn’t go along with it. No more waiting around to see whether something panned out. No more false hopes and years of indecision—
“No,” he said with a hard shake of his head, confirming they were in agreement on the no dating. Connor leaned into her space, putting his face before hers so the sincerity in his eyes was front and center. “Understand this, Megan. You’re my wife and I want to keep it that way. But I realize everything hasn’t fallen into place for you the way it did last night and I’m asking for a big leap. Still, I’m confident, with a little time, it will. So I propose a trial period. Give me three months. If you don’t think we suit, I give you a divorce and you return to the life you had planned. In the meantime, we start as we mean to go on. You live with me...as my wife.”
Her throat felt dry, her heart pounding too fast.
It was crazy. What he was suggesting... “You’d introduce me to your friends and business associates? What if I wasn’t happy and wanted to leave?”
“You go. Megan, I’m asking you to give our marriage a shot, not to lock yourself in some prison you can’t get out of. Granted, I don’t believe you’d leave without giving us a chance. Not once you’d made a commitment—one you remember making, that is. Besides, you’re not going to want to leave.”
He made it sound so simple. She’d been so tempted, time and again throughout the day—but the doubts. They simply weighed too much.
“I’ve finally found a way to be happy, Connor. I know you think because love isn’t a factor that this arrangement you’re suggesting comes without risk, but it doesn’t. Not for me. I can’t put my faith in someone else again. And that’s what you’re asking me to do. It—it hurts too much to be let down. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t think the reward would be worth the risk?”
“I don’t know. And maybe that in itself should tell us both something,” she whispered.
“Yeah, it does. It tells me instead of waiting, hoping you’d remember or come around, expecting you to see the big picture when I hadn’t given you all of the pieces, I should have done this.”
And before she could blink, he’d pulled her into a kiss.
Megan was flush to his body. Her hands trapped between them, where they’d come up in a stunted defense that stopped before it really began—stopped at the strange familiarity of this intimacy she couldn’t quite remember—stopped at the foreign heat inexplicably swirling like a whirlpool through her center, pulling deeper, concentrating with every back-and-forth pass of his mouth over hers.
No wonder she’d blocked it out.
Connor’s kiss was even better than she’d imagined. So good, she felt the resistant determination slipping from her body even as she grasped after it. But it was gone, having taken the edge of aggression in the dark depths of Connor’s eyes with it. The hands at her shoulders snaked around her waist and into her hair. The pressure against her lips increased and she opened to him.
Afraid to miss even a second, she couldn’t blink and her eyes remained locked with his, anticipating the taste and texture of him mixed with her own.
Only, rather than take his fill, Connor barely breached her mouth, skimming the inner swell of her bottom lip with a slow, agonizing lick so compelling it temporarily overwhelmed even the instinct to breathe.
Using the hand wound loose in her hair to angle her head, he deepened the kiss. Enticing her into a return of action—the tentative flick of her tongue against his.
It was all the invitation he needed, and hands tightening at her hip and hair, Connor’s low growl of satisfaction slipped through her lips an instant before the firm thrust and retreat of his tongue. The penetrating claim wringing a response too strong, too immediate, too intense to deny. And then she was clutching at him, pressing close even as he pulled her closer still.
It wasn’t enough.
Not for either of them.
Connor grasped her bottom in a firm, kneading caress. Then the back of her thigh, pulling it up along the outside of his leg. Rocking into her so she felt the steely length of him against her belly and the hard press of solid muscle between her legs.
From somewhere in the back of her mind, she was vaguely aware of all the reasons this was such a bad idea...only, she didn’t care.
Couldn’t stop.
Another deep thrust, and then Connor’s devouring mouth moved down to her jaw, her neck. Licking, sucking, pulling at the tender spot until she’d thrown her head back, and her hands restlessly worked between them, grasping at the panels of his shirt. Trying to get a hold enough to rip it open.
“Megan, Megan,” he groaned, the hot wash of his breath as intoxicating as the friction of his lips. “Baby, it’s going to be so good. Tell me you want this.”
“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes, yes, yes, please. I want you.”
His knee pressed higher between her legs, raising her skirt as he rocked the thick slab of his thigh against her intimate flesh in a way that had tendrils of pleasure sliding through her center.
Flicking a teasing lick over the corner of her mouth, he murmured, “Tell me, yes...tell me you’ll be my wife.”
This wasn’t the time for that discussion. This wasn’t the time for talking at all. “Later. Please, we’ll talk more about it later.”
His hips dipped lower, giving her a fleeting taste of the thick
