“I’m not sure how much I can eat after all that cake at the reception.”
“I think you’ll manage,” he said.
He stood to get the food from the coolers. First he scooped tossed salad on her salad plate, then he opened the hot food containers. When she reached toward a spoon to help herself to some delicious-smelling herbed risotto, Sed snatched the spoon away from her.
“Allow me,” he said.
“Sed, I can serve myself.”
“I never doubted it,” he said. “But just because you can doesn’t mean you have to. Let me take care of you tonight. Without argument. It would really mean a lot to me.”
She drew her eyebrows together. “Why?”
“Because I care about you.”
“I care about you too, but I don’t feel the need to serve you to demonstrate it.”
“Well, tonight I do have that need. Can you handle it? Someone who loves you trying to take care of you?”
“I never said I couldn’t handle it.”
But as he filled her plate with food, she had to admit that it did bother her. She’d promised herself long ago that she’d never allow a man to rule her life and for some reason, this felt like a step in that direction.
“Can I serve you?” she asked, thinking that might make her feel a bit more comfortable about allowing him to choose how much and what kind of food she would receive.
“You can service me,” he said, his voice gruff with desire.
Jessica pursed her lips. Was he trying to get a rise out of her? She knew her temper turned him on, but she really didn’t want to argue tonight. Especially not here, where everything was so romantic due to his thoughtfulness.
“I think I’ll let you service me,” she retorted.
“I am willing, if not able,” he said with a crooked grin. “The table is kind of low for me to get at you properly. Wasn’t the shower enough?”
“You know I never get enough of you.”
He grinned cockily and opened another container of food. The scents of basil and garlic, tomato and oregano stirred her appetite. She loved tortellini and couldn’t wait to see what it was stuffed with.
When he had Jessica’s plate full and arranged as he wanted it, Sed took his seat again. Everything looked and smelled delicious and the tortellini was stuffed with mushrooms and sausage—her favorite combination, which she was certain was not a coincidence. Still, she picked at her food, hardly sampling a bite.
“It really bothers you, doesn’t it?” Sed said, having no qualms about devouring his own dinner.
“What bothers me?”
“The fact that I fixed your plate.”
“What bothers me is that you decided what I wanted and how much and where on my plate it should go.”
“I know you don’t like me to make decisions for you, but don’t you think you’re over-reacting?”
“Probably,” she admitted. “But I can’t help it.”
“Try,” he challenged. “Learn to compromise.”
“You don’t compromise either,” she said, spearing a bit of yellow squash and popping it into her mouth.
“I compromise with you more than I’ve ever had to compromise with anyone else,” he said. “The problem is, we both like to be in charge.”
She couldn’t argue with that. It was blatantly obvious.
“So if you let me be in charge every once in a while, I’ll let you be in charge occasionally, and we’ll both have that need met. The rest of the time we can butt heads and argue if you like.”
“I don’t like to argue,” she said.
“Right,” he said, the word twisted with sarcasm. “And I’m sure that’s why you became an attorney. Because you hate arguing so much you decided to do it for a living.”
She flushed as she realized he was totally right. She loved to argue. In fact, no one argued with her the way Sed did. And few men would have been strong enough to give it to her as good as she gave it. Most men were afraid to cross her. Not because she was scary, but because they were attracted to her and thought by bending to her will, she’d be more likely to give them what they wanted. But not Sed. Sed pushed her relentlessly. It was one of the things she loved most about him. And the very thing about him that drove her crazy.
“So I like to argue,” she said with a shrug. “I’m not the only one. You like to argue too.”
Sed chuckled. “I only argue with you, babe. With everyone else, I boss and they obey.”
“Just try to boss me and see if I obey,” she said in a clipped tone.
“I know bossing doesn’t work with you,” he said. “I thought maybe taking you up in a hot air balloon and asking you nicely would do the trick.”
“Do I not make you happy the way I am?”
“Of course you do. Never doubt that.”
“Then where is this coming from?” she asked.
He stared out the basket at the passing treetops for a long moment. “It’s hard for me sometimes. To step back. To let you do your own thing without interfering. It makes me feel less of a man.”
She gaped at him. Had she really made him feel that way? “Sed, that doesn’t make you less of a man.”
“Yeah, well…” He shrugged. “I’m learning to compromise. But I do crave a bit more control. I can’t lie about it. It’s a struggle to keep that side of me under wraps. But you’re worth the trouble.”
He was getting better at compromising. They didn’t fight nearly as often as they once had, but she hadn’t realized it was because he was the one compromising the most, letting her get her way. She needed to meet him halfway. And if that entailed allowing him to choose what she had on her plate when he surprised her with a romantic dinner, she could handle that. Maybe with a little practice, she could let him have a bit more control of her life. But just a little. Their marriage would have to be a partnership. She would never tolerate living under a dictatorship. Of course, there was one place she never minded him being the boss.
“You know there are times when I like you to boss me around,” she said.
He met her eyes and lifted a skeptical brow at her. “When?”
“In the bedroom,” she said. “You know how hot that makes me, don’t you?”
“I thought you obeyed in the bedroom because you know I never disappoint.”
She laughed, choosing to take her husband’s ego with a grain of salt. Besides, she couldn’t argue with his boasting when it happened to be true.
“I guess that’s part of it,” she said. “But when you fuck me and make me say things—things I would never say anywhere else—it’s exhilarating. Freeing.”
“What kinds of things?” he asked.
“This pussy is mine,” she said gruffly. “Say it. Say it, Jess.”
He shifted in his seat. “Well, it is mine.”
“Actually,” she said, “it’s mine.”
He tilted his head slightly as he assessed her. “I never realized how much it must cost you to give me that much power over you.”
“You know if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t let you.” She nibbled her lower lip as she put her thoughts to words. “So dominate me in the bedroom, but let me decide on my own dinner.”
“Is that why you aren’t eating?”
She nodded. “Ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t mean to dominate your dinner, Jess. I just wanted to show you that I care about you.”
“I know, baby. I’ll try not to blow these things out of proportion.”
“If you don’t want to eat, you don’t have to. I thought you liked tortellini.”
He still wasn’t quite understanding the reason it bothered her, but she needed him to get her. She knew how things got between them when they weren’t perfectly clear. She reached across the table and plopped a spoonful of squash onto his plate. Sed didn’t like squash. He’d ordered it because she liked it.
His brow crinkled. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Would you like another roll?�
�� she asked.
“Um, I guess.”
She placed another roll on his plate.
“So which method did you prefer? Me taking it upon myself to dump squash on your plate without consulting you or me asking if you’d like a roll before putting it on your plate?”
“Are you treating me like a kindergartner, Jess?” Sed chuckled and rubbed his forehead. “Okay, I get it. It isn’t that you don’t want me to show you that I care about you, you just want to be involved in the decision-making process.”
“Yes!” she said, emphasizing the word with her hands. “That’s exactly it.”
“I’ll work on that.”
“And what should I work on to make you happy in this relationship? Because nothing is more important to me than making this work, Sed. I love you.”
“I am happy in this relationship. You’re perfect just the way you are,” he said.
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Oh, please.”
“You are. I don’t want you to change—not a single thing about you. But I’ll try to change if it will make you happy.”
Oh no, she’d hurt his feelings again. She kept forgetting how sensitive he was about certain things because he was so good at hiding that sensitivity. She climbed from her cushion and squeezed in beside him on his.
“I don’t want you to change, Sed. I just want you to be more careful about pushing my buttons.”
“But I like pushing your buttons,” he said close to her ear. “It makes your passion burn bright. But I wasn’t trying to push your buttons tonight. I was trying to make the night special for you. A gift just from me and just for you on our wedding day.”
And she’d made him feel like it wasn’t special. Fuck. She was really screwing things up here. This was what she needed to work on, whether he realized it or would even admit to it. She had to be more careful with his feelings. Better at recognizing things that would hurt him before the fact rather than after, when the damage had already been done.
She touched his face, delighting in the slight roughness of a five o’clock shadow on his cheek. “Tonight is special,” she whispered. “You made it special for me.”
He smiled, his dimples cutting deep into his cheeks. “I did?”
“Mmm hmm.” Her body recognized his close proximity and instantly awakened, craving his touch. “Kiss me.”
“Our dinner’s getting cold,” he murmured just before he claimed her mouth in a searing kiss.
The coat dropped from her shoulders as she wrapped her arms around his neck and got lost in him. His large, strong hands dug into her back, drawing her closer—closer—as if he wanted to meld their flesh. That wouldn’t be happening while they were fully clothed, sitting mostly side by side, and with an audience.
Jessica tore her mouth from Sed’s, breathing hard as she attempted to regain her wits. No good. Her brain was never fully functional in his presence, and it refused to start functioning again until her body found release. Sometimes several releases.
“God, I want you,” she said with a groan.
“You’ll have me after dinner.”
A shiver of delight tingled at the nape of her neck. She wanted him behind her, his hands holding her breasts, teeth nibbling that spot under her hairline, cock buried deep.
“But I want you now,” she insisted.
“But you have to wait,” he said, his mocking grin making an appearance. “Are you cold, love?” he asked.
If she was, she hadn’t noticed on account of the heat burning through her sex.
“Your nipples are hard.” He cupped one breast and massaged the stiff point with his thumb.
“Not cold,” she said, shuddering with delight. “Hot. For you.”
She reached for his cock, but he caught her hand.
“After dinner,” he said with an air of authority she couldn’t argue against. Well, perhaps she could have argued, but she didn’t want to. She wanted to be done with dinner.
She shifted, forcing her body from the place it most wanted to be—against her big, hunky husband—and moved to rise so she could return to her seat and finish the dinner that was getting in the way of more carnal delights. Sed’s arm went around her back, and he grabbed her hip, tugging her securely against his side.
“You’re not going anywhere, Mrs. Lionheart,” he said. “I want you right here beside me.”
Now that her body was burning for him, she didn’t have the mental capacity to assert her independence. She snuggled into his side and sighed in contentment. He reached across the table and pulled her plate before her. There really wasn’t enough room for two people to dine comfortably on one side of the small table, but comfort was far from her mind as she reached for her fork.
He took it from her. “I’ll feed you.”
The fire in her body died down as the fire in her heart flared back to life. “Oh you will, will you?” she asked, her tone hard with temper.
“What would you like first?” he asked reasonably.
She let a breath out slowly, reminding herself that he was just trying to be romantic and that if she got all defensive now, it would hurt his feelings. And then he’d pretend like he was angry instead of hurt and their whole evening would explode into another argument and then they’d fuck each other until they were raw and spent and too delirious with pleasure to be angry anymore. She was fine with that last part. It was the rest she wanted to avoid.
“Salad,” she said.
He speared several leaves of romaine with her fork and carefully placed them in her open mouth. While she chewed and tried to conjure up romantic feelings about being fed, Sed took several bites of his tortellini.
“Would you like to try the tortellini? It’s really good.”
“Okay.”
He fed her a bite of tortellini, and she murmured in bliss as the Italian spices, cheeses, and tomato sauce delighted her taste buds.
“That is good.”
“Do you want some of this squash?” he asked, indicating the large mound on his plate. The mound she’d placed there to prove a point.
He fed her a lot more squash than she really wanted, but as the reminder of her lesson shrank in size, she relaxed more and more. She started to notice the scenery outside the balloon’s basket as they sailed almost silently over vineyards and foothills. She also noticed how much care Sed put into feeding her—asking her what she’d like, selecting prime bites, gently placing them in her mouth, patiently waiting while she chewed. It made her feel cherished, not dominated. Weird.
When their plates were clean and their bellies full, Sed took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and kissed her gently.
Staring deeply into her eyes, he asked, “How was that?”
“Romantic,” she said dreamily. She leaned toward him, a sappy grin on her face.
“You keep looking at me like that and romance will be the last thing on my mind.”
This time when he kissed her, it was a bit raw. A bit rough. Jessica clung to his huge biceps as she opened her mouth to him and let him devour her.
He drew away, nipping her lip playfully before reaching for the bottle that was chilling in the blue plastic ice bucket. “Let’s go watch the scenery,” he said.
She opened her mouth to agree, and he said, “I mean, would you like to watch the scenery, Jessica?”
“I would,” she said. “If you promise to keep me warm.”
He slid his free hand down her back. “Will you settle for hot?”
“I suppose hot will do.” Feeling positively giddy, she giggled.
She slid from the squishy seat and went to stand by the side of the basket, staring down at the lush green landscape below. Sed handed her the pair of engraved champagne flutes and gave the bottle a vigorous shake.
“Sed, don’t shake it.”
Too late. He lodged his thumbs firmly under the plastic cork, and it ejected from the end of the bottle with a loud pop. White froth exploded from the mouth of the bottle into the sky beyond the ba
sket.
“Someone’s cows might be a bit tipsy tonight,” Jessica said, peering down at the miniature black and white spotted animals scattered across the expansive field below.
“Much more fun than regular cow tipping. But there’s no alcohol in this since you’re now drinking for two.”
Sed took a champagne glass from her and filled it to the brim with sparkling grape juice before handing it back and filling the second glass.
“To us,” he said, clinking his glass against hers and downing the entire glass in four long gulps.
“To us,” she echoed, taking a tiny sip her own bubbly. It wasn’t quite as delicious as real champagne, but she didn’t get along with real champagne very well in the first place. The last time she’d gotten drunk on champagne, she’d been in Vegas and had said some pretty awful things to Sed. It was also when she realized why she’d hated him so much at the time. She’d hated him because no matter how much she fought it, she had never stopped loving him. And now she was glad she never would.
“Thanks,” she said, covering her lower belly with one hand. “For thinking about the baby.”
“I’m always thinking about the baby,” he said.
She smiled in gratitude and took a long drink as he reached for the bottle and refilled his glass, tossing it back without pause. Neither of them would be getting drunk tonight, but Sed seemed to suddenly hope the bubbling grape juice had fermented since his first glass. And Jessica was wondering why.
Chapter Eight
Sed refilled his glass with more grape juice and swallowed a gulp. He wished it had alcohol in it; a little liquid courage never hurt. He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous anyway. She’d already married him. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t written songs about her before. Hell, he’d performed them in front of tens of thousands of fans, but this particular string of lyrics—the ones he wanted to sing in her ear—was too personal to share with the world. She’d be the only one to ever hear it. Well, except for Gary the pilot, if he was paying them any mind.
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