by Nalini Singh
They got one.
“That was so wonderful,” she whispered in the aftermath.
Abe, his hand firmly clamped around hers as they stood to exit the concert hall, passed her his program to hold. “Not their best performance, but damn good.”
“Not their best?” Sarah’s mouth fell open. “How much better can they get?”
“You’ll have to keep being my plus one if you want to find out.” He maneuvered them through the crowd milling around in the large atrium outside the performance chamber.
Sarah didn’t consciously realize he was still holding her hand until they were in the elevator to the parking garage, and then she didn’t want him to let go. Just like she hadn’t been able to stop herself from saying yes when he asked her out. Fear licked over her heart, quelling the breathless joy she’d found in the music.
Abe had hurt her so much.
“You want to stop for a snack?” Abe asked after they were in the SUV.
And the words just spilled out. “Let’s go to bed.” It was only chemistry, nothing more. She’d surrender to it, let it burn out. And see what was left.
CHAPTER 22
ABE WAS FUCKING GLAD HE HADN’T started driving, or he’d have plowed into something right then. “Sarah.”
“You heard what I said.” Tone firm, she stared straight through the windshield, but her breathing gave her away, shallow and a little too fast.
His eyes dipped to her breasts, those magnificent breasts he’d always loved. They seemed to swell in front of his eyes. “Are your breasts already more sensitive?” he asked before he could stop himself.
“A little.” Her response was husky. “It’s just the start.”
Cock rigid, Abe nonetheless wanted to quiz her about her sudden invitation. Don’t be an idiot. It was a ringing slap from the part of him that knew the physical stuff between them had never been just sex… no matter what Sarah might believe.
After driving to her place, he parked inside her garage beside her little red car.
He’d have hauled her into a kiss the instant they walked into the house, but he wasn’t in charge today; this was Sarah’s show. She greeted an excited Flossie and made sure the dog was happy to play outside before she led him to the bedroom, kicked off her heels, then placed her purse neatly on the vanity.
Sarah always had a purse with her, and it always had some cash in it along with a credit card and her phone. He remembered how they’d once gone to a party to celebrate a close friend’s birthday, and in the rush to leave, she’d forgotten her purse at home. She’d remembered halfway to their destination, asked him to go back; he’d tried but it had proved impossible in the traffic.
That was the day he’d realized how badly Sarah needed the security blanket of her purse. She’d been near tears by the time they arrived at the party, had only seemed to breathe again after he gave her his wallet and phone, told her to look after them both. That was one time he hadn’t been an asshole to her. He’d kept her tucked close to his side all night, taken her home as soon as he could without it being an insult to their hosts.
And he’d started to understand that Sarah didn’t just need a little cash at hand—usually all it was was a fifty. She needed a phone too. Where Sarah went, so did her phone and enough cash to get her home. The purses were vehicles for those two things, but they also just made her happy, as beautiful musical instruments made him.
“You still hoarding purses?” Having kicked off his own shoes and socks, he sprawled on the bed with his legs stretched out, body braced on his elbows.
A sheepish look from the only woman who’d ever gotten to the heart of him. “I can’t help myself,” she admitted as she removed the pearl necklace he recognized from their wedding.
She’d been a magnificent bride, statuesque and with an innate sense of presence he didn’t think she’d ever realized about herself. He remembered how she’d glowed—and he remembered what they’d done to each other in bed that night, her body arching under his caressing hand and her arms holding him possessively close.
“Yeah?” His voice was rough. “How many in your collection now?”
That was another thing he hadn’t been an asshole about: he’d bought her as many purses as she wanted, had often come home from tour with three or four that he’d picked up along the way. It would’ve been better had he taken her with him so she could choose her own favorites, but that was done. Abe wouldn’t excuse his behavior or forgive himself for it, but he intended to do better now.
Sarah looked so guilty right then that he chuckled, his chest going all tight. “I bet if I hunt around this house, I’ll find a dedicated purse room.”
“No comment.” A sudden, dazzling smile that caught him right in the solar plexus. “Don’t tease me. You were such an enabler.”
He grinned past the emotions crashing through him… and Sarah reached back to undo her zipper. “Let me.” He wanted to adore her, seduce her, addict her.
She hesitated for a taut second before dropping her hands.
He rose to go stand at her back, then kissed the bare skin of her exposed nape, her hair up in a sleek knot.
Sarah shivered. Her skin was warm and toned and flawless under his lips, her curves just made for his big hands. Quickly unzipping and pushing off her dress because he loved Sarah naked, he let her step out of the dress, then unhooked the black lace of her bra.
It joined the dress on the floor.
Out of patience, he cupped the heavy weight of her breasts from behind, rubbing his thumbs over the swollen nipples that had always been sensitive. When she cried out, he petted her breasts, whispered, “I’ll be careful.” It was a sensual promise. “Treat you so well, Sarah.” A kiss to her throat, her body melting back into his.
His cock pulsed.
Shuddering, he moved his hands from her breasts and down her body. Splaying the fingers of one hand over her abdomen, he slid his other one into the lace and satin of her panties. One arm rising to hook around the back of his neck, Sarah rasped his name. It was as if she’d clasped his cock in those long, capable fingers of hers, squeezed.
“I’ve got you,” he said, kissing his way up her throat as he stroked his fingers through her lush folds.
She was liquid with need for him.
He felt like a fucking god.
Tugging on the plump bud of her clit, he wasn’t prepared for her to pull away his hand and spin around to face him. He’d opened his mouth to ask if he’d touched her too roughly when she went to work on his shirt buttons.
Oh.
More than willing to be stripped by Sarah, he stood in place and let her undo his shirt, push it off. She pressed kisses across his chest, his shoulders. He loved that she was tall enough to do that, that they fit together like they were two halves of a whole.
Moving one hand to her ass, he cupped a cheek, stroked.
Her breasts rising and falling in a rapid, harsh rhythm, she dropped her hands to his belt buckle. He was wearing his favorite old belt—it was simple black leather but had a slightly tricky clasp… which gave Sarah no trouble at all. And he remembered this was his wife in his arms.
Ex-wife, the civilized part of his brain reminded him for the umpteenth time.
Fuck that, Abe muttered silently. Sarah was his and he intended to put his ring back on her finger. He had no intention of repeating his stupidity in letting her go. Not this time. Gripping her chin as she was undoing the button on his jeans, he dropped his head and kissed her long and slow and deep, his other hand thrusting into her hair to unravel it.
He licked his tongue over hers, drank her in.
Sarah moaned in the back of her throat but pulled away. “I want you naked.”
He smiled even as his cock jumped. “So you do know how to talk dirty.” Fisting his hand in her hair as she ducked her head, her skin no doubt hot with a blush but her fingers busy, he tensed his abdomen in an effort not to bring things to a premature end.
It was hard. Not only was she touch
ing him, she was nearly naked. The position of her arms pushed together her breasts, creating a deliciously deep cleavage that put all kinds of sinful ideas in his head. “You’re killing me, sweetheart.”
“You’re the one with your fingers brushing my…”
“Brushing your what?” Abe teased her with those fingers, caressing her through the gusset of her panties. “Did you mean to say your pussy?”
Shivering—and proving she was still delightfully susceptible to a bit of dirty talk from him—Sarah pushed down his jeans and underwear at the same time. She closed her fingers around his cock before he could step out of the clothes.
“Jesus, Sarah, I—” He lost his mind and his words as Sarah went down on her knees in front of him.
Flicking her eyes up to meet his gaze, she took his cock into her mouth.
Abe’s grunt of pleasure had her lashes lowering as she sank into her self-imposed task. He realized he was tugging too hard on her hair, tried to get himself to relax, but oh, sweet fuck— The sight of his wife with her lips stretched around his cock, the feel of her tongue pressing up against his length, the heated wet, her nails digging into the backs of his thighs as she gripped him with open possessiveness.
Abe barely managed to give Sarah a warning that he was about to come.
She pulled away her mouth but then gave him that sultry smile of hers he only ever saw in bed, and cupped her breasts in sensual invitation. Abe lost it. Gripping his cock as his balls drew up impossibly tight, he came all over his wife’s full breasts.
Legs shaky afterward, he somehow untangled himself from his clothes, then tugged Sarah to her feet. “That was hot.” He kissed her, one hand gripping the back of her head as he thrust his tongue into her mouth.
Her throaty moan was all the encouragement he needed.
Shoving down her panties to partway down her thighs, he touched her between her legs, felt how swollen she was, how wet. Her body clamped down on the single finger he slid inside her. Brain hazing, he withdrew the finger and said, “Hold that thought.”
First he stripped off her panties, then he tugged her into the bathroom.
Using a wet facecloth to wipe her breasts clean after lifting her up onto the counter, he kissed her again and again. She didn’t resist, hooking one of her legs around his hip, her arms locked around his neck. He’d come blindingly hard just before, but he’d been wanting Sarah forever. He knew he’d be ready again soon. He decided to spend the time driving his wife crazy.
Petting her thigh, he flicked out his tongue to tease one nipple, then the other before getting serious and sucking one to luscious wetness. At the same time, he ran one finger along the seam of her sex, putting just enough pressure on her clit to make her tremble.
“Abe.”
He released her nipple after one last flick of his tongue and inserted a finger inside her slick sheath. “What do you need, sweetheart?”
A clenching of her inner muscles, her lips shaping a single word. “You.”
Groaning, he managed to wedge in another finger. “You can take a third, can’t you, Sarah?” His fingers were thick, but his cock was thicker.
Bracing her hands behind her on the counter, Sarah arched into his fingers in a silent answer. He pressed the pad of his thumb against her clit as he began to push a third finger inside. The pressure was exactly what Sarah needed. Screaming, she held on to his wrist with one hand as her body spasmed around him, those hidden feminine muscles promising his cock so much pleasure that it came back to life in a rock-hard surge.
Pulling out his fingers—and inciting a cry of pure feminine outrage that made him grin—Abe spread her thighs wide and, pulling her forward, thrust deep inside her in a single motion while she was still in the throes of orgasm. Her nails dug into his shoulders as her head fell back, his name falling from her lips over and over.
“You feel too damn good,” he groaned. “But don’t worry. I’ve got plenty of stamina thanks to your sexy mouth.”
“Oh God, Abe.”
He rode her through the last shudders of her first orgasm, then got to work on heating her up for a second. And a third. She was boneless when he finally came inside her, when he marked her in the most intimate way possible.
Holding her cuddled up against him, their bodies yet one, he hoped she knew he was loving her.
SARAH LAY IN BED AFTERWARD, her mind hazy and her breath still short.
Abe had always done this to her, turned her into a mass of trembling flesh that was all nerves and sensation and need. But he’d satisfied her too. As he had tonight. Even when everything else had gone wrong between them, the sex had been phenomenal.
During their marriage, she used to call it “making love”—at least in her own head. Her stupid mushy heart had liked the sound of it… but she had to be honest now. They weren’t making love now, hadn’t been making love then. No… she had been.
Because she’d loved Abe in a way he had never loved her.
Careful, Sarah. Don’t you fall again. Don’t you let yourself be broken when you’ve barely put yourself back together.
“Only until the baby comes,” she said on a driving wave of fear and primal protectiveness.
Abe leaned up on his elbow to look down at her, all gleaming brown skin and taut muscle. “What?” He ran his free hand over her abdomen and hip.
She shivered, held on to her thoughts through sheer strength of will. “This,” she whispered, looking away from him because facing a sexually sated Abe and having rational thoughts were mutually exclusive events for her. “Us.”
His hand went motionless on her skin. “I thought you said I could have a role in our kid’s life if I proved myself and my sobriety?”
She turned onto her side so she was facing him—and he was scowling now, so she could hold an actual conversation instead of being led around by her hormones. “Of course you’re going to be a father to our child,” she said at once. “I want that more than anything.” Memories crashed into her without warning. “You have to stay clean though, Abe. I can’t handle all that again—and our child shouldn’t have to.”
His jaw muscles tensed, as did his shoulders, but he didn’t get angry. “Yeah,” he said, “I get that. I won’t fuck up our kid’s head by getting shitfaced.”
“That’s what I meant about us too.” She took a deep breath, and his scent, it was like a drug through her system. “It’ll confuse our child if he or she finds us in bed together, or if they figure out we’re having sex.”
Raising his hand, Abe brushed her hair off her face, a passionate intensity to his gaze that held her captive. “Only if we aren’t together in reality by then.”
Her heart slammed against her rib cage, hope spiraling upward in a golden burst. It was tough, so damn tough not to jump into the arms of that hope. “We self-destructed, Abe,” she whispered. “No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get through to you about—”
“I had to be ready first.” Abe’s voice was rough, brutally honest. “You couldn’t help a man who didn’t want to be helped.”
“It wasn’t just that.” Then she said it, said the most hurtful thing. “You didn’t love me.”
Abe’s face closed off. She’d seen that a hundred times before, should’ve become used to it. But it still hurt just as badly as the first time he’d shut her out. “There you go,” she said through a throat gone raw. “Leaving me behind while we’re naked in the same bed. I never felt as lonely as when you did that.”
CHAPTER 23
SARAH’S SOFT WORDS HIT ABE HARD, drawing blood. He knew that hadn’t been her intent. Sarah had always had a heart of pure mush. “I’m sorry,” he began, because it was time to stop being a coward, to man up and admit his terror.
“It’s all right, Abe.” A sad smile, her fingers brushing his lips. “You can’t force love. I don’t expect it, wasn’t trying to guilt you into a false confession.”
No, he would not let this bullshit stand. “That man you knew during most of our marriage
?” he said, tugging away her hand and pressing it against his heart. “He wasn’t Abe. Or he was a fucked-up version of me.” The music had survived his addiction, but the drugs had damaged everything else. “But I was stone-cold sober the night I met you and I’m stone-cold sober now—and no woman, no woman, does to me what you do. I fucking love you. Always have, always will.”
Sarah’s throat moved as she swallowed, the thickness of her lashes coming down over the dark of her eyes for a long, still moment. “The physical connection isn’t enough,” she said, and he knew she didn’t believe him.
His world threatened to shatter.
But then he realized: words were easy. It was the doing that was hard.
He’d have to do. He’d have to love her until she had no choice but to trust in his love.
Cupping the side of her face, he slit open his veins. “I’m a coward, Sarah. So scared of losing you like I lost Tessie¸ so terrified of having my heart torn out of my chest that I tried to push you away, deny my love.” Abe felt as if he was fighting for his life. “But you’re it for me, Sarah. The only woman I will ever love.”
He and Noah, they’d had a conversation about love not long ago where he’d told Noah something his mom had asked him before his and Sarah’s wedding: Was Sarah a woman he’d have run off with if given the chance? When Noah repeated Abe’s mother’s question, Abe had hesitated, said he wasn’t sure.
What a load of fucking horseshit.
All it would take was the slightest encouragement and he’d have her in front of a justice of the peace so fast she wouldn’t even have time to get a wedding dress.
But Sarah didn’t speak. Her hand lay unmoving on him, her expression still, but there was nothing to say she believed his declaration. Abe didn’t panic; he’d known this wouldn’t be easy. He’d hurt her brutally in his self-protective terror, savaged that soft heart. He had to earn back her trust, earn the right to fight for her love.