by Maisey Yates
She was also so damn sexy he couldn’t think of anything else, and she was starting to drive him insane.
He didn’t have any practice with restraint. Over the years, he had been involved mostly in casual hookups, and the great thing about those was they could absolutely happen on his schedule. If the woman didn’t matter, then all that was needed was time spent in an appropriate location, and a woman—any woman—would eventually indicate she was available.
But now, he was at the point where not just any woman would do. He needed Poppy.
She was still withholding herself from him, and he supposed he could understand. What with the fact that he had made threats to take her child away if she didn’t fall in line. It was entirely possible he wasn’t her favorite person at the moment.
That bothered him.
He wasn’t very many people’s favorite person. But Poppy liked him. At least, she had always seemed to. And now, he had found a very unique way of messing that up.
He’d had a lot of friendships not go the distance. Admittedly, this was quite the most creative way he’d had one dissolve. Proposing, getting that same friend pregnant, and then forcing her to marry him.
Not that he was forcing her. Not really. He was simply giving her a set of incredibly unpleasant options. And forcing her to choose the one she found the least unpleasant.
He supposed he could take some small measure of comfort in the fact that he wasn’t the least pleasant option.
But then, that had more to do with the baby than with him.
He sighed heavily.
He’d never felt this way about a woman before. The strange sense of constant urgency. To be with her. To fix things with her. The fact that she was angry with him actively bothered him even when she wasn’t in the room displaying that anger.
He could feel it.
He could actually feel someone else’s emotion. Stronger than his own.
If he wasn’t so fed up, he might marvel at that.
He didn’t know what was happening to him.
He was obsessing about the desire. Fixated on it. Because that he understood. Sex, he understood.
This need to tear down all the walls inside him so that he could...
He didn’t know.
Be closer to her? Have her feel him, his emotions, so difficult and hard to explain, as keenly as he felt hers?
They’d been friends for ten years. Now they were lovers.
His feelings were like nothing he’d ever felt for a friend or a lover.
The door opened behind him, and he didn’t have to turn to see that it was Poppy standing in the doorway. She was wearing her favorite red coat that had a high collar and a tightly belted waist, flaring out at her hips. Her hands were stuffed in her pockets, her eyes cast downward.
“How was your day?”
Her voice was so soft it startled him. He turned. “Good. I wish it were over.”
“Still working?”
“Yes. Faith is interested in taking on a couple more projects. I’m just trying to make sure everything balances out.”
“I chose a wedding dress.”
He had half expected her to say that she had chosen a burlap sack. Or nothing at all. As a form of protest.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, not quite sure what she wanted him to say. Not quite sure where this was leading at all.
“I’ve missed you.”
The words landed softly, then seemed to sing down deep into his heart. “I’ve seen you every day for the past week.”
“That isn’t what I meant.” A small crease appeared between her brows as she stared at him. “I’m not going to say I miss the way we used to be. Because I don’t. I like so much of what we have now better. Except...we don’t have it right now. Because I haven’t let you get close to me. I haven’t let you touch me.”
She pushed away from the door jamb and walked slowly toward him. His eyes were drawn downward, to the wicked, black stilettos on her feet. And to her bare legs. Which was odd, because she was wearing a coat as if she had been outside in the cold, and he would have thought she would have something to cover her skin.
“I’ve missed you touching me,” she said, her voice growing husky. “I’ve missed touching you.”
She lifted her hands, working the button at the top of her coat, and then the next, followed by the next. It exposed a V of brown skin, the soft, plump curve of her breasts. And a hint of bright yellow lace.
She made it to the belt, working the fabric through the loop and letting the coat fall open before she undid the button behind it, and the next button, and the next. Until she revealed that she had nothing on beneath the coat but transparent yellow lace. Some sort of top that scooped low around her full breasts and ended above her belly button, showing hints of dark skin through the pattern, the darker shadows of her nipples.
The panties were tiny. They covered almost nothing, and he was pleased with that. She left the heels on, making her legs look impossibly long, shapely and exactly what he wanted wrapped around him.
“What did I do to deserve this?” he asked.
It wasn’t a game. Not a leading question. He genuinely wanted to know.
“Nothing,” she said. She took a step toward him, lifted the delicate high heel up off the ground and pressed her knee into the empty space on the chair, just beside his thigh.
She gripped the back of the chair, leaning forward. “You haven’t done anything at all to deserve this. But I want it. I’m not sure why I shouldn’t have it. I think... I think this is a mess.” Her tongue darted out, slid over her lips, and he felt the action like a slow lick. “We are a mess. We have been. For a long time. Together. Apart. But I’d rather be a mess with you than just a mess who lives in your house and wears your ring. I’d rather be a mess with you inside of me. We’re going to get married. I’m having your baby. We’re going to have to be a family. And I don’t know how to...fix us. I don’t know how to repair the broken spaces inside of us. I don’t know if it’s possible. But nothing is going to be fixed, nothing at all if we’re just strangers existing in the same space. If I’m still just your personal assistant when I’m at work.”
“What are you going to be when you’re at work?”
“Your personal assistant. And your fiancée. And later, your wife. We can’t separate these things. Not anymore. We can’t separate ourselves.”
She pressed her fingertips against his cheek and dragged her hand back, sliding her thumb over his lower lip. “I’m so tired of being lonely. Feeling like...nobody belongs to me. That I don’t belong to anyone.”
Those words echoed inside him, and they touched something raw. Something painful. He felt... He felt as if they could be words that were coming out of his own mouth. As if she was putting voice to his own pain, a pain he had never before realized was there.
“I want you,” she said.
He reached out, bracing his hands on her hips, marveling at the erotic sight of that contrast. His paler hand over the deep rich color of her skin.
A contrast. And still a match.
Deep and sexual and perfect.
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her breast, to the bare skin just above the edge of lace. And she gasped, letting her head fall back. It was the most erotic sight. Perfect and indulgent, and something he wanted to hold on to and turn away from with matching intensity.
He wanted her to make him whole. He wanted to find the thing that she was talking about. That depth. That sense of belonging.
Of not being alone.
Of being understood.
He had never even made that a goal. Not even when he’d been with Rosalind. He’d never imagined that a woman might...understand him. He didn’t quite understand himself. No one ever had.
He was different. That was all he knew.
He didn’t know how to show thin
gs the way other people did. Didn’t know how to read what was happening right in front of him sometimes.
Was more interested in the black-and-white numbers on a page than the full-color scene in front of him.
He couldn’t change it. Didn’t know if he would even if he could. His differences were what had made him successful. Made him who he was. But there were very few people willing to put up with that, with him.
But Poppy always had.
She had always been there. She had never—except for the day when she’d hit him in the chest and called him a robot—she had never acted like him being different was even a problem.
Maybe she was the one who could finally reach him. Maybe she was the one he could hold on to.
“I want you,” he said, repeating her words back to her.
“I’m here,” she said, tilting his face up, her dark eyes luminous and beautiful as she stared down at him. “I’m giving myself to you.” She leaned forward, her lips a whisper from his. “Can I be yours, Isaiah?”
“You already are.”
He closed the distance between them and claimed her mouth with his.
It was like a storm had exploded. He pulled her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her tightly as he kissed her. As he lost himself in her. He wanted there to be nothing between them. Not the T-shirt and jeans he was wearing, not even the beautiful lace that barely covered her curves.
Nothing.
Nothing but her.
A smile curved his lips. She could maybe keep the shoes. Yes, he would love for her to have those shoes on when he draped her legs over his shoulders and thrust deep inside her.
“I want you so much,” he said. The words were torn from him. Coming from somewhere deep and real that he wasn’t normally in touch with. “I think I might die if I don’t have you.”
“I’ve been in front of you for ten years,” she whispered, kissing the spot right next to his mouth, kissing his cheek. “Why now?”
Because he had seen her. Because she had finally kissed him. Because...
“I don’t see the world the way everyone else does,” he whispered. “I know that. Sometimes it takes an act of God for me to really notice what’s happening in front of me. To pull me out of that space in my head. I like it there. Because everything makes sense. And I put people in their place, so I can navigate the day with everything just where I expect it. I can never totally do that with you, Poppy. You always occupied more spaces than you were supposed to.
“I hired you, but you were never only my assistant. You became my friend. And then, you wouldn’t stay there either. I put control above everything else. I always have. It’s the only way to... For me to make the world work. If I go in knowing exactly what to expect, knowing what everything is. What everyone is. And that’s how I didn’t see. But then...the minute our lips touched, I knew. I knew, and I can’t go back to knowing anything different.”
“You like blondes,” she pointed out.
“I don’t,” he responded.
“Rosalind was blonde,” Poppy said, brazenly speaking the name she usually avoided at all costs. “And there have been a string of them ever since.”
“I told you. I like certainty. Blondes are women I’m attracted to. At least, that was an easy way to think of it. I like to bring order to the world in any way I can.”
“And that kept you from looking at me?”
He searched her face, trying to get an idea of what she was thinking. He searched himself, because he didn’t know the answer. She was beautiful, and the fact that he hadn’t been obsessed with her like this for the past decade was destined to remain a mystery to him.
“Maybe.”
She touched his face, sliding her palms back, holding him. “You are not difficult,” she said. “Not to me. I like you. All of you.”
“No,” he responded, shaking his head. “You... You put up with me, I’m sure. And I compensate for the ways that I’m difficult by...”
“No, Isaiah. I like all of you. I always have. There’s no putting up with anything.”
He hadn’t realized how much words like that might mean. Until they poured through him like sunshine dipping down into a low, dark valley. Flooding him with light and warmth.
When he’d been younger, he’d had a kind of boundless certainty in his worldview. But as he’d gotten older—as he’d realized that the way he saw things, the way he perceived interactions and emotions, was often different from the other people involved—he’d started questioning himself.
The older he’d gotten the more he’d realized. How difficult people found it to be his friend. How hard he found it sometimes to carry on a conversation another person wanted to have when he just wanted to charge straight to the point.
How much his brother Joshua carried for him, with his lightning-quick response times and his way with words.
Which had made him wonder how much his parents had modified for him back before he’d realized he needed modification at all.
And with that realization came the worry. About how much of a burden he might be.
But not to Poppy.
He reached up and wrapped his fingers around her slender wrists, holding her hands against his face. He looked at her. Just looked. He didn’t have words to respond to what she had said.
He didn’t have words.
He had nothing but his desire for her, twisting in his gut, taking him over. Control was the linchpin in his life. It was essential to him. But not now. Now, only Poppy was essential. He wanted her to keep touching him.
Control could wait. It could be set aside for now.
Because letting go so he could hold on to this—to her—was much more important.
It was necessary.
He slid her hands back, draping her arms over his shoulders so she was closer to him, so she was holding on to him. Then he cradled her face, dragging her mouth to his, claiming her, deep and hard and long. Pouring everything that he felt, everything he couldn’t say, into this kiss. Into this moment.
He pulled away, sliding his thumb across her lower lip, watching as heat and desire clouded her dark eyes. He could see her surrender to the same need that was roaring through him.
“I always have control,” he mumbled, pressing a kiss to her neck, another, and then traveling down to her collarbone. “Always.”
He pressed his hand firmly to the small of her back, holding her against him as he stood from the chair, then lowered them both down onto the floor.
He reached behind her and tugged at the top she was wearing. He didn’t manage to get hold of the snaps, and he tore the straps, the elastic popping free, the cups falling away from her breasts.
He didn’t have to tell her he was out of control. She knew. He could see it. In the heat and fire burning in her dark eyes, and in the subtle curve of her full lips.
She knew that he was out of control, for her. And she liked it.
His efficient, organized Poppy had a wild side. At least, she did with him.
Only for him.
Suddenly, the fact that she had never been with another man before meant everything. This was his.
She was his.
And it mattered.
More than he would have ever thought it could. He had never given thought to something like that before. He didn’t know why he did now. Except... Poppy.
Poppy, who had always been there.
She was a phenomenon. Someone he couldn’t understand, someone he wasn’t sure he wanted to understand. He didn’t mind her staying mysterious. An enigma he got to hold in his arms. As long as this burning bright glory remained.
If he stopped to think, she might disappear. This moment might vanish completely, and he couldn’t bear that.
She tore at his clothes too, wrenching them away from his body, making quick work of his shirt before tur
ning her attention to his pants.
As she undressed him, he finished with her clothes, capturing her nipple in his mouth, sucking it in deep. Tasting her. Relishing the feel of her, that velvet skin under his tongue. The taste of her.
It wasn’t enough. It never would be. Nothing ever would be.
He felt like his skin was hypersensitized, and that feeling ran all the way beneath his skin, deeper. Making him feel...
Making him feel.
He pressed his face into the curve of her neck, kissing her there, licking her. She whimpered and shifted beneath him, wrapping her fingers around his thick length, squeezing him. He let his head fall back, a hoarse groan on his lips.
“Not like that,” he rasped. “I need to... No, Poppy. I need you.”
“But you have me.” She looked innocent. Far too innocent for the moment.
She stroked him, sliding her fingers up and down his length. Then she reached forward, planting her free hand in the center of his chest and pushing him backward slightly. He didn’t have to give. He chose to. Because he wanted to see what she would do. He was far too captivated by what might be brewing beneath the surface.
Her breasts were completely bare for him. And then she leaned forward, wrapping her lips around the head of his erection, sliding down slowly as she took all of him into her mouth.
He gritted his teeth, her name a curse on his lips as he grabbed hold of her dark curls and held on tightly while she pleasured him with her mouth. He was transfixed by the sight of her. By the way she moved, unpracticed but earnest. By the way she made him feel.
“Have you ever done this before?” He forced the words out through his constricted throat.
The answer to that question shouldn’t matter. It was a question he never should have asked. He’d never cared before, if one of his partners had other lovers. He would have said he preferred a woman with experience.
Not with Poppy. The idea of another man touching her made him insane.
She licked him from base to tip like a lollipop, and then looked up at him. “No.”
He swore, letting his head fall back as she took him in deep again.
“Does that matter to you?” she asked, angling her head and licking him.