Want Ad Wife. Katy Madison

you to relax,” he answered. His gaze dipped to where she held the sheet with a death grip.

      She turned her face toward the flickering candle. “I don’t think I can.” Not as long as she feared he’d discover her secret. But she loosened her grip and cast up a silent prayer that he wouldn’t want to lower the sheet. If only she knew he couldn’t see the scars on her belly.

      “The candle is not so bright,” he said softly. “And we can keep the covers pulled up. All I need to see is your eyes, sweetheart.”

      So he could ferret out the lies in them? “Why?”

      He ran his fingers down her neck, and her stomach felt as though she were sailing on a swing. “To know when I am giving you pleasure.”

      Her mind went blank while her body jolted. Her muscles went slack and tight at the same time, if such a thing were possible. “But...”

      His lips curled, exposing strong white teeth. “You look confused, wife.”

      A wife’s duty was to submit to her husband. If she could just get him to that point. Her mind tumbled over the time with Clarence, looking for a tool to use. Reaching out over the sheet, she caught John’s wrist and brought his hand down over her breast.

      The jolt that ran through her as his fingers closed around her flesh caught her unaware. Perhaps she was still sensitive there. She’d ached for days after she’d passed the baby to the older couple. She mentally braced for the pain when he would squeeze her breast as if he was trying to extract juice from an orange, as Clarence had. John didn’t squeeze. Instead he cupped her and slid his thumb across her nipple.

      A new jolt shimmered down her spine and landed between her legs. He leaned closer and whispered across her lips, “You like that?”

      Did she like it? She didn’t know whether to rear back and look at him or just tuck her head into his neck. “I thought it would give you pleasure to touch me there.”

      He had been about to kiss her; she’d been sure of it. Instead he grinned. “My pleasure is not in doubt.”

      Then why wouldn’t he...finish? “Isn’t it? You don’t seem very eager.”

      “I am more eager than you could know.” His fingers circled lazily around her breast.

      Her cheeks heated. Looking at him as he moved his fingers on her breast was more than she could stand. And it was doing strange things to her. She turned her head and tucked her face against his shoulder.

      “Anything and everything about you pleases me,” he whispered against her ear as he ran his thumb over her nipple again.

      The jolt that ran through her was unmistakable this time.

      “See there, you do like it,” he said, between kisses on her neck.

      Did she?

      His fingers plucked at her tightened nipple through the sheet and her woman’s place tightened. She sighed into his shoulder.

      He bent over her and shifted her hair to kiss along her shoulder. His fingers slid upward, and she moaned a protest. His touch, his lips against her neck and shoulder, the smell of his skin left her spineless, as if her bones where melting and she would just flow around him and into him.

      The sheet shifted downward, brushing across her sensitized skin.

      He was baring her.

      The realization sliced through the melting sensations with a cold truth. She could not let him see her belly.

      She grabbed the edge of the sheet and jerked it back up to her neck.

      “Hey,” he muttered. He caught her chin. “Look at me.”

      She let him turn her face so they were eye to eye again. His brow had a tiny pucker in it, but his eyes were intense and compelling.

      “I just want to kiss you here.” The rough, low timbre of his voice ran through her as his fingers skimmed over her breast.

      Her lips parted as she stared at him.

      She gave a tiny shake of her head. Her breasts tingled in protest, as if her body welcomed the idea of his mouth on her skin. But she couldn’t allow it. Not so long as it required lowering the sheet.

      “Selina—”

      She twisted toward him, bringing their bodies in contact. Her breath whooshed out in a whimper she couldn’t hold back. “I’m ready. Please.”

      “You’re not,” he growled, but his hand splayed against her spine, drawing her closer. Bringing her knee up over his hip, she tried to encourage him. The sensitive inner flesh of her thigh rubbed against the coarse hairs of his leg. She resisted the urge to slide her leg back and forth and ended with her folded limb against his side.

      He groaned and rocked his hips forward. That male part of him pressed against her belly.

      Squirming higher, she tried to get positioned correctly.

      “I can’t fight both of us,” he said.

      If he was fighting himself, she had no indication of it.

      He rolled her to her back. His mouth crashed against hers as his weight bore her down into the mattress.

      His kiss was insistent, impatient. He positioned her head as he wanted it, and he seemed to want to fuse them together. Air rushed across her cheek as he breathed hard, but didn’t unlock his lips from hers. He sucked on her tongue, drawing it into his mouth as if he was done allowing an unequal pairing.