She gazed up at him, her eyes hot. “Let’s see who can get undressed the fastest.”
He’d never seen her look quite so free before. He was proud of her for standing up to her sister, for having the courage to cut her off. But he’d tell her later, after he ravished her.
“You’re on,” he said, whipping his shirt over his head while he kicked off his shoes.
She simply started tearing everything off right there on the bed, throwing clothing every which way.
“I beat you.” She lay dazzlingly naked in the middle of the bed, completely unabashed.
“That’s only because you were barely dressed from the last time I devoured you.”
Had it really been only an hour ago that they’d fallen on each other in her entryway? It seemed like a lifetime.
He started to climb back onto the bed, but she held up her hand. “Wait.”
He stopped, one knee on the mattress. “What?”
“I want to look at you.” Her gaze stroked him like the touch of her hand. “You’re like a Greek statue. You always have been.”
He worked out every day to get this way. He and Matt had been the puniest of the Mavericks when they were younger. “Back in college, I didn’t have nearly enough time to work out.”
She reached out, running her fingertips over his pecs, his abs, his muscles leaping beneath her touch. Wanting more. Always more when it came to Paige.
“Even in college, you were magnificent. And now I know how you feel, how you taste.” She licked her lips. “Even in my dreams, it wasn’t this good.”
“I dreamed about you too. When we were in college.”
“You did?”
“How could I not? And then this week, I couldn’t stop dreaming again, couldn’t stop fantasizing.” He came back over her, kissing her mouth before raining kisses down over her neck, her shoulders, the swells of her breasts until she gasped. Moaned her pleasure. “You made all those hot little sounds in my dreams.” He slid a hand down between them. “I touched you here.” He stroked up, gliding over her aroused flesh until she arched, her breasts caressing his chest. “Then I did this.” He rolled her to her stomach beneath him, brought her up to her knees.Sliding down between her legs, he parted them and breathed her in. Her hair fell over her back, and he brushed the silky locks aside to kiss her spine, loving the way she trembled with need.
He licked and kissed and nipped, then rose up over her. “You’re so ready. So hungry. For me. Only me.” He rubbed his hard length along the slick folds of her sex. “Just like you were in my dreams.”
He poised at her entrance, held himself there, glorying in her heat. Then he slid home inside her.
“Evan.” His name fell from her lips as she took him deeper than he’d ever thought it possible to connect with another person.
“I kissed your neck just like this.” His words were raw, overwhelmed with desire as he peppered her neck with kisses. He pushed deeper, and her hands fisted on the sheets. When he pulled out, he forced himself to go slow, to tease her, stroke her. “I told you how gorgeous you were.” He buried his face in her hair. “I told you how you filled up every empty space inside me.”
She cried out, her body shivering around him. And he almost lost it. Lost himself completely in her. But he needed her to know what she did to him. How much she meant.
“In my dreams, I told you how much I loved the sound of your voice.” He groaned as she let go of the sheets and laced her fingers with his. “I told you how I loved talking with you, just sitting, just being. Loved the way you listened.”
He tried to hold on, but he couldn’t help spinning out of control, rocking them both across the bed, keeping her hands tightly laced in his, the spasms of her body turning him mindless.
“I told you—” Then he couldn’t remember anything else.
Except that he’d made the wrong choice long ago. At long last, he’d finally made the right one.
Paige was everything he could ever want, everything he could ever need. He was the luckiest guy in the world that she could still want to be with him after all the ways he’d screwed up.
But would the heat, the joy, the power of their connection, be enough to erase the mistakes—and the darkness—of his past?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Whitney’s lawyer was a shark, complete with big white teeth and fleshy lips large enough to hold them all. Randall P. Craig smiled with evil glee as he pushed duplicate copies of Whitney’s new demands to Evan and his lawyer across the wide expanse of the conference table.
She was dressed for performance in a couture suit, her lips painted a deep red that would leave marks on a man’s skin. Just the way her nails would. And her lies.
She dabbed at the corner of her eye with a small silk handkerchief that Evan was sure Randall P. Craig had provided for just this purpose. He also noticed a lipstick stain on her teeth. She’d be horrified, so he didn’t tell her. It was petty but liberating.
“Due to Mrs. Collins’ emotional distress after learning of her husband’s perfidy—” Evan could barely hold back an eye roll at Randall’s description. “—my client is asking for damages in addition to her rightful fifty percent. We believe one hundred percent would be just recompense. After all, Mr. Collins has been sleeping with her sister.” Randall infused as much shock and horror as he could into the word. “Probably for years.”