His warm breath heated the skin below my ear right before his lips touched it. My back went rigid when he lightly sucked at my neck. He didn’t stop until I knew he’d put a mark on me. I could already feel it rising to the surface. The proof that I belonged to this man pulled things from me that I hadn’t known were there in the first place.
The cab driver was paying attention to the road, thankfully, but when a soft whimper spilled out of my mouth, his eyes lifted to the rearview. He must have guessed what was going on because his eyes flickered back to the windshield a moment after.
The hotel was up ahead. We’d just passed through the gates, and I could make out the massive structure Jacob had showed me online when he’d pitched St. Thomas as a honeymoon idea. I’d been happy to go with St. Thomas when the alternatives he suggested were Cancun, Crete, and Amsterdam. St. Thomas was the quietest of those options, although the resort was like its own mini party that never ended, from the looks of it.
That was probably why Jacob had picked it. If it had been up to me, we’d be on some quiet island where you maybe came across the occasional sea turtle.
“Penthouse?” Jacob said, glancing at the tall tower as the cab approached.
“Nothing but the best for you, right?” I could see that the lobby was full of people in bright clothes, drinks in hand and all-nighter goals in sight.
“Yeah, but what’s the best for you?” Jacob pulled out his phone and pulled up the hotel’s website. I wasn’t sure how to answer that, so I stayed quiet as he scrolled through a few pages, getting ready to open the door. “I’ll be right back. Just hang tight a minute.”
Before I could say anything, he’d closed the door and was loping up the gleaming stairs of the hotel’s entrance. He’d booked the penthouse a whole five minutes after we set the wedding date, wanting to make sure we had the top floor and everyone knew we had the top floor. So why was he acting like the penthouse wasn’t going to work anymore? It wasn’t like there was anything higher or more prestigious.
While I waited, I spun the bracelet around on my wrist. Only a few minutes later, he was back, climbing into the backseat with a half-smile.
“What?” I asked, nudging him.
He ignored me, his smile spreading as he listed off a few directions to the driver. The car pulled away from the curb, and we headed away from the monstrous tower.
“What in the world is going on?” I asked, twisting in my seat so he had to look at me.
Now he was practically grinning, like he was in on the best secret ever. His shoulder lifted. “The resort has a few cabins too. Private cabins on the outskirts of the property.” His eyes met mine as he lifted a couple of keys. “And lucky for us, they still had one available.”
I couldn’t help it—I started bouncing like a little kid in my seat. “Private cabin?”
“Private beachfront cabin.”
More bouncing, but then I stopped. “But you wanted the penthouse. You booked it a year ago. Why did you change your mind?”
Jacob’s arm came around me again. “Because what’s best for me is what’s best for you.”
My heart did that skip thing it hadn’t done in a long time. I knew how badly he’d wanted that room, so that he’d changed things so I’d be more comfortable reminded me again why I’d made the right decision marrying him.
Jacob Adams loved me. He’d had a difficult time showing it at times, but I’d always known he did, and today, he was finally proving it. I’d stood by him in the hard times, so I was going to enjoy these good times.
“Have I mentioned I love you?” I asked, dropping my hand against his chest. I felt his head shake above mine.
“No. I don’t think you have.”
I let go of the breath I’d been holding. I didn’t need to hold my breath that everything would be okay anymore. “I love you,” I whispered. “I love you so much.”
Standing in at the wedding had turned into standing in at the honeymoon. I wasn’t exactly sure how I’d gotten here. Why I’d let it get this far. Why I hadn’t pulled her aside at the reception to tell her what was up.
I knew part of it was because I didn’t want to hurt her, but I couldn’t ignore how this whole day felt so right. I had a conscience—I knew I did. Somewhere. It had made itself known plenty of times before where Cora was involved, but today, it seemed to have disappeared. Taken a temporary hiatus.
I supposed I should have been more concerned than I was.
Maybe now that we were about to finally be alone, I should tell her. She might never forgive me, but she definitely never would if we went into that cottage and something else happened. I had to tell her before we got to that point.
“Is this for real?” Cora squealed when the driver stopped in front of a dark cottage at the edge of the resort. I couldn’t see anything else around but the beach, a few lonely palm trees¸ and an endless starry sky that bled into the still ocean.
“Better?” I said before sliding out of the cab and taking her hand to help her out. She was still reeling from downing a handful of mini bottles of airline booze. I wasn’t exactly sober either.
“This is perfect.” She smiled at the cabin as the driver stacked our suitcases outside of the door. “This day was perfect. And you are perfect.”
I grunted. “I am completely unperfect.”
She glanced back at me as she continued toward the cabin. “I’m not used to you not taking a compliment and being so modest. That’s more your brother’s style.”
I focused on paying the cab driver. She knew us both so well—it was a damn miracle she hadn’t figured it out sooner. I had wedding day anxiety and swarms of people and small bottles of alcohol to thank for her not realizing it, but tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow would be only her and me and no one to distract us, nothing to pull us apart. She’d figure it out. Jacob and I might have looked the same, but that was where our similarities ended.
I lingered at the bottom of the stairs after the cab left. She was waiting for me, but I knew what she was waiting for. She hadn’t been subtle about it, and this was her wedding night. There were times in my life when I’d thought myself a strong man—like the first time I saved a life in the ER or helped an injured passenger at the scene of an accident—but never when it came to Cora. Not once. I would abandon all of my supposed morals and beliefs to protect her. My beliefs about what was right and wrong became intermingled with my complete and total adoration of the woman standing before me, waiting.
Waiting for me to carry her inside and make love to her.
I’d have given her anything, but I couldn’t give her this. Because it wasn’t me she was asking. It was Jacob. Always Jacob.
“Well?” She held out her hand, a gleam in her eyes that made every muscle in my body ache. When I took a moment to meet her in front of the door, she absently twirled the charm bracelet. “Do you remember the time my mom took us all to Disney World and both of you were fighting over who got to ride with me on Magic Mountain? And I said I’d ride with you both so you’d stop fighting?”
“Yeah,” I answered, climbing the stairs. “I remember you picking Matt first.”
Her eyes lifted, like she was familiar with this type of jealousy. God knew she’d seen no shortage of it growing up with us. “But then you threw a fit, so I went with you first and Matt second.”
I nodded as I stuck the key in the lock. “And he never stopped reminding me how you just wanted to save the best for last.”
She laughed gently, then her face ironed out all at once. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about him right now. I know it makes you uncomfortable.”
My brows pulled together after I opened the door. “Why does you talking about Matt make me uncomfortable?”
Cora shifted. “Because.”
“Because why?”
She sucked in a breath. She was in the middle of letting it out when she said, “Because you’ve always been under some impression that I’m into him. You’ve never liked me talking about him,
or even talking with him.”
I’d been about to grab the suitcases, but I stopped. More like I froze. Jacob had been under some impression that Cora liked me? He’d never said anything to me—never even indicated anything that would make me think he didn’t want her around me. “Please. When have I not wanted you to talk with my brother? We grew up together.”
Cora’s hand settled above her hip as she blinked at me. “Are you really going to make me recap the past decade for you? Because that might take the next decade to sum up.”
For real? Jacob had never hinted at Cora having feelings for me, but clearly he’d brought it up to her. Plenty of times, from the sound of it. Which was its own kind of surprise. But Jacob believing she might have harbored feelings for me didn’t mean she actually did. That was all I really cared about. Not my brother’s tendency toward jealousy.
“So?” I crossed my arms and leaned into the banister behind me. “Did you? Like my brother?”
She sighed, turning toward the open door. “Jacob . . .”
“What? It’s a fair question.” I shoved off the banister, feeling hope and heat tangling in my veins from the look on her face, from the sound of her voice. She’d felt something for me, whether it be the most passing of crushes or something much deeper. Realizing that had me feeling drunk from something other than alcohol. “Besides, you’re stuck with me now. Won’t matter what you ’fess up to.”
Cora started through the doorway. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Grabbing the suitcases, I followed her. I wasn’t letting this go. Never. Not if she threatened death or castration or anything else. “Why not?”
She broke to a sudden stop a few feet inside the room. “Because I don’t want to focus on the past. I want to concentrate on the future. That’s not going to work if you keep asking me questions about Matt.”
There was a sharpness in her voice—one she didn’t use too often. She didn’t want to keep talking about me, which only made me want to continue talking about me. I’d struck a nerve, but I wasn’t sure how deep that nerve went.
I needed to know how deep it went. I had to know. My whole life, I’d been under the impression that Cora saw me as nothing more than a good friend and substitute brother. She cared for me, but not in the same way I cared for her.
Or did she?
“This thing with Matt . . .”
Her back stiffened.
“Was it a thing? Like ancient history? Or is it still a thing?” I closed the door and wondered why I could feel my heartbeat in my eardrums.
She kept her back to me, standing in the middle of the dark room like a lone ship on a vast ocean. “I married you.”
Yeah, she did marry me.
“But if he’d made a play for you, way back before all of this”—I waved my finger between the two of us, not that she could see it—“would you have given him a chance?”
“He never made a play for me.” Her voice sounded faraway, like she was out of reach when she was less than an arm’s length away.
“That doesn’t answer my question.” I stepped closer. “If he had? Would you have?”
Her back was moving faster from her quickened breathing. This conversation was making her uncomfortable. Why was that?
“Stop, Jacob. Enough.” She spun on me, swaying in place just enough that I reached out to steady her. She shook my hand away like it was white-hot. “I’m not going to get into another fight with you over Matt. I’m done. I picked you. I married you. What else do I have to prove?”
“That you don’t—”
“I don’t love Matt!” Her arms flung out at her sides as her voice spilled across the room. ‘There. I said it. Are you happy now? Are you happy we’ve managed to get into another argument over this infatuation you’re convinced I have for your brother? On our wedding night of all times?” She glared at me with bleary eyes. I couldn’t tell if that was from tears or from alcohol. Maybe both.
“Cora, I’m sorry.” I ran my hands through my hair, wondering what in the hell I was doing—for the millionth time that day. Deceiving her, betraying her, and now accusing and angering her. Maybe I didn’t know the first fucking thing about love. Maybe Jacob knew more about it than I did, because I wasn’t sure love was supposed to hurt as badly as this did.
“Just . . . enough already.” As she shouldered past me, I reached for her, but she shook me off. “I need to be alone.”
She slammed the front door behind her a moment later, leaving me alone with my idiocy.
“Cora,” I called to an empty room. I wasn’t thinking when I rushed toward the door after her. “Cora!”
The moment I pulled the door open, something crashed into me. It made a sharp breath rush out of my mouth as I staggered back a few steps.
My arms barely had time to wrap around her before Cora’s mouth was on mine, moving in such a way that made staying upright next to impossible. Before I had a chance to catch up to the fact that I was kissing Cora in an entirely different way than we’d kissed at the wedding and reception, her fingers were working at my belt. Quickly.
I didn’t know she’d already gotten it undone before she’d moved on to my zipper. The sounds she was making as she kissed me, the way her body felt aligned against mine, the way her mouth knew the intricate balance of submission and domination . . . one moment at a time, Cora was crushing the last remnants of my resolve. Destroying the final pieces of my views of right and wrong.
My arm stretched out to brace against a porch beam, Cora clinging to me like I was trying to cling to my senses, and that was when I saw it. The thick shining band on my finger. That wedding band might have been on my finger, but it wasn’t meant for me.
Cora might have been tangled around my body, but she wasn’t meant for me either.
“Wait.” I didn’t recognize my voice. I didn’t want to acknowledge my demand. “Cora—stop.”
Her mouth slowed, but her lips hovered against mine. Her fingers slowed . . . but they didn’t stop. A throaty groan echoed in my chest when her hand slipped through my zipper, cupping a part of my anatomy that felt like it had, at present, taken over my mental capacity.
“I don’t want to argue with you,” she breathed against my mouth. “I don’t want to feel distant from you. Not tonight. I want to be close. I want to be part of you. I want you to be part of me.” Her hand moved against me, slowly and methodically, and I felt like my lungs were about to explode. Kind of the way a balloon pops when too much air has been added. “I want a part of you inside me. Please.” Her mouth lifted to my ear, my back trembling when her breath warmed my skin. “Please.”
I’d never been able to resist Cora whenever she’d asked me for something. Never once. Whether it was the time we were kids and she’d asked me to eat her Brussels sprouts so she didn’t have to, or when we’d been older and she asked for a ride to the movie theater to meet some friends. Feeling like such a strong person in so many areas of my life was a hard thing to reconcile with how totally and utterly weak I felt in one area—her. Always her. She was as much my strength as she was my weakness. My best memory and my worst regret.
Cora had yet to request something of me that I’d failed to give her. I doubted if she ever would.
This time included.
My answer didn’t come as a verbal one, but I wasn’t sure responses came any clearer. Pressing into her, I backed her into the thick beam of the porch my arm was still braced against, still trying to keep me from falling out of whatever dream I’d landed in. When her body was as fitted against me as it was against the beam, I hoisted her up so I was looking her in the eyes. So I could press my hips between hers as her legs wound around my back.
A ragged exhale spilled from her mouth when I ground myself against her. I did it again, desperate to pull the same sound from her. Drunk with the feeling of knowing I could make her feel the way I did. Her chest rose and fell hard, writhing against me, lost in the same crutches of lust I was overtaken by.
My arm
wasn’t braced against the beam any longer. It wound around her, clinging to her body like it was my only salvation left in this world. My mouth covered hers when the next breath trembled from her. I reveled in the taste of her lips on mine, the feel of her tongue against mine.
Cora was everything I’d fantasized she would be, and nothing I ever thought I’d get to experience. I’d expected nothing, and here I was, getting everything.
Her hips tipped back from mine, just enough for her to free my dick, then her lap was burrowing into mine again. Except this time . . .
“Oh, god, Cora.” My forehead fell into the beam in front of me. “Fuck,” I breathed, feeling like my heart was about to break out of my chest from the way it was hammering.
“Easy access.” I felt her smile curve against my lips as she took me inside her, millimeter by painstaking millimeter. “That’s the way you like me, right, baby?” She trembled in my arms as she continued to take me.
All I could do was stand there, my fingers curling into her, my lungs about to collapse, and try to hold still while the woman of my dreams fucked me one unhurried inch at a time.
A weaker man couldn’t have withstood it, and would have taken control and rammed the rest of the way inside the perfect body he was presently experiencing. A stronger man would have put a stop to this before we’d gotten here—here being me fucking my brother’s girl on their wedding night.
“You’re not the kind of woman who needs to make anything easy for any man. You’re the kind who should make a man work for it. Make him work to earn your anything.”
My chest was moving hard and quickly along with hers. My eyes squeezed shut when she stopped sliding down me, having no farther to go. She moaned when her legs tightened around my back, managing to draw even more of me inside her.
I wasn’t going to last long. If long could even be ascribed to the embarrassing number of seconds it would take for Cora to get me off if she kept me deep inside her while she ran her hands down my body the way she was.