HisMarriageBargain (22 page)

It wasn’t fair.

Ripped Skin—A tattoo technique where a design is inked to
appear as if the dermis is being ripped, shredded or stitched together over
another image, such as words, muscles or biomechanical apparatuses.

Sammi roused from sleep, instinctively flattening his hand
over his stomach, but this time the muscles were still.

“Sammi?” Autumn called out as the sound of the front door
closing punctuated her entrance.

He relaxed even more into the recliner. “In here,” he called
out.

“Do I want to know why you’re sitting around in your
boxers?” Autumn strolled toward him, the setting sun shining through the windows
and bathing her in a warm glow.

“Probably not.” Reliving his afternoon spent in the bathroom
was on his list of things not to do.

Autumn swung her leg over his lap and straddled his thighs.

“Hello there, Sunshine.” Her smile was contagious, and he
really didn’t feel like smiling.

She pushed her fingers through his hair. “Hi.”

“How’d it go?” Sammi cupped her ass. This was the best thing
to happen to him all day.

“What?”

“Today.”

“Slow, but it is a Wednesday. Nothing much ever happens on a
Wednesday.” Autumn stretched out next to him, somehow wedging herself between
his body and the chair, but mostly draping herself over him. She flattened her
hand against his chest, just above his stomach. “You aren’t feeling very good
today.”

Sammi scrubbed his face. “Nope.”

“What did the doctors say?”

His stomach clenched, and not from sickness. “Nothing much.
Just keep doing what I’m doing.”

Autumn didn’t reply. She snuggled in closer and guilt ate at
him. Was it horrible that he didn’t want to spend his last days as a living
science experiment? If he submitted to what his doctor would want him to do
he’d be poked, prodded and jacked up on drugs so he couldn’t even enjoy the
time left to him.

But was it worth lying to the most important people in his
life to make himself happy?

His mother, friends and employees thought he had a summer
cold.

Autumn knew he was dying, but not that he wasn’t seeking
medical attention.

Only he knew the whole picture.

“Have you eaten anything?” Sammi threaded his fingers
through her hair, stroking the strands.

“No.”

“Want to order a pizza?”

“Are you going to eat any of it?”

“No.”

“I’ll heat something up.” Autumn kissed his cheek. “Now that
you mention it, I’m starving.” She levered up, careful not to knee him in the
nuts, and crawled off the recliner.

“This was a pretty good buy, wasn’t it?” He patted the
armrest and grinned.

She glanced over her shoulder and blew him a kiss. “For you,
but I don’t mind all that much.”

Sammi laughed, feeling better than he had all day. He got to
his feet and his calf muscles twinged only a little as he shuffled into the
kitchen.

“What’s this?” Autumn lifted the teapot, eyeing the ceramic
surface with its painted floral design.

Sammi groaned. “I told Mom not to leave that here.”

Autumn’s gaze flicked to him. “Your mom was here?”

Shit.

“Yeah. She wants us to have dinner tomorrow. I think I got
through to her.” He stopped with the island between them.

Autumn lifted the lid from the teapot and sniffed the brew.
“Yuck.”

“I know. She’s big on that stuff.”

She took the pot to the sink and poured it down the drain.

“Are you upset she came over?”

Autumn leaned a hip against the counter, one side of her
mouth screwed up. “Yes and no.”

“Care to explain?”

“This is your house. You can do whatever you want with it.”
She left the pot and cups in the sink and began pulling out her dinner.

“But this is your home too.” He hadn’t told her, wouldn’t
because some things should be a surprise, but he’d left this house to her.
Whatever they had, it was special, and making sure she never had to go back to
the walk-up apartment ever again helped him rest easier.

“Then yeah, it does bother me that she just came in here,
probably turning her nose up at my stuff and talking crap about me. I mean, I
know I don’t deserve to be with you. Pretty much everyone else has made that
perfectly clear—”

“Wait. Hold up. Don’t deserve me?” They might be different
people, but deserving? That was a crock of bullshit if he’d ever heard it.

“The blonde from Miami, even Isaac, the people on Friday,
your employees and your mom.” She ticked each off with a finger. “You can’t
tell me that’s not how everyone feels.”

“Fuck what they think.” He clenched his fists. Who the
hell’s business was it who he—he was with?

Autumn merely shrugged and tore the cardboard off a frozen
dinner, resolutely not meeting his gaze.

“Is that what you think too?”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

Talk about some conflict resolution skills.

Sammi circled the island, clenching his teeth. He caged
Autumn with his arms, but she was determined to ignore him. “Turn around.”

She did as he asked, leaning back against the counter. He
plucked the plastic container from her hands and tossed it on the counter. When
she still wouldn’t meet his gaze, he bumped her chin with his knuckles. Her
green eyes flicked to his face and away.

The idea that she felt that way, that she wasn’t good enough
for him, was baffling. Sure, they came from different backgrounds and their
experiences had molded them into unique people, but one wasn’t better than the
other. She might see herself as less than him, but he saw her as extraordinary.
How did he tell her this?

“I don’t even know what to say to that except you’ve got it
all wrong.”

Her gaze said what her mouth didn’t.
Really?

How did he drive it into her thick skull how great she was?
He’d learned so much about life just being around her. Couldn’t she see that?

“You’re amazing.” He gathered her hair over one shoulder and
kissed the other. “I don’t know how many ways I need to tell you that, but you
turn every negative event into something positive.” He paused every few words
to drop another kiss on his way to her neck. “You find a way to empathize with
people who attack you.” He kissed the curve of her neck and she shivered. “And
you’re sunshine.” He kissed just behind her ear. “And you love a man who
doesn’t deserve it.”

Sammi couldn’t risk loving her, not when he would leave this
Earth long before she did. He could care for her, give her everything she could
need for a better future. But he couldn’t give her his heart. It wasn’t part of
the bargain. For now though, now he could give her pleasure.

Autumn wrapped her arms around his shoulders and buried her
face against the crook of his neck. She deserved to be loved every day of her
life, but all he had was the present. So he’d have to make the now count.

Sammi hoisted her onto the island and stepped between her
knees. Autumn reached for him, pulling him into her arms and kissing him with
the passion he’d begun to crave. She did everything with such abandon. Her zest
for life, for love—he wanted to soak her up so some of that rubbed off on him.
She yanked her shirt up and over her head and was pushing his boxers down
before he could think beyond
boobs
. He didn’t mind her sex drive either.

“Autumn—”

“Shut up.”

“I think—”

She cupped his face, bringing them so close their noses
brushed and he could make out the flecks of green in her eyes. “I don’t want to
think. I want to feel.” Her voice broke and he could feel a tremor snake
through her body.

He couldn’t begin to understand the way a complex female
creature thought, but he could make her feel.

Sammi nodded and kicked out of his boxers she’d nearly
divested him of. Autumn shoved her jean skirt and panties off at the same time
so she sat on the island in nothing but a necklace and a smile that bore none
of the torment he’d glimpsed a moment ago. If sex was what it took to make her
feel better he’d give it to her.

Autumn watched Sammi studying her. What did he see when he
looked at her? There was lust in his gaze, but something more. It was different
from other men, as if he didn’t see the fake boobs, colored hair, piercings and
tattoos, but something more. Did he see her? The real her she covered up with
body modifications and makeup?

Despite her bawdy humor and crazy lifestyle, she knew deep
inside she was still a fragile girl. Which was why Autumn loved so easily, and
people who shouldn’t matter still hurt her deeply. Sammi saw that. She could
tell by the way he looked at her, what he said about her. He really got her.

It was one of the most vulnerable moments of her life.

She struggled with the immediate desire to flip her hair
over her shoulders, hide her breasts, fidget or take control of the situation.
Her mind screamed at her to do something, distract him. But Sammi wouldn’t hurt
her, at least not intentionally.

Sammi placed his hands on either side of her knees and
leaned toward her, slowly, as if he thought she might tell him no. He nipped
her lower lip, pinching it between his teeth. She sucked in a breath as the
bright, almost painful sensation shot straight to her clit. She arched her back
and twined her arms around his neck. He released her lip and kissed the hurt
away while she cupped his face and sighed into his mouth, sinking into his
kiss, ready to lose herself in the way he made her feel.

Cold, sudden and sharp, gripped her left breast.

Autumn yelped and jerked away, but Sammi had his arm around
her waist and the coldness only increased. He grinned at her, but there was
nothing fun in the devilish curl of his mouth.

“Hey!” She pushed the frozen dinner he held to her chest
away.

Sammi captured her wrist with one hand and pressed the
frost-covered food to her other breast. She hissed at the cold and glared at
him.

“That’s cold, Sammi.”

“That’s the point.”

What the hell was he up to?

The little metal barbells increased the degree of intensity
until she squirmed, leaning away from him as far as she could. Her nipples had
contracted to tight, painful peaks, probably sharp enough to cut glass at this
point.

Suddenly Sammi let her go and she slumped against the marble
countertop. She glared at him, unsure what he would do next.

“What are you—?”

“Sh.” He laid his finger over her lips, one corner of his mouth
kicking up. “Feel.”

Damn him.

Sammi circled the island, which had become something like a
carnal altar, with her laid out on top as some sensual sacrifice.

She watched him, felt his fingers trace lines inked into her
skin on her arms and up to her shoulder as he walked almost a complete circle
around her. What was he doing? What did he have planned? Her body was primed,
all her focus on him and the sensations he elicited with a little frozen food.
Microwave dinners would never be the same, that was for sure.

He bent suddenly, taking her breast into his mouth. She
gasped at the contrast, her cold skin and his hot touch. She choked out an incoherent
word and blinked as the ceiling blurred. He licked the barbell and his hands
roved over her stomach, coasting down her hip, over her collarbone. He flicked
the jewelry back and forth, tweaking the tight flesh. That was—different. She
arched her back farther and twined her fingers through his hair as he sucked
and toyed with her breast.

Holy shit, the magic things he did with that mouth of his.

Sammi switched breasts and she groaned all over again as he
twisted and tweaked the barbell. She squirmed and flattened her hands on the
counter, a cold counterpoint to the heat radiating from her flesh. Warming
gels, wax, that she’d used before. But never cold. It was more extreme and not
quite entirely pleasurable, but she dug it. The sharper sensations, the way his
hot mouth on her frozen skin drove all thought out of her mind, but most of all
the way it made her feel. Her body arched and undulated as he worked her over.

He slipped his hand between her legs, passing his fingers
between her folds, coating them with her arousal. His thumb passed over her
clit again and again, sensitizing the nub even more than it already was.

Oh yes.

She wanted him there, but his hand wouldn’t be enough. She
needed all of him. Now.

Autumn dug her hands into his hair and pulled him up for a
kiss. He let go of her breast with a pop. She tugged on his hair, bringing him
to where she wanted him, sucking his lower lip into her mouth and nipping it
like he’d done to her. His hand stayed between her legs, gently strumming her
clit and flicking the ring back and forth. It wasn’t enough to do anything
except stoke the fire within.

He thrust his tongue into her mouth the same moment he
pushed two fingers deep inside her, curling them to hit that sensitive hidden
spot. She gasped and her vision went hazy. She felt him chuckle against her
mouth. His stubble rasped over her cheek and jaw, down to her neck.

She muttered something. Her brain was incapable of thought,
of forming anything resembling a sentence.

Sammi withdrew from her and made another complete circle
around the island, studying her as he went. She sucked down deep breaths, her
body aching for him. He stopped at her knees, placing a hand on either thigh
and slowly pushing them open wider to accommodate him. He wedged his hips
between her legs.

He leaned forward on his elbows, holding her gaze and blowing
a hot breath over her mound. She shivered again and wrapped her legs around his
waist, as if she had any hope of holding him prisoner to her will.

“Sammi,” she said between clenched teeth. He’d kill her with
the drawing it out. Foreplay was great and all, but she needed him.