Stand-In Bride's Seduction

Heat and moisture pooled in a flood at the apex of her thighs and she squeezed her legs together involuntarily, the sharp clench of muscles making the sensations running through her sharper, clearer, simply more.

Rey pressed his lips once more to her neck, his teeth grazing her skin ever so gently, before she felt the warm rasp of his tongue across her skin. She had no resistance left. She dropped her head back, exactly as she had imagined, and allowed him to bear her weight.

She felt him push up the hem of her dress, felt the warmth of his hand as he cupped her mound, his fingers skimming over that part of her that screamed for his touch, screamed for release.

Rina watched their reflection, watched as the man in the glass eased aside the damp fabric of the woman’s panties and allowed his fingers to stroke the moist crease exposed there. She could almost fool herself that this wasn’t happening to her. That it was someone else reflected there in the glass. That it was anyone but Rey who strummed her body to a crescendo that remained just out of reach.

And in that moment, the exact moment he touched her most intimately and her senses went wild, came the dousing reality that it should not be her. That she had no right to take the pleasure he offered her. She had no right to offer the same in return.

“Stop!” she cried, her voice a fractured facsimile of its usual self.

Rey’s hands stilled. “Querida, why stop? I can feel you, every part of you. You’re so close.” His voice dropped to a whisper, his breath a caress against her skin. “Let me give you this, let me take you over the edge. I will not allow any harm to come to you. Trust me.”

Every particle in her body shrieked at her to give him the right to continue, to bring her to a climax that she knew would render her senseless, useless to say no to him, to anything he wanted. But her mind knew with damning reality that she would never be able to face herself again, let alone her sister, if she allowed this to carry on.

“No, please. I can’t.” She shook her head frantically, tears burning at the back of her eyes.

It was pain and torture, yet pleasure of indescribable heights at the same time.

“Please,” she begged again, “don’t make me.”

The words acted as effectively as a drenching shower of freezing rain, and she felt his mental withdrawal as keenly as the physical. His hands, which had continued, slow and gentle on her body, now stilled before he dropped them to his side and stepped away from her.

Rina turned from the glass, unable to look at herself, unable to look at him and the questions that undoubtedly raged in his eyes, even as they remained unspoken on his lips.

“I’m so sorry,” she mumbled as she straightened her panties under the privacy of her dress. Her tender flesh still throbbed and ached. “I should never have let things get this far. It’s not you, seriously, it’s me. I…” she trailed off, suddenly at a loss for words.

How did you explain to the man who had very nearly brought you to orgasm, that you couldn’t let him touch you again, ever?

Reynard rested his hands against the back of one of the large leather couches and looked at her. She couldn’t hold his gaze, fearful of the recrimination—or, worse, the questions—she might see there.

“Can we go now, please?” she asked, her voice finally a little stronger.

He didn’t even speak, only nodded, and gestured to the door to his office. As she accompanied him down the hallway, Rina tried to pull her thoughts together. She could not allow anything like this to happen again. It had come too close to total capitulation on her part. And yet, deep inside, a part of her continued to crave him, crave his touch.

She groaned inwardly. The sooner Sara returned to this forsaken rock in the Mediterranean and resumed her life here, the better, because right now Rina couldn’t wait to resume hers, far away from here.

But, a little voice reminded her, you have nothing left at home anymore. All your hopes, all your dreams for the future—all gone. Sure, she still had her job, but hers was the kind of work she could do anywhere in the world, with her talents very much in demand.

It was past time, she realized, for her to make a new beginning. Step forward in her life, rather than going back to where she’d been before. But whatever she chose to do, her life was not here with this man. That life belonged to Sara, and she’d been mad to even begin to think she could play with the fire ignited within her by being around Rey.