“So, what do you think of my sister?” David asked when we finally made it back to the hotel later that day.
I was utterly exhausted. I really had not had enough sleep last night.
We’d spent an exorbitant amount of time eating at Tavern on the Green before Katherine had to disappear to some meeting. I still didn’t understand what she did exactly, but she made it seem important.
My eyes were wide when I looked up at David. “She’s a lot but in a good way.”
David laughed heartily before sinking into an oversize chair in the sitting area. “That’s the nicest way I’ve ever heard someone describe her.”
“That can’t be true. She was genuinely happy to see you, and she treated me well. She’s taking me to the spa tomorrow. I think she seems like a girl with the world on her shoulders, pretending like she’s on top of the world.”
“Also accurate,” he agreed.
“What do you think about her? Is she different to you?”
“In some ways. In other ways, she’s exactly the same.”
“I’m surprised she never brought up your parents.”
“I asked her not to.”
“Oh. Aren’t you interested in seeing them since you’re here?”
He shook his head. “Not in the least.”
I frowned and considered that. I hated what the Van Pelts had done to my family and how they had treated David. I hated that the very mention of that name had pushed us apart. Or that I’d had to second-guess our relationship when he was nothing but genuine in all other regards. He cared for me and Jason and the company. He was understanding, loyal, gentle, and constant. He drew out passion in me that I hadn’t felt in over a year. But he was still hurting, and that was obvious to me.
“I think, if my parents were still here, I’d want to see them even if they’d done wrong. Maybe they’ve changed?”
“Are you defending my parents?”
“No. Absolutely not. I despise them for all they’ve done to hurt you and me and us. But…they’re still your parents. It’d be a shame not to see them while you’re here.”
“Well, this trip is for us,” David said, pulling me down onto his lap. “So, maybe I’ll do it on another trip.”
“I don’t believe you.” I straddled his lap and ran my hands up his chest and around his neck.
“I said I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Another trip could be anytime in the future.”
“All I’m thinking about is our future.”
“Oh?” I asked with a small smile.
“Like how we’re going to break in that bed.”
“And here I thought, you were being romantic when you were actually being filthy.”
He laughed. “You like that though. I heard your moans when I threw you against the fridge.”
My cheeks heated at the statement, and I ground my hips against his. “That is true.”
“But, if you want to hear me tell you that, by our future, I’m thinking about spending time with you and your boy, being the man you want and deserve, having a life of our own, then yes, I think about that future, too.”
My heart thundered in my chest so hard, it was ringing in my ears. “You really think about that?”
“Would I have brought you here if I didn’t want you in every part of my life?” His hands trailed up my neck to cup my face and ease my lips down onto his. Our eyes locked in the small space leftover after the kiss. “I have wanted you since the first day I saw you sprawled out on a blanket with Jason on the Fourth of July. I didn’t know anything about you. I didn’t know anything that would follow. I just knew that you glowed with an unparalleled energy. You were radiant. Unequivocally stunning, even in the simplicity of the situation. Maybe because of it.” He ran his thumb across my bottom lip. “I spent a year waiting for you to regain your joy, and I feel lucky just to be a part of your life.”
I was stunned into silence at his declaration.
He’d felt all of this for me for so long while I was stuck in my own slice of hell. Everyone had seen his affection but me. I’d brushed it off as a new friendship, unable to see what was really happening.
David was the one who had helped me all those months I was dead inside. All those times I needed a sitter for Jason, just to escape. All those times I heard ghosts in my house and voices that woke me in the night, expecting Maverick, his absence overwhelming me.
David had been a beacon in the darkness.
He had been the shining light that kept me from sinking to the bottom of the ocean and drowning in my own grief.
It had taken me a year to realize that we were right for each other.
To accept that I could feel this again.
To trust in love once more.
We might have been on rocky ground, but being here with him, when I knew how much strength it had taken to get to this moment, just proved that I had made the right decision. My feelings for David had never wavered. Just my uncertainty about his own feelings.
My heart had always been in the right place. But was his?
Staring down at him in a penthouse suite in New York City, it had never been clearer that the answer was yes. Beyond yes. He’d had those feelings a year before I could admit my own.
His secrets were armor. Bulletproof and impenetrable. Weathered from years of battle.
But I’d removed each piece until all that was left was my David. The man before me. And it felt right. We felt right.
“Sutton,” he whispered. There was unease in his voice, as if he was worried he’d just lost me.
“Thank you for being my joy when I needed it most,” I told him.
A smile grew on his face. Then, he captured my lips and stood. My legs wrapped tight around his waist as he scooped me up and strode into the bedroom.
Our lips were unhurried as they moved against each other.
This wasn’t the feverish make-up sex we’d had last week.
This was a claiming, a promise.
He set me on my feet at the edge of the bed. His hazel eyes were like honey in the dim lighting, and his affections were just as smooth. With gentle care, he slipped his hands down my arms and over my waist before dropping to his knees before me. I exhaled on a hiss as he moved both hands up my calves and over my sensitive inner thighs. Then, he nudged my feet further apart.
My inner walls clenched as he pushed me a little bit wider. His gaze found mine just as he reached the edge of my bubblegum-pink thong. He slipped one finger under the material and ran it around the edges from top to bottom, stopping right before he reached the place I really wanted him. I tried to push him back toward my opening, but he ignored my attempt. Apparently, he was going to take his time. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a willing participant. I desperately wanted him to go fast, fast, fast, but slow, so slow, was making me soak through my thong.
His finger hooked into the top of the material and drew them down my legs. I stepped out of them at his insistence. He casually tossed them behind himself before moving back between my legs. One hand moved to grasp my ass while his other made the journey back up my inner thighs.
I groaned with impatience and need. He was teasing me, and I fucking loved it. And wanted it over. Fuck, I wanted to yield control to him, and at the same time, I wanted to throw him down on the floor and fuck his brains out.
Then, one finger slipped between my folds and found out just how wet I was from his ministrations.
“Mmm,” he said approvingly, slicking his finger before moving to my clit and stroking me in circles.
I couldn’t even buck or move out of his embrace with the way he held me captive. I could only stand there, legs wide, as he stroked my clit until I was gasping for breath. I was close. So fucking close. I could have tipped over the edge just from him playing with my clit, but as I felt my walls contracting, he pulled back.
“No!” I gasped.
He laughed, coming to his feet, still fully fucking clothed. “Take your dress off and lie on your back.” He tugged his shirt off, and then as I started to crawl onto the bed, he amended, “Legs spread.”
I flushed at his command, but I was ready to touch myself to get off at this point, so I did as I had been told. I’d pay him back later. A flush crept onto my cheeks as I lay back on the bed, opened my legs before him, and sat there and watched him strip out of his clothes. Slowly. One fucking piece at a time.
Then, when he was fully undressed, his cock jutting toward me, he grasped my hips in his hands and jerked me to the end of the bed. I squeaked in surprise. My ass was nearly hanging off the edge. My fingers dug into the comforter for support. And my body was begging for everything he was going to give me.
To my shock, he sank back onto his knees, and before I could utter a word, he buried his face between my legs. His tongue laved across my clit, alternating between flicking and sucking. I started to close my legs as my climax approached again. But he was having none of that. My heart stuttered and body throbbed in pleasure as he forced my legs open wider.
“Oh God,” I groaned. “Please let me come. Dear fucking God, I’m begging you, David.”
His fingers trailed down my thigh and then to the opening of my pussy. He inserted two inside me, curving them as he pulled them back out. It took three strokes of his fingers while his mouth was on my clit before I came in a sea of starlight. My vision going dark and then blasting out into the heavens. My entire body convulsed. My heart galloped ahead of me.
The next thing I heard was screaming. And I realized it was me.
My legs dropped to the sides, trembling. My eyes gradually opened, half-lidded and sex-drunk. I could still feel my heart beating in my abdomen.
“My…my turn,” I offered, dazed.
“Oh no, Sut,” he said with a lazy smile. “Making you come multiple times tonight is my pleasure.”
I laughed deliriously. “Where did you come from?”
He leaned over me, resting his elbows on either side of my body. “You’re in my city. This is where I came from. But you’re home.”
Then, with a gentleness my still-pulsing center needed, he drove forward into me. I moaned, and he smothered it with a kiss. I wrapped my arms and legs tight around his body, keeping him close so that we were pressed together as one. He started up a steady rhythm.
Touching every part of me.
My body.
My heart.
My soul.
He filled me to bursting. Giving as much as he was getting. Taking as much as I was offering.
The moment felt final.
Not an ending, but a beginning.
An understanding that there was no going back from here.
He released my lips to look down on me as he picked up the pace. Our bodies were flushed and warm. My heart full. And I saw everything he’d ever felt, everything he’d ever wanted to say to me, everything in his eyes. They were windows to the devotion he was showing me. To the person he’d become to be with me. To the openness he’d never had with anyone else.
And I was starting anew.
No longer defined by what I’d lost.
But what I had gained.
And, when we finished together, lost to our passion, I felt truly whole once more.