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LATER THAT EVENING, when the day was behind us and Alex and I returned home, I was exhausted—more mentally than physically. But still exhausted.
We’d gone to visit the families of Diana Crane and Mike Fine, neither of which had been easy—but we nevertheless had to do it, and so we did. Regardless of any past conflicts, we knew that we had to stand up, respect their lives, and, more than anything, we needed to do right by their families.
Diana had a husband of thirty-one years and two girls who were in their mid-twenties—all of whom were devastated by the loss of their mother and wife. Mike Fine was younger. At forty-three, he left behind a wife of sixteen years and three children under the age of twelve—two boys and a girl. All of them shattered. All of them without words. All of them wondering what would come next for them.
Alex told them what would come next for them—fifty million dollars in Wenn stock for each family that they could either hold on to in hopes that it would grow—or cash in tomorrow. What they did with the stock didn’t matter to Alex or me. What mattered was that these people knew that we were behind them, that we felt for them, and that we’d always be there for them. I may not have liked Diana or Mike, but what the hell did that have to do with their families? Nothing. They were casualties, and they needed us now.
So? Alex and I decided to shield them. After all, what in the hell was all of our money worth if we couldn’t help people in a situation as dire and as tragic as this?
As we rode the elevator up to our apartment, we were silent. But when Alex closed the door behind us and we moved through the foyer and into the living space, he came up behind me, wrapped his arm around my waist, and then pulled me in close to him so that I could just feel the stubble of his chin against the nape of my neck.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
At once, I turned to face the grief that was on his face. The loss in his tear-filled eyes. “Don’t be,” I said.
“I should be stronger than this.”
“You are one of the strongest men I know. But you are only human, Alex. In a brief matter of years, you lost your parents and your first wife, which crushed you. You’ve felt death too many times to count. Please know that I’m here for you. That I always will be here for you.”
“I want to make love to you,” he said when he pulled away from me. “I want to celebrate the fact that both of us are alive. I want to hold you, kiss you, and become one with you, Jennifer. Because if I don’t have that? What do I have after what happened last night? What do either of us have?”
“Nothing,” I said. “So make love to me. Take me in your arms, tell me that you love me just as much as I love you, and then do it again. Because I also want to be with you. I need to feel your heart beating against mine. Somehow, we survived last night. Somehow, we even survived today, which in some ways was more difficult because we had to absorb our losses and face the grief of so many others straight on. We need to be together now because of it.”
He took me by the hand and led me into the bedroom.
Both of us were still in the business suits Blackwell had chosen for us. But with a kind of haste that underscored the importance of this moment, we removed them quickly. In a matter of moments, we were standing naked in front of each other while Manhattan’s skyline twinkled in the wall of windows beside us.
“I love you,” he said to me. “I could have lost you. You could have been one of them.”
“But I wasn’t,” I said in an effort to reassure him. “Because I’m here right now, as are you. And thank God that you’re here with me, Alex, because I couldn’t bear life without you. Make love to me now. Take me like you never have before.”
And he did.
With one swift move, he scooped me into his arms as if I was weightless, and then buried his mouth over mine and kissed me so deeply, I could feel his soul thrumming throughout me.
With exquisite care, he laid me down onto our bed. I hooked my arms around his muscular neck, and then I felt the cool sheets press against my back, which gave me such an unexpected chill, my nipples stiffened. I ran my hands through Alex’s hair as we looked into each other’s eyes. Then, he dipped his head down to one of my nipples, and gently started to titillate it with his lips and tongue.
I arched my back when he did that, and because the pleasure was so intense, I reached out on either side of me and grabbed the sheets, gathering them into my fists as I writhed beneath his touch. My body became so alive, it felt like torture when he lightly pressed his nipples against my own. And then, just as he had done so many times in the past because he knew how much it turned me on, he began to rub them against mine while he whispered into my ear how much I meant to him.
After all that we’d been through over the past two days, it was sensation overload, but underscoring his every move was a clear statement of our love for each other. Generally, our lovemaking was more aggressive. But tonight? Tonight was different, delicate, and sensuous. It was underscored with a profound sense of meaning.
Again and again, his nipples flicked across my own. Again and again, he pushed me closer to the edge. When I was just about to come, he ran his chin down the length of my torso, and as he did so, his stubble brushed against my exposed flesh, making me throw back my head in ecstasy just as he entered me with his tongue.
“Alex,” I said.
His response was to enter me even deeper.
“You’re going to make me come—”
And when he intentionally ran his stubble over my clit, I had to stifle a scream as my body was shattered by an orgasm.
“Jesus,” I said.
“More?”
“Make love to me,” I said after I caught my breath.
“Not yet.”
“But I want you inside of me.”
“Not yet.”
With teasing flicks of his tongue, he devoured my sex while he smoothed his hands up my body to caress my breasts, which felt unusually full and heavy to me. When he reared up and slid toward me, he nibbled on my ear, and I could feel his hot breath against my skin as he told me how beautiful I was. When we made love, it was tender, loving, intense, and filled with unexpected moments of emotion.
Alex caressed me so that there was no part of my body that he didn’t stroke or touch. When he entered me, he did so with such care, I knew that what I felt wasn’t just a physical connection of two bodies coming together. Instead, I could feel his absolute love for me behind each thrust.
This was us at our best. This is how we were meant to be. He was driving me to such heights that a part of me broke free from myself. I let go of everything that had plagued us since last evening, and I somehow floated into the beyond, allowing him to take me to the ceiling, through the roof, and into the night air, where my body drifted above the city lights, and saw the moon and the stars.
When we came, it was with such force, it was difficult to deny what we had just experienced together—two people coming together to show their love for one another in the wake of hatred, destruction, and death.
The power of love had just conquered all of that, and I was happy for it because it gave me hope for the future. Love had to be the future—not hate. Never hate. Never crime nor murder. It was love that mattered. It was love that was the answer.
I held him close to me as he finished with a shudder. I kissed his neck and then his lips, and then he slid out of me and off of me. And as he moved beside me, he clutched me close against him. For a long moment, we just held each other, and then he enveloped me in his arms and we gradually drifted off to sleep.
