Late December, Nine Months Earlier
I clicked the door shut behind us and flicked the lock. Elizabeth backed into the middle of the room, those warm brown eyes never looking away from me. I rushed her, hungrily palming her hips as my mouth descended on the sweetness of hers. “I’ve been dying to get you alone all night,” I grumbled as I jerked her against my body.
Elizabeth giggled, all throaty and warm. The deep burr vibrated against my lips. It reminded me so much of all those times I had her pinned against my apartment wall, back when we’d wandered these same New York City streets when we were in college. This woman I held in my arms felt so much like the eighteen-year-old I’d held all those years before, back when our bodies had explored, back when she’d grown from the innocent girl I’d first met into this sexy woman who very nearly lived in my bed. Back then she’d flirted and teased, had set me on fire, left me begging for more.
And damn if it didn’t feel amazing to have her back.
“Now that you have me alone, just what is it you intend to do with me?” she teased, tugging at my tie.
We’d been out to dinner to celebrate the new life we were beginning. Lizzie had gotten all dressed up in the most adorable dress, her black hair tied up in ribbons. And Elizabeth… God, one look and she stole my breath. The city was in the grip of winter, and she was wearing a belted sweater dress that cinched around her narrow waist, flowing down to perfectly hug the curve of her hips. It came to rest just above her knees. There, just a strip of bare skin teased me before it gave way to black high-heeled boots. My attention shot to the diamond ring that danced on her finger. I still couldn’t believe she’d let me put it there. God, I couldn’t wait to marry her.
“What don’t I intend to do with you would be the better question,” I murmured, wrapping my palm around the back of her neck, the other possessive at her waist. I kissed her hard, devoured the shocked breath of air that slipped up her throat, stroked my tongue across hers. I kissed her and kissed her and kissed her because I was never going to stop.
Our suite bedroom had floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the street far below us. Outside, the city glowed. Winter bore down, and snowflakes fluttered toward the ground as they were set free from the inky sky. Lights glimmered through the haze, spilling a soft glow into our darkened room.
I pushed her up against the window. Elizabeth grunted. She sagged against the expansive sheet of glass, the perfect lines of her body silhouetted against the backdrop of the city that seemed to echo my past, the memories so thick, they seemed almost alive.
I took a step back and let my eyes wander over the one who inhabited them all.
Gradually the lines of that beautiful face came into focus, and for a moment, my gaze got lost in the amber warmth of her soft brown eyes. Devotion pumped steadily through my veins. I loved her. Loved her with everything, with my life, with my soul.
And I was going to spend my entire life proving it to her.
My actions were slow and deliberate as I knelt down in front of her, watching the way her lips parted when I did. I slipped my hands under the hem of her dress, ran them up the softness of her thighs and around to cup her perfect, round bottom, my fingers brushing lace and satin. Her dress was all bunched up on my forearms as I hiked it around her hips. The long length of her toned legs were exposed as she stood there trembling in her boots.
“You have the sweetest ass, Elizabeth,” I whispered as I burrowed my fingers into the delicate flesh. There was no stopping the overwhelming rush of need that burned through my system when I touched her this way. Flames licked at my skin and pulsed heat into my veins.
Every single inch of my body hardened.
“You always have,” I said as I stared up at her. “Do you know that? The first time I saw you ten years ago in that little cafe, all I could think about was finding out what you had hidden underneath your clothes. And it’s perfection, Elizabeth. Every inch of you is perfection.”
Elizabeth watched down on me with dark, hungry eyes. Deliberately my hand slid around to her front. My tongue darted out to wet my lips as I nudged her legs farther apart. I ran my knuckles over the scrap of dampened lace between her thighs.
Vibrations shook her, and she grasped my shoulders for support. “Christian,” pushed from her lungs in a quiet plea, her fingers desperate as they curled in my shirt.
My name on her tongue sounded like heaven.
I suppressed a pained groan and let my hands trail back down her legs to the top of her boots. I sat back a little, one knee on the floor and the other bent with my foot planted in front of me. I brought her foot up to rest on my knee. “I want you to remember this night, Elizabeth.” Slowly I dragged the zipper down the inside of her leg to her ankle. The distinct sound infiltrating the hush of the room slammed me with a shot of lust, curled as the tightest knot in the pit of my stomach. I had to will myself to keep it under control, to go slow, because I wanted to savor this night. “I want you to forever remember the first time I make love to you in the city where we started all those years ago.”
I wanted this night to erase every bad memory she harbored of this place while it took her back to the hundreds of perfect nights we’d spent with our bodies tangled.
I wanted this to make a mark. An impression.
I wanted it to make a promise.
I worked her boot free, watching her expression as it dropped to the floor with a soft thunk.
Elizabeth emitted a tiny whimper, quivered more.
Quietly I went to work on the other.
Anticipation thickened the air around us, ours breaths filling the room, heavy and hard. Both of our bodies strained, knowing the pleasure that was to come. Elizabeth and I had wasted so much time. Too much time. How many nights had been pilfered away when we could have been wrapped up in each other like we were going to be tonight? No more. I was finished squandering away my chances, finished living my life as a fool.
My life would be lived for her.
And I’d never get enough.
I edged back to take her in.
Barefooted, she squirmed in front of me, her palms flattened against the window to hold herself up. Her expression was dark, intense, needy…as needy as my own. Soft fingertips came out to brush along my cheek, set me aflame as they glanced across my lips.
“You are such a beautiful man,” she murmured as a somber flash of emotion flitted over her face. “Inside and out. Thank you for showing me. For making me finally see. For helping me believe. I’d forgotten how to.”
With her adoring touch, a shiver rolled down my spine, spun with my desire, wound with the devotion that filled every crevice of my being. She was mine. But God, there was no doubt that I belonged to her.
“I won’t ever let you forget again.” The promise penetrated the heady air.
Steadily I pushed to my feet, my gaze locked on hers, my intentions clear. I unbuckled her belt, let it fall free before I fisted her dress and dragged it over her head. Waves of her hair fell all around her delicate shoulders, her nearly naked body like a beacon that called me home. I took her by the hips and hoisted her up. She wrapped her long legs around my waist, just as sure as the arms she wrapped around my neck. Her tiny body burned into mine as she pressed herself to me.
My spirit sang.
With one arm secured around her waist, I twisted the other hand through the thick locks of blonde that shimmered in the faint glow of light cast in from the window.
Elizabeth brushed her lips across mine, then sucked at my bottom lip before she turned her attention to the top. A greedy urge to consume her speared me when she swept her tongue over mine in a slow, measured tease.
A growl rumbled in my chest, and I felt her smiling against my mouth, all cute and smug.
My hold intensified as I carried her toward the huge bed that rested in the middle of the room.
This girl was too much. One touch and she managed to devour me whole.
But tonight, I would be the one doing the devouring.
I dropped her onto the bed. She bounced on the plush mattress, and that hoarse giggle from earlier made a resurgence. A coy smile curved her perfect mouth as she stared up at me.
“And just what do you think you’re laughing about?” I warned, fighting the humor that threatened to work its way into my tone. I stepped back and tugged at the knot in my tie. I pulled it free, dropped it to the ground. I ticked through the buttons on my shirt, one by one, while I matched her penetrating gaze.
Sitting up on her elbows, she rubbed her thighs together, watching as I peeled my shirt from my shoulders. Her voice was all raspy. “I’m laughing because I can’t stop, Christian. I can’t express what being with you means to me. I never thought I’d feel this way again. How can I even begin to describe how good I feel?”
I edged forward and placed my hands on her knees. “Prepare yourself to feel like this night after night, day after day, Elizabeth. I’m not ever going to stop loving you.” I forced her legs apart. My attention went straight to her lace-covered center. I dipped down and pressed my mouth to the thin fabric, softly kissed her there. “Not ever going to stop touching you.”
Elizabeth jerked. The muscles of her flat belly rippled with the slow tremor that rolled through her body as I flattened my tongue on the lace in a long, firm stroke. She writhed. “Oh my God, Christian,” begged from her mouth.
Her smell, the sounds escaping her quivering mouth, the need I felt radiating from her worked my body into a slow frenzy.
I slipped off the bed, grabbed her by the thighs, and tugged her to the very edge of the mattress. I wrapped my fingers in her panties, and she lifted her legs in the most delicious way, one foot pressed to my chest, the other to the top of my thigh.
Fuck.
There were few words to describe her. I couldn’t help but tell her the only one that sufficed. “Perfect. You are absolutely perfect, Elizabeth. No one compares to you. No one.”
It was her. Only her.
The only one there’d ever been.
I edged back and pulled her panties down the length of her legs, tossing them aside.
Faster than I could make sense of it, Elizabeth scrambled to her knees, the woman kneeling in front of me wearing only the sexiest bra I’d ever seen in my life, all black and lace and frill. The rest of that luscious body was exposed, her skin smooth and kissed in honey, just begging for my touch.
I ached, couldn’t wait to bury myself in the heat hidden between her thighs.
She raked her fingers down my chest. My stomach twisted in knots as she dragged them through the trail of hair that disappeared into my pants. Her expression was intense, filled with all-consuming need and overpowering love as she forcefully jerked the button free on my slacks, her breath all sweet as it fanned out around me.
It felt like the most sublime contradiction.
She leaned in close, never looking away from my face as she lowered the zipper on my pants, just as slowly as I’d lowered the ones on her boots. The waistband hung loose.
The words bled from her mouth where it rested just a breath from mine, washed over me in an intoxicating swell. “Ten years, Christian, and it’s still the same. You consume me.” Her fingers teased at the waistband of my underwear. “You still manage to make my stomach feel like it’s bottoming out and my heart beat like it might pound right out of my chest.” There was no mistaking the passion wound tightly through the words. “You make me ache.” The last came with the same desperation thundering through my veins.
Her movements were dense, as dense as the air, weighted with fervency. She swallowed. “It’s always been you, Christian. Since the moment I realized I was in love with you when I was eighteen, I never stopped. And I promise you, I’m not ever going to.”
Lust curled through me as she ran her hands beneath the fabric of my pants and pushed them down over my hips. They sat open at my thighs. My erection strained for her as she knelt in front of me. Through my briefs, she delicately ran her thumb around the ridge of sensitive skin. My stomach quivered and jerked.
“Elizabeth,” rumbled from my mouth, “that feels so good.”
Her touch became firmer, purposed as she palmed me through the fabric in a calculated taunt. Then she freed me. With one hand she grasped me behind my neck and leaned her weight back, her hair falling and brushing along the bed as her body arched. With her other hand, she pleasured me with long, hard strokes that nearly brought me to my knees. “Fuck.” The word came harsh, grated from my throat.
A satisfied grin lifted her mouth, quivered at just one side. “This…this is the way you make me feel, like I’m going to come undone with just the barest caress. Or maybe I’ll come with just the way you’re looking at me right now.”
I groaned, consumed—floored—loving this girl more than I ever thought possible. Sexy and sweet. Innocent and unbelievably bold. She was everything.
Everything.
I rushed to get undressed, kicking off my shoes and socks in the same second I shook my pants free from my legs. Elizabeth was pushing my underwear down just as frantically as I was twisting out of them. I forced her back onto the bed.
She lay there panting, completely exposed.
My groan echoed off the walls when I sank deep into her warmth.
A thrill rocketed straight up my spine, spun my head with a delirious joy. I fisted my hands in her hair, my hips rigid as I rocked into her.
Elizabeth clenched around me, her body fitting me like she was made for me.
Because she was.
“Oh, fuck, Elizabeth.” I pulled back and slammed back into her.
She gasped, lifting her chin with her mouth open wide.
“Nothing could feel better than this,” raked from my throat. “Nothing in this world. Nothing.”
Pleasure fisted me, pulled at the knots that already twisted my stomach in the tightest ball. I kissed her hard, just as hard as I drove my body into hers, determined to lose myself deeper in her than I ever had before.
Elizabeth’s hands were everywhere, impatient, greedy as they sought me out, sinking into my shoulders, digging into my ass. She lifted herself to me in a desperate play to bring me closer, offering up every inch of that glorious body.
I took her whole, fierce, hard, frantic. She was fire and warmth and light. My joy. My life.
My fingers dug into her hips, and I rose up onto my knees. She wrapped her legs around my waist, and I lifted her as I buried myself in her again and again.
Elizabeth was panting, these short, rasping sounds forced from her mouth. Her body rocked with each firm thrust. Her breasts swelled over the cup of her bra, her hair spread out all around her as she gripped the sheets.
“Beautiful,” I wheezed. “I wish you could see what you look like right now. What I see when I look at you.”
Her gaze met mine, full of meaning that spoke of our hearts, of our pasts, of our futures. “I already see it in your eyes.”
Her legs began to shake.
Forever.
I drove into her.
And I could feel it when she came, could feel her pleasure as she clenched around my cock. That pleasure rose in waves, lifting her back from the bed as she cried out my name.
I slammed into her, devouring her, taking what had always been mine.
Hooking her legs over my arms, I gripped her by the back of the waist, would do anything to get her closer. Leaning back, I lifted my face toward the ceiling and let myself go.
Forever.
Ecstasy hit me. Intensely. Wholly. I throbbed as I poured into her, this bliss that spread out to saturate every cell of my body.
Forever.
Elizabeth was my forever.
I twitched and jerked. Inhaling raggedly, I sucked air into my empty lungs. I attempted to loosen my fingers anchored in her flesh.
Elizabeth gasped for a breath of her own. I slumped down on top of her, feeling an absurd grin spread across my face as I did. But I couldn’t stop it. I was happy. So happy, it contented every cell within me, erased every dark night I’d ever spent without her.
I kissed her on the mouth and leaned up on my elbow to brush back the sweat-dampened hair matted to her forehead.
She smiled, her eyes all alight with the love that would never let us go.
My pulse stuttered.
Elizabeth would never stop stealing my breath.
Because she possessed my soul.
Her brown eyes blinked up at me, and a soft, sleepy smile spread across her full lips.
“What are we waiting for, Elizabeth?” came as an unstoppable request from the depths of my soul. I pulled back. One hand gripped her hip as I searched her face.
Softly her lips parted, her presence invading my space, stealing my senses.
“What do you mean?” she asked. Her expression worked to grasp my meaning, a hunch clearly taking hold in the line that dented her brow.
“Waiting to get married…waiting to add to our family. What are we waiting for? This is what we both want. It’s what’s good for us. What’s good for Lizzie. I know we planned on waiting, but…”
After everything we’d been through in the last year, me making contact with my daughter for the first time in her life, just days before she turned five, the way Elizabeth and I had struggled through the months as she’d tried to shut me out, the disaster we’d created in the wake of this passion that could never be contained. And our reconciliation that had finally cut through all the shit that had held us back. We’d thought it best to wait. To give ourselves time to adjust to this new life, to learn how to be the family we were always meant to be.
But that’s what we already were.
A family.
I wanted it in name. I wanted it in reality.
The words rushed up my throat, flooded from my mouth. “I want it all, and I want it now. I want it with you, Elizabeth.”
“Christian—”
“Please, don’t say anything right now. I just want you to think about it.”
She grabbed my face. “I don’t need to think about it. I’m ready for this. I’m ready for you. I’m ready for us. There are no questions left.”
Then she smiled, a twist of her mouth that said it all.
Relief and joy escaped me in a throaty groan. It was all I wanted, to spend my life with her, to spend it with our daughter, to live for my family, to watch it grow.
Loving fingers trailed down my back, before she wrapped both arms around me in a tender embrace.
Rolling onto my back, I grabbed for her and tugged her flat onto my chest. Everything thrummed between us, the spastic beat of our hearts, our love, the trust that had once again bonded us together.
And I silently swore I’d never do anything to break it again.
I gentled my fingers through her hair, and her breath left her in a contented sigh. We laid like that for what seemed like hours, both of us silent as we stared out the window at the blanket of winter that held in the city lights. Snow still flitted across the sky, and the deepest calm settled over us.
Elizabeth’s fingers played at my collarbone, and she ran lazy circles over my skin as her heart began to slow and find rest with mine. “I’m so happy, Christian.” Her voice bled into the dimness of the room like a declaration, a profession made.
Her confession took root somewhere deep inside me and swelled within my chest. I cupped her face and tilted it up so I could look at her, my tone tightened in emphasis.
“You make me happy. You always have. There’s something about you, Elizabeth, just being in a room with you, that brings me joy.”
She trembled an impassioned smile and ran her fingertips along my bottom lip. “I get to spend my life with my best friend.” That smile strengthened with emotion. “There’s nothing more perfect than that.”
My eyes dropped closed. My best friend. They fluttered open to meet with hers. “Perfect.”
Everything was perfect.
Present Day
God, I missed her. Missed her so much it paralyzed me, left me without a will. Because this wasn’t about betrayal, not something she or I had caused. This was something that neither of us could control. This was unfair, unjust. This was torture.
“Hey, man, we’re getting ready to close up.”
Jarred from my stupor, I scrubbed a palm over my face to wake myself up, swayed a little as I tried to find my footing. I struggled to focus as I signed the tab he slid my way.
“You okay?” Kurt asked, eyeing me as he gathered the receipt.
The laugh that escaped me was humorless. “Yeah, I’m fucking perfect.”