Chapter 29

Olivia

I kissed the top of Penny’s head and closed The Hungry Caterpillar, smiling at the higgledy-piggeldy worm on the front of the book. “There you go, sweetheart,” I whispered and kissed the top of her head.

“Nigh-nigh, Libya. I love you.”

“I love you more,” I whispered and kissed her again. I picked her up and carried to the crib I’d had transferred all the way to Ithaca with the rest of our furnishings and luggage then placed her inside. “Sleep tight, sweetheart.”

She blew me a kiss by pressing her lips to her fist and shooting it toward me, and I repeated the action back to her.

I left her room—Michael’s old room—and walked down the hall to mine. My old one, at least. I hadn’t slept in there since we’d come up here last week.

One week since the entire custody battle had totally dissolved and Nicki had phoned me and told me things I could hardly believe. Things that’d made my blood boil in my veins. And then she’d told me the reason why she’d even called.

Beckett had made her do it.

Beckett had forced them out. Forced them to drop everything.

And just like that, Penny and I were totally free to live our lives and settle down in my parents’ old home.

I hadn’t officially bought Nathan out yet, but when I’d texted him about it, he’d said we’d organize it and he could use the money, which was worrying in itself.

My bedroom.

Even the door brought back memories. It was slightly ajar, now, and had been since the first day I’d come back, as if Damon, the caretaker, had left it that way for me purposefully.

I opened it and stepped inside, into the purple light of dusk streaming through the windows.

It was exactly the same as I remembered it. The glow-in-the-dark stars pasted on my ceiling. The single bed in the corner, the table, still holding a stack of books I hadn’t packed in my bag when I’d left for college.

I walked to the window and stood in front of it, my hands clasped around my waist.

Beckett had saved us from pain and anxiety.

I hadn’t called him. He hadn’t called me. An entire week had passed and still nothing.

He’d disappeared all over again, and that was fine. It was totally fine. It wasn’t like I’d expected anything more than that from him.

Except it’s not fine, because this is different. He actually did something for you. He actually showed he cared after you said it, and you were the one who pushed him away again.

I clutched myself tighter and squeezed, tried to force away the memories of this man and his searing touch and his eyes and that love that I’d felt for him for so long it burned what I was made of it.

It scorched my soul. It had tempered me and remade me into someone else.

No more Olivia who went to the spa every single day and gossiped and expected people to wait on her hand and foot no matter the situation.

I couldn’t deny that Beckett was part of the reason the change had come over me. He was part inspiration, part irritation, and all love.

I opened the window, slid it up, and bowed my head, listening to the rustling of birds in trees, the gentle chirps of crickets. Peace drifting on the air. No traffic noises, honking, or the hum of engines. Just nature and peace.

And… footsteps?

My ears pricked up, and I raised my head, but there was no one outside, and the sound had stopped.

It had to have been my imagination. It had to be my craziness over Beckett.

I so wanted to call him, but that would only turn him off. And I wasn’t ready for it yet.

Get real. You’re so ready, you’re dying inside.

I turned on the spot to leave this room and its memories and ran right into a bookshelf. I groaned and clutched my forehead. Hands took hold of my upper arms, thumbs stroked my bare skin, and I let out a tiny yelp.

God, it wasn’t a bookshelf, it was—

“O.”

I melted into a mental and emotional puddle at his feet. Somehow, I kept my spine straight and raised my head to meet his gaze. Black again, but this time, it wasn’t the abyss within them, it was the space between stars. Not empty, but infinite. A blanket of inkiness that could contain the mysteries of the goddamn universe.

“How? What are you doing here?”

“I’ll admit it took me a while to find you. Thanks for skipping town without saying goodbye, by the way, but do you really think I don’t remember the alarm code to your house? Christ, none of you changed it in years,” he replied, mirth zinging in his voice. “I’m surprised you haven’t been robbed yet.”

“That’s a comforting thought.”

His lips tugged downward at the corners, and his focus sharpened on me. In this room. The room where we’d first kissed.

“I love you,” he said.

Fucking what? Tears sprung to my eyes instantly. My heart thudded against my chest, my throat. No, my entire body was one giant organ, thudding, heaving, on the verge of spasm or collapse.

This couldn’t be real.

“I love you so much I can’t stand it. I can’t stand how much I love you, Olivia.” Beckett said. This was so him to switch from breaking in to declaring love in the span of a few seconds. “I love you so much I’d kill for you. I’d die for you. I love you so fucking much I sold my business for you.”

“What?” Tears blurred my view of him, now.

“I love you so much I’ve given up smoking and drinking. I love you so much everything I thought I cared about has paled in comparison. O, I was wrong about us in every way.” His fingers dragged up my arms, over the shoulders of my blouse, and across it. He traced my collarbone with his thumbs, then ran them up the front of my throat, slipped his fingers into my hair, and held my head like it was precious. A gem. The only thing that mattered.

“Wrong?”

“Yes,” he said. “I wrote it to you, I told you, I insisted.”

“What?”

“That you were mine.” Beckett’s voice shook with intensity. “When really, all along, it was the other way around.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“I am and always have been yours, Olivia Abbott.” He drew me to him, then, pressed his lips to mine and tasted me, loved me with a kiss that could’ve lasted a minute or a lifetime. We parted, and he pressed his forehead to mine.

“Now, I can only ask you, humbly,” he said and sank to the floor on one knee in front of me. “Will you be mine?” Beckett produced a velvet ring box from his pocket, and by the light of the glowing stars overhead, he opened it, revealing the sapphire ring, with clustered diamonds around it, embedded in white gold. “Will you be mine, O? Forever. From now until forever. No walking away. No games. No fake-out. No more tears unless they’re ones of happiness.”

I gulped, my fingers limp and a little sweaty in his grasp.

“Can you forgive me for being such a clueless dick?” he asked.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes to all of it. Yes.” How could I possibly say no? The past weeks had been torture, no matter how much I wanted to pretend that it’d been fine. “It’s always been you. You know that.”

Beckett removed the ring from the box and slipped it onto the finger of my left hand. He rose from the ground and swept me into his arms. He kissed me again, this time for longer.

It was like I’d been dying of thirst in the desert, and he was my oasis.

His lips pressed against mine, parted, and his tongue tasted my mouth. Beckett was so warm and wet, so sweet. The pressure of him touching me, devouring me, yet again, set me on fire.

I heated from the inside out, moved my body up against his, and slipped my fingers into his hair, so soft and dark.

He’d chased off George and Nicki. He’d given up his business. He’d quit drinking. And he’d actually committed to me.

Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, and he stopped the kiss again. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I replied. “I just—this is everything. I want you to make love to me on my bed like I dreamed of years ago. Please.”

Beckett bent and swept my legs out from underneath me, then lifted me into the air. He walked me over to my bed and lowered me onto it.

His jeans came off, then mine. His shirt, my blouse. My bra, my panties. His shoes. Each was removed by his fingers, so large, but now, so delicate like he was intent on making me understand that this wasn’t rough, this was us. It was love. It was everything I’d ever needed.

Beckett stood naked above me, hard and hot, illuminated from above by the glowing stars on my ceiling. They cast light on his pecs, on the tattoos across his chest and arms, on his abs.

Slowly, he lowered himself to the bed and lay next to me. He kissed my forehead, then my left eye, then my right. The tip of my nose, my top lip. My bottom lip he sucked into his mouth, then bit lightly.

I moaned, quiet.

“I love you,” he said and kissed my chin next, then my neck, my collarbone, the slope of my breast. He sucked one nipple into my mouth and nibbled lightly, then worked his way over to the other and did the same.

“Oh god,” I whispered and arched into him. I wasn’t huge on boob play, but with him, it was insanely good. It was hot.

Beckett pressed both my breasts together and suckled on them, growled low in his throat. “I could spend forever doing this,” he said. “But I won’t. Turn on your side.”

I rolled onto one hip and he lifted me, then slipped his arm underneath, pulled me into him so he was the big spoon and I was the little. His free hand traveled between my legs.

Beckett found my clit and pinched it lightly, rolled it.

I lost my mind for him, rubbed my ass against the hard length of his cock. It rested between my ass cheeks, and against the base of my back, dripping pre-cum for me.

“I missed you,” he said.

“I missed you, too,” I groaned. “I can’t wait any longer. Please, Beckett, I need you inside me. I need your cum.”

“Fuck it, O. How am I supposed to resist that?”

“You’re not,” I said and rolled my hips in time with his finger on my clit. Sparks of pleasure shot through my core, deeper, to my spine and upward. I was alive again. Whenever he touched me, I was alive and breathing.

He hooked the arm underneath me around my neck and held me tight, almost choking me, taking me to a new height, and used his other hand to bend me into the right position.

The tip of his cock probed my entrance, and I arched into him, tried capturing it all.

Beckett grabbed my hip and held me completely still. “Naughty girl.”

“I want it,” I whispered. “Give it to me.”

“Ask nicely.”

“Please.” I rolled my ass and clenched my pussy around his tip.

Beckett pressed into me inch by delicious inch, and I moaned and writhed against him.

“So good,” I said.

“Amazing.” He kissed my cheek, tightened his grip on my hip, and started thrusting.

Every movement on his part unraveled me further, and I held onto the arm looped around my neck with both hands, feeling the hard muscle beneath my fingertips and just relishing this. This moment.

He quickened the pace, shifting his grip on my hip and worked my clit instead, circling his thickness inside me, grazing my g-spot with every thrust.

He bit the back of my neck, lightly, and I sucked in a gasp, clenching around him.

“Beckett,” I whispered. “God, Beckett. I’m going to come. I’m going to come for you.”

“All over my cock. It’s your cock now, O. It’s all yours until the end of time. I want you to come all over it every night.” He sucked on my earlobe, nibbled. “Every night from now on. It’s you and me, O.”

The words pushed me right to the edge. I shattered around him, came so hard I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming for him.

Beckett’s cock thickened inside me, and he released, too, pulsing and grunting, driving home again and again.

After, we lay together, me in his arms and him still buried inside me, and my eyes drifted shut, a smile teasing me on the edge of a dream. The best dream ever.

I was Beckett Price’s fiancée. His real fiancée. And our future would be whatever we made it. Whatever we wanted. Penny would be happy and safe.

What more could I ask for?