We’re meant to be.

The thought sounds like such a washed up cliché, but I believe it without a doubt. The sight of Rose walking toward the steps of her apartment building fills my chest with possessiveness and a primitive need. As the driver pulls up beside her and I lower my window, I’m tempted to forget everything and fuck her in the back of this limousine.

I wasn’t gone for that long, but I fucking crave her. And I know that even more now because for the first time, while I was gone, I didn’t even think about another woman, let alone sleep with anyone. It may be the longest I’ve gone without. And now, seeing her, I’m so fucking hard, so ready to end my short-term celibate status. As she climbs into the back seat with me, I pull her close, meet her waiting kiss, and force myself to work on providing her with all the other updates, Those need to be covered. I need to get them out of the way so I can have her all to myself tonight, and if she’s willing, for a long time after that.

I ask her to give me time to work through my list. Yes, I fucking made a list of shit to tell her. I owe it to her to be forthcoming, and while I was out of the country, she patiently waited, reserved judgment, and put her trust in me. To me, that show of faith means more than she’ll ever know. After my phone call with Dylan, I also spoke to Jackson, who brought me up to speed so I’d be prepared to give her facts and absolutes rather than ‘maybe’ and ‘possibly.’ It’s the least I can do.

She sits calmly beside me, listening as I explain the student loan item and inform her that the information she passed onto us from Levine Holdings has been destroyed. I see the mixed feeling on her face with that last update, and add the point about protecting her future as well as her present by ensuring she’ll never be implicated. Her face relaxes then. All that’s left now is to demonstrate that restoring her employment status post-termination is important to me and my firm. On making her an offer to work as a junior analyst for Knights Capital, I’m only mildly surprised when Rose turns it down.

“I hope you’re not offended,” she says. “I have a lead on a position at the department store where I work. And before you object, I want you to know that first, it’s a paid internship with the corporate head office. It has a focus on online brand engagement and merchandising, which should be a great fit for me. Second, as much as I appreciate the job offer, I want… I need to know I can make it on my own. It’s not personal, and it has nothing to do with what I think of you. I just need—”

“You don’t have to explain,” I tell her, relieved and feeling lucky to know first-hand what an independent person she is. “Congrats. You’ll do great.”

With my list of discussion items covered, the air is now clear. All I want now is to press her soft, shapely body next to mine. Lust and need and waiting hang between us now, building, growing, even as the driver pulls up to the underground parking of my place. But there’s one more item I want to cover.

“Actually…”

She holds her breath as I reach into the pocket of my suit jacket. No, I’m not about to propose to her. Not yet. But while I was in London, I found her something. Pulling out a blue velvet jewelry box, I open the lid, and smile at the way she gasps.

“Oh my gosh, it’s beautiful,” she shrieks, gazing down at the necklace I bought her. It has a rose gold pendant that looks a lot like the earrings I’ve seen her wear a few times.

“The second I saw it, I was almost sure it was for you.”

“I love it. It’s gorgeous,” she says, her eyes starting to glisten with the threat of tears. “I don’t think I can ever thank you enough. It’s just so…perfect.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

We take the elevator up and quickly make it inside. I’m thrown off guard by how much possessiveness overtakes me, seeing her in my space, so comfortable and at ease, as though she’s always belonged here.

Yes. One of these days, I plan to invite her to make it her home.

Our home.

“Are you hungry?” I ask.

She takes off her shoes and turns to me, wrapping her arms around my waist. “Not really. I had lunch before I was fired,” she says with a lighthearted grin. “How about you?”

My mouth lowers to the spot at the line of her jaw that drives her insane whenever I kiss her there. I barely notice that my fingers are already busy opening her blouse.

“I’m only hungry for one thing,” I moan, and drag the lace of each bra cup below her breasts, baring her to me. Heat and color rise up her neck in response, and I take her chin in between my thumb and index finger while my other hand begins to plays at the hemline of her office skirt. “Famished is more like it.”

“Oh God,” she hums out. “I missed you, Caleb.”

“I fucking missed you too, sweet thing,” I groan against her chin, inhaling her scent and committing it to memory for a moment. Then I smash my lips to hers for the kiss I’ve been holding onto since before I left town. My hands, tongue, lips, skin, my cock, they all want to touch every part of her at the same time. And so does she, I learn, as her hand presses between us and covers the tip of my growing cock through my slacks.

I decide right then that my bedroom upstairs is too far away. We won’t get that far. Picking her up, I walk with her and press her back against the wall nearest to us. It’s a bonus that we’re also close to the living room drawer where I left a stash of condoms. Her legs wrap around my hips, the motion causing her skirt to rise high up past her mid-thighs. She’s so fucking hot, and I’m hard as fuck, getting harder by the second as her bare breasts graze along my chest, with her pussy at my lower belly, drenched and aroused, wet and so fucking ready.

And she’s all mine.

All of her.

Every naked inch of her body, and every corner of her heart.

Searching her face, I find and put on a condom in record time. “You’re mine, Rose,” I hear myself say.

She nods, gripping onto my upper arms.

“Every beautiful, fucking inch.”

I position my cock at her wet folds, and grip her panties, pulling it to one side, and she presses her lips to mine.

“Come inside me,” she pleads against my mouth. “I can’t wait any longer.”

The feel of her legs spreading wider, opening for me, drives me to push into her in one punishing stroke. She cries out my name at my shoulder, and her pussy clenches around my shaft. Pulling back, I kiss her collarbone and bury into her again, rocking back, pistoning forward, carrying her with me past the edge of madness until we both come. Her body is still shaking, and my legs still feel sore as I pull her back from the wall and move out of her.

“We’re not done, yet,” I rasp into her ear as I take her upstairs to my bed.

“I know,” she whispers. “You’re just getting started.”

She couldn’t be more right.