Chapter 26
Jade
“I can’t take aspirin for your headache.”
~ Nora O’Sullivan
I sat on the couch with all of Hayden’s letters spread out on the coffee table in front of me, tears running down my face and my heart clutched with grief over the time that we’d lost. He poured his heart out in these. He explained everything. What he was feeling. Why he’d done what he had. What I meant to him. How much he loved me and would always love me. How much he missed me.
I’d wasted years of my life hating him and I had no one to blame but myself. My own stupidity, or rather stubbornness, had caused me to put those letters in a drawer without tearing them open so many years ago, and now we were both paying the price and had been for a long time.
How would I ever make that up to him? To myself?
The only way that I could think of was to never let it happen again.
The doorbell rang and my heart raced. It had to be Hayden. It just had to be.
I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand as best I could, but I honestly didn’t care how I looked.
I flung open the door and my prayers were answered—it was Hayden standing there, looking so heart-stoppingly handsome that it was all I could do to keep from throwing myself into his arms.
Then I figured, why fight the feeling? So I did. He caught me and buried his head in my neck as he held me so tight I could barely breathe.
“I’m so sorry—” he began, but I cut him off with my own apologies.
“No, don’t say that.” All of my feelings came spilling out in a waterfall of words. “I’m the one that’s sorry. I cut you out of my life all those years ago because of my pride. I didn’t even read your letters. But I read them tonight. I read your heart, and it’s the best and kindest heart I’ve ever known. I love you, Hayden. I want to be with you for the rest of our lives. Is that what you want?”
He looked into my eyes for a long moment, and for each one of those torturous passing seconds, I worried that I might be too late. Maybe our timing had just never synced up, and whatever this was that was happening between us was going to end here tonight. That would break my heart all over again.
He finally put me out of my misery and gave me a wide grin before pressing those smiling lips to mine in the most tender kiss we’d ever shared. When he pulled back, he brushed my hair away from my forehead and said, “That is what I want. Now. Still. Always. Forever. I want you.”
Another sob claimed me, but this time the tears were pure joy. I kissed him again—attacked him, really—pressing my lips to his with all of the pent up passion and emotion that had been building inside me since the moment I first saw him.
Then, I planted my feet firmly back on the floor, gathered up the front of his shirt in both of my fists, and yanked him firmly inside the house, kicking the door shut behind him. I let go of his shirt just long enough to reach over and firmly lock the door.
His eyes glinted with hunger at the click of the lock. I wondered if the sound was reminding him, as it was me, of the naked shenanigans in his office. Hmmm…well, those were good memories, for sure. But they were also something else.
A challenge. And competitive as I was, I couldn’t let a challenge stand. Tonight, we would outdo ourselves. I’d make sure of it. Tonight was a night that I wanted us to remember forever.
I took Hayden’s hand and looked up into his eyes. “You know what I really want to do with you right now?”
He grinned. “I have a pretty good idea.”
I reached up to run my fingers along his strong jawline. “I want to go to bed with you.” My words came out in a strangled whisper.
He stepped closer to me. “Yeah. That’s kind of what I figured.”
I laughed, a low and throaty sound. “No, smartass. I mean that literally. To the actual bed this time.”
He kissed me, then pulled back and said, “I like the way you think. Let’s go.”
With that, he swept me up in his arms and carried me down the hall toward my bedroom. When we stepped through the threshold and crossed the floor toward the bed, he leaned down and started kissing me and my heart opened, truly, for the first time since I’d shut it out of self-protection. He laid me down on the soft comforter but never stopped kissing me, not for one second.
There was a different energy between us now. Arousal was still building fast and furious, that hadn’t changed. But the raw desperation that had characterized every one of our encounters up until this point was replaced with passionate tenderness. Maybe it was because we’d finally gotten around to acknowledging our true feelings, both to each other and to ourselves. Now we could express our feelings freely through touching, kissing, and making love.
With exquisite tenderness, Hayden undressed me. He took time to explore every new bit of exposed skin as he pulled my clothing away piece by piece, like he’d never seen my naked flesh before.
It was so hot, being looked at with all of the erotic intensity that colored Hayden’s eyes and face as he stared at my body. When Hayden looked at me, I felt like the most gorgeous girl who’d ever lived. He made me feel treasured in a way that I’d never experienced, and now that I had a taste for it I couldn’t imagine ever letting it go.
When he’d finally succeeded in removing every single article of clothing that had covered me, he stood up and looked at me, running his eyes slowly up and down my body, as if he were a computer scanning me to make a 3D model. It was like he was doing more than just looking at my naked body. He was committing it to memory.
“You’re making me so wet, looking me up and down like that. You’re not even touching me yet, but I can feel your eyes on me like you’re touching me.”
He knelt down next to the bed and I couldn’t get over how sexy, how authoritative, how commanding just his presence was. It was nice to be in capable hands. And mouth. And tongue. And dick.
“Damn, I could get used to this,” I whispered.
His eyes met mine. “That’s the plan.”
He smiled and, without another word, bent his head and took one of my nipples in his mouth, swirling his tongue around the hard bud for a long moment before moving to the other one.
Sparklers started burning in my body immediately, starting from my breasts and radiating out. I particularly felt the heat between my legs. It seemed to pool there and burn especially hot.
I writhed under his touch. My muscles couldn’t be still. Whereas just a moment ago they’d been languorous, hot and rolling slowly like lava, now they were jumpy and twitchy, like they were being fired with electrical pulses at random intervals.
Without taking his mouth away from my sensitive nipples, Hayden slid the flat of his palm down the length of my belly and slipped his fingers in between my legs. He rubbed them up and down along the length of my seam, spreading my juices all over my lips, which were plump and sensitive with arousal.
Every single time his touch came even slightly close to my pleasure button, the unseen electrodes firing in my muscles doubled in speed and intensity. I felt like a marionette on a string with my movements controlled by an outside force. My arms shot above my head, my back arched forcefully, my hips rolled and pushed into his hands of their own accord.
Finally, he pushed two fingers inside of me and moved them in a sensuous rhythm while using his thumb to stimulate my hard, sensitive nub. Through all of this, he kept flicking my distended nipples with the hard tip of his tongue. The combination of all of that stimuli and the swirling mixture of sensations they sent flying through my body was too much to take.
Without warning, everything inside of me exploded in a bone-crushing climax. My belly muscles contracted, my inner walls clamped down on his hand, and my back arched even further, driving my breasts deeper into his mouth.
My entire body spasmed as the release exploded in me. I gasped a silent cry as my head jerked up and my stomach contracted.
I rode out that climax until the end, reveling in the animalistic lust flowing through my veins until all that was left was my heavy breathing, sweat cooling on my skin, and the vague sensation of Hayden’s hand resting on my hip while his other one stroked my hair.
When I was finally able to open my eyes, all of that animalistic energy was gone and I was floating in a pool of pure, gushy emotion. My eyes filled with tears as they met his. I was overwhelmed by all of the strong feelings buffeting me from every angle.
I put my hand to the side of his face and he leaned into it, closing his eyes as he did.
“I love you,” I whispered, both because it was the truth and because I was so completely wrung out that the only words I could manage at the moment were the simplest distillation of that truth. “God, I love you so much.”