Gavin crawled into bed and immediately reached for her.
She curled up to him, her hand on his abdomen, her legs tangled up in his.
“You’re wearing far too many clothes,” he said. “If we’d stayed at your place, we would’ve slept naked. I feel penalized for protecting your reputation.”
Ella laughed. “You’re very cute when you’re petulant.”
“You’re very cute when you use big words. Now take all this crap off, will you? I want to feel your skin against mine.”
Gavin Guthrie wanted to sleep naked with her. He wanted to feel her skin against his. His gruffly spoken words had her on the verge of overheating as she pulled the tank over her head and then removed her pajama pants and panties.
The second she tossed her clothes onto the floor, his arms came around her, drawing her into his warm embrace. When she felt the press of his hard cock against her bottom, she realized he’d removed his underwear, too. Good God. How was she supposed to sleep when he was hot and hard and ready behind her?
Though she was as tired as she’d ever recalled being, her body was wide awake and yearning for more of him.
“You feel so good, Ella. So, so good.”
“You do, too.” Even the rough scrape of his hairy leg against hers was an instant turn-on.
His hand slid from her belly up to cup her breast, his fingers tweaking her nipple until it was hard and tight.
“We have to sleep, Gavin.”
“We will.”
“When?”
“After.”
She was about to ask more questions, but he began to enter her from behind while continuing to keep her tight against him with one arm while his other hand toyed with her nipple. Ella couldn’t seem to breathe as she waited to see what he would do next. He kept up the slow, shallow strokes until she was ready to plead for more. She wanted all of him. She wanted to be possessed by him. She was already addicted to the feel of him deep inside her, the way he stretched her nearly to the point of pain before the pleasure kicked in.
Grasping his comforter, she pressed back against him, trying to get more, but his tight hold on her made it impossible to do anything other than turn over control to him.
“Easy, baby,” he whispered, his warm breath against her neck setting off a chain reaction that touched every sensitive part of her. “I’ve got you. Relax and let me love you.”
Hearing that word from his lips while his body was joined intimately with hers brought tears to her eyes. She blinked furiously, trying to contain that which could not be contained. Her heart was about to burst from the surge of emotion. She hadn’t known it was possible to feel so much.
He kept up the small, maddening movements until she was prepared to beg if need be to move things along. Before she could do that, however, he grasped her hips and turned them so she was under him, thrusting into her fully in one deep stroke that triggered her orgasm.
She cried out from the powerful release.
“Yes, baby, let me hear you.” Gavin rode her release until her body stopped quaking and then held still inside her, still hard. He peppered her back with kisses and began to move again, slowly at first and then faster until he, too, was coming in a last deep surge. “Now I can sleep.” Kissing her back again, he withdrew and got up to use the bathroom. He returned with a washcloth that he used to clean her up.
Her face was still wet from her tears, which he couldn’t see. It was just as well. He didn’t need to know what an emotional wreck she was.
He again gathered her in close to him, his hand caressing her arm. “Hey, El?”
“Hmm?”
“I just want you to know . . . I’ve laughed more, smiled more, felt more in the last two days than I have in the last seven years. I thought you should know that.”
She couldn’t contain the sob that escaped from her tightly clenched jaw.
Gavin moved quickly, arranging her under him so he could kiss the tears from her face. “What’s this? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. Everything is perfect.”
“Then why the tears?” he asked as he brushed them away.
“Emotional overload.”
“It feels good, though, doesn’t it?”
“It feels so good. So incredibly good.”
He bent his head to kiss her, giving her gentle strokes of his tongue before withdrawing slowly. “Don’t cry, Ella. I can’t bear to see tears on your gorgeous face.”
“Can’t help it. They’re happy tears.”
“I suppose I can live with happy tears.” He moved to his side and brought her with him, settling her into the crook of his arm and neck where she could breathe in the appealing scent of his cologne.
Ella wanted to stay awake and enjoy every second of being close to him this way, but she could no longer fight the exhaustion that dragged her under.
She awoke to darkness, an empty bed and uncertainty about where she was until the events of last night swept through her mind to remind her that she was in Gavin’s bed. But where was he?
The scent of coffee wafted into the bedroom along with the low hum of the TV.
What the hell time was it? A glance at the bedside table clock indicated it was just after six. An ungodly hour to be awake.
She dragged herself out of bed and into the bathroom to brush her teeth and use the facilities. Then she stumbled back into the bedroom in search of the clothes he’d made her remove the night before. Thinking about that and what had followed made Ella’s body tingle as she got dressed.
He was an amazing lover, but then she’d always known he would be. Before now, before him, sex had never been particularly enthralling for her. But with him, she could easily become addicted to the way he made her feel every time he touched her.
Still, hovering beneath the surface of her happiness, was that tingle of fear. By going all in, by giving him everything, she was fully exposed. If it didn’t work out, if something happened . . . No. She couldn’t go there. She wouldn’t. Not when she was determined to enjoy this time with him after wanting him for so long.
With her resolve back in place, she stepped out of the bedroom to find him standing in the kitchen, mug of coffee in hand, dressed in another pair of well-worn jeans and a blue flannel shirt, rolled up to reveal the long-sleeved thermal he wore under it. He looked at her with satisfaction and possessiveness in his gaze. “Morning. Did I wake you?”
“No.” She went to him and wrapped an arm around his waist, noticing his hair was still damp from a shower she’d slept through. “Did you sleep?”
“Yeah, I slept great. You?”
“Same.”
He put down the mug and wrapped his arms around her. “Good. I want you well rested for tonight.”
“What’s tonight?”
“More of the same.” Kissing her, he let his hands wander down to cup her ass, drawing her in tight against his instant erection. “You’ve got me completely addicted to being inside you.”
It was a good thing he was holding her so tightly or she might’ve dissolved into a puddle on the floor. “I’m feeling rather addicted myself.”
“Good problem to have.”
“A very good problem.”
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
He poured her a mug and dished up some eggs and toast for her.
“And here I thought I’d already seen the outer limits of your culinary talents,” she said, taking a seat at the bar to enjoy her breakfast.
“I like to surprise you.”
“You do surprise me.”
He leaned on the counter, closing the space between them. “How so?”
“You tried to warn me away. You tried so hard to scare me off. And since you failed so miserably, I keep wondering what you were so afraid of.”
After a long look down at his coffee, he shifted his gaze to meet hers. “I’m in a good place right now, largely thanks to you. But the dark moods come on me when I least expect them, and sometimes they last awhile.”
“Maybe they won’t come back if you’re happy.”
“We can hope not, but they always seem to come back, no matter what I do.”
Ella put down her fork and pushed her half-finished breakfast aside. “I’m not afraid of the dark, Gavin.”
“You haven’t seen the dark. How can you know that?”
She reached across the counter for his hand. “Last night, you said you’ve been happier in the last few days than you’ve ever been. I have been, too. I’m not going to run away the second things get difficult or challenging.”
“I don’t expect you to put up with me when I’m dealing with that.”
“I want to put up with you all the time—good, bad, ugly. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. Unless you want me to.”
He bent his head over their joined hands, bringing hers to his lips. “I want you right here with me, which still makes me feel selfish at times.”
“Why would you feel selfish when I’m exactly where I’ve always wanted to be?”
“You’re so open and honest. Does it ever scare you to have so much on the line?”
After he’d just complimented her honesty, she couldn’t very well lie to him. “Yeah, it does. Sometimes. But then you hold me and kiss me and make love to me, and the fear becomes so secondary to how I feel when I’m close to you.”
“How do you feel?”
“Overwhelmed in the best possible way. Thrilled to finally have a chance to see what this could be. Hopeful for both of us. Madly, completely and utterly turned on, like I’ve never been before.”
“Those are all good things.”
“Yes, they are, and they make the fear easier to handle.”
“I don’t want you to be afraid.”
“Goes with the territory. Any time we put our hearts on the line for something so important, a little fear is to be expected.”
“For the second day in a row I have no desire to go to work and every desire to spend this day with you.”
“That’s what weekends are for.”
He kissed her hand again before releasing it. “How many more days until the weekend?”
“Four.”
“That’s a lifetime.”
“You’ll survive.”
“I’m not sure I will.” With a deep sigh he turned away from her, rinsed out his mug and left it to dry on a dish towel. “Can you be ready to head into town in a few minutes?”
“Yep.” While he went into the bedroom, she finished her coffee and took her plate to the sink to wash it. She was drying it when the invitation to Dylan’s wedding caught her eye on the counter. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure Gavin was still in the bedroom, Ella picked up the RSVP card and saw that he had checked the “Sending Regrets” box but obviously hadn’t mailed it yet.
It was none of her business. She knew that. But she wanted to do this for him anyway. She wanted to give him back some of what he’d lost when Caleb died, and his friends were a great place to start. She tucked the card into the built-in bra in her tank and then went into the bedroom to get ready to go.
“What’s up tonight?” he asked.
“I’m making that pork tenderloin you made me buy.”
“With the applesauce and potatoes?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll never survive until dinner.”
“I’ll make you a ham sandwich for lunch when we get back to my place.”
“Mmm, with lots of mayo?”
“Ewww. If you insist.”
“I do. I insist.”
If yesterday had been a great day for Ella, today was even better because she’d caught up on her sleep. She floated through her daily routine on a cloud of happiness, trying to work while sensual memories assailed her. The way he’d entered her from behind and driven her slowly mad before giving her what she wanted and needed.
The heated kiss he’d left her with this morning after bringing her home. The promise of more of the same tonight.
A knock on her office door reminded her that she was at work and expected to function, not daydream. “Come in.”
Her brother Wade ducked his head in. “Busy?” Wade most closely resembled Will with his honey-colored hair, but his face was leaner, more angular, and his hair was much longer than Will’s.
“Never too busy for you.”
Smiling, he came in and shut the door, which had Ella wondering what was on his mind.
“What’s up?”
As he always did when he came into her office, he grabbed the stress ball on her desk and took a seat to play with it. “I was about to ask you the same thing. You’ve been hiding out all week, when you’re not walking around with a goofy grin on your face.”
“My grin is not goofy.”
“It’s extremely goofy. Everyone is talking about it, in fact.”
“Whatever. It’s high time I gave them something to talk about, wouldn’t you say?”
“High time for sure.” He moved the ball from hand to hand. “You’re being careful, right?”
“No,” Ella said with a sigh. “I’m not being careful at all. I’m in this so deep, Wade.”
“You’ve been in it so deep with him for a long time now.”
“Yes, I have. And now that I have him, so to speak, it’s made all the years of wanting him so worth it.”
His face set in an oddly contemplative expression. “That must be nice.”
“It is nice. It’s . . . It’s amazing. I always sort of knew it would be this way, but now I know it for sure.”
“I’m happy for you, Ella. You know that, right?”
“Sure.” Why did she hear yet another but coming?
“I just hope he doesn’t disappoint you.”
“You and everyone else I’m related to.” She leaned her elbows on the desktop. “Everyone is saying the same thing. Even he is saying it.”
“And yet . . .”
“And yet, even though I know it’s a slippery slope, I’ve never been this happy, Wade. Ever.”
“Do you know why you’re my favorite sister and my favorite sibling?”
“Why?” she asked, touched by words he’d never said out loud before.
“Because you’re the least judgmental person I know and the nicest. No matter what’s going on, you’re always up, always positive, always optimistic. Those are such admirable qualities. I think we all wish we were more like you.”
“Stop,” she said, feeling leaky around the eyes. Her normally reserved brother was rather effusive today. “That’s not true.”
“It is true. You’re everyone’s go-to person when they need a pick-me-up. Good old Ella is there for everyone. I honestly think there are those among us who would kill anyone who hurt you, even someone we love as much as we do Gavin.”
Incredibly touched by his sweet words, Ella said, “I love you for caring so much and for all the nice things you said about me, even if I don’t feel I deserve such high praise.”
“You deserve it, Ella. You deserve the best of everything. Don’t settle for less, you hear me?”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Good.” He returned the stress ball to the desk. “Then my work here is finished.”
“Are you ever going to tell me who it is that has you tied up in knots?”