CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

She was ready.

Nearly. There was something she had to say. Something that couldn’t wait any longer. She’d held this in too long, for too many years, and it was aching to be set free.

“Wait.”

She placed her hands on his chest, so firm and strong and solid.

He froze on her command. “What is it?”

She cupped his cheeks. “There’s something I have to tell you before we have sex.”

“Okay,” he said, tentatively.

“Something important.”

“Okay.”

He sounded worried, and she was going to nip that worry in the bud. He’d shown her he’d changed, he’d become the man she wanted, and he was willing to give himself to her. She had more to tell him, which she planned to do when they returned to Vegas that night. But right then, she needed to be the first to say the words that she hoped would tether them together once more, and for always. She wanted to put herself on the line for him.

“Brent,” she said, stroking his stubbled jaw, loving his five o’clock shadow. Loving his deep brown eyes. Loving all of him.

“What is it, Shan?”

She wasn’t scared. She didn’t need liquid courage, or a hearty dose of guts. All she felt was an incredible joy, an iridescent passion that tripped through her bones and sparked along her skin. “I have a question for you,” she said, her lips curving into a grin.

He arched an eyebrow playfully. “Why yes, I’m clean, so if you’re on the pill we can do it without a glove.”

She laughed and swatted him. “No, that’s not it.”

“Then what is it, babe? Because I am dying to be inside you. I owe you several orgasms and right now I intend to deliver,” he said, tilting his head to the side. Waiting.

Waiting for her words.

Words that she was dying to share. She felt so vulnerable, but so sure. He was the one true thing in her life. “Do you think it’s possible to fall in love with someone in just two weeks? Especially if that person is the guy you were madly in love with before?” she asked, watching the expression in his eyes change from lust to wonder. He parted his lips, but she shushed him, pressing her fingertip over those soft, delicious lips that she’d be kissing in seconds. “Because I do. It happened to me. I’m so in love with you, Brent Nichols. I am so unbelievably, madly in love with you.”

His eyes sparkled, full of a passion that matched hers. He clasped her hand and kissed her palm, and when he looked at her, he was grinning like a fool in love too. “Yes. I believe it’s possible. Because I’m madly in love with you. I never stopped, Shannon. I never stopped loving you. Not once. You are the only one for me.”

Happiness raced through her veins. Hope flooded her body. Love was all she felt. Heart, mind, and body, she was all in. “You’re the only man I want. Let’s stay together this time. I want to be with you.”

“I’m never letting you slip away from me again,” he said, as he brushed his thumb along her cheek. “You belong with me.”

“I know,” she said on a nod. “I do. Everything feels right being back with you.”

“We’re going to keep it that way. I promise.”

“I promise, too,” she echoed as she held his face, not wanting to look away, not wanting to break the hold he had on her. “Fuck me, take me, make love to me,” she said in a hot whisper.

“It is always all three, babe. I assure you when I fuck you, you are always the woman I love. You always have been. You always will be,” he said as he pushed up her skirt and yanked off her panties. She ached between her legs, pulsing with heat and want.

He gazed hungrily at her. “Beautiful,” he murmured on a low rumble, fucking her with his eyes, his hot stare making her wetter. He unzipped his pants and pushed down his briefs, freeing his gorgeous cock. It was beautiful—long, thick, hard—and she knew what it could do. She knew the depths of pleasure he alone could deliver. She was schooled in the way his cock could take her to heaven and back.

He trailed his fingers along the inside of her thigh, and she trembled with desire, watching the path of his hand. He mesmerized her as he slid his finger through her folds. A current surged through her from his caress. Then she turned fever hot as he took his hand away and spread her wetness along his shaft.

“You’re so fucking turned on, I can coat myself in you,” he said, rubbing her slickness on his hard length.

Her mouth watered as she watched him stroke himself with her arousal. He groaned savagely as he spread her heat on the head, then back down all along his length. “I could get off like this right now. With your wetness on my cock. I want more of it. I want you all over my dick,” he said, going in for a second round, brushing his fingers across her hot center then returning to his cock. His eyes floated closed as he stroked—a long, lingering, tantalizing stroke meant to tease her to the point of no return.

It worked. Oh hell, it worked. She was an inferno.

She couldn’t wait. Seconds seemed too long. She had to have him inside her. “Please,” she begged, as he rubbed the head of his cock across her now, teasing her with that first touch, tempting her with so much more. She desperately longed to feel him slide into her. To have him so deep inside her that the world faded away, that day shaded into night, and night melted into day. And that this—the connection between the two of them, the intensity of their need for each other that spanned years—became all that existed.

Because this was everything good in the world.

Then it hit her. “Condom,” she said, crisply. “We need a condom.”

He furrowed his brow. “I thought you were on—”

She didn’t want to have this conversation. Didn’t want to even tread near it. “I am. But can we just use—”

He cut her off. “Say no more,” he said, grabbing his wallet and finding one quickly. He rolled it on. “Spread your legs on my desk so I can see those shoes.”

She obliged, hooking her spikes on the edge of his desk, opening her legs wide for him.

“Mmm... these legs,” he murmured, running a hand from her knee to her thigh. “In these stockings. And this skirt.” He pushed her skirt all the way to her waist so it bunched up. “And this beautiful, perfect pussy just for me.”

He teased at her entrance, sliding the head along her slick heat. “Take me,” she said, a flush darkening her chest as her nipples hardened to tight peaks. “Take me now.”

Every atom in her buzzed. Her cells were no longer made of molecules. They were comprised of desire and lust. There was no more waiting, no more time. She needed only this, only now. Mercifully, he sank into her.

“Oh God,” she cried out, and roped her arms around his neck. His eyes blazed darkly at her, so hot, so full of the same raw and primal need. He stilled himself when he was all the way in, letting her feel him, letting her adjust to his size.

“It feels so good,” she moaned. “I want you so much.”

“I have never wanted anyone like this,” he said, moving in her.

“Me, too,” she said, gasping with each thrust.

“I have never been so in love.”

She gripped his neck, dug her nails into his skin. “Never. I’ve never felt like this.” Her world spun silver and gold. The intensity of him inside her drove her wild. Her heart beat in a frenzy.

“I fucking love you more than I did the first time,” he said on a powerful thrust. Her head fell back on her shoulders and she squeezed her eyes closed. She rocked her hips up into him, chasing even more pleasure.

“The same,” she said, barely able to form words anymore. The fire roared through her, her center an inferno. “I feel the same.”

He grabbed her hips, yanked her up to him, deeper, harder. “Fucking you is like coming home.”

Her body jolted with each delicious thrust. Her heart pumped wildly as he drove into her, burying himself. “Deeper,” she panted. “More.”

“Lie back,” he told her, pressing a hand on her chest, lowering her spine to his desk. She lay flat, and he cast his gaze to his shoulders. “You know where I want you, babe. Show me how flexible you are. Show me how you can bend that body for me.”

She grinned wickedly as she hooked her legs up on his shoulders, wrapping them behind his neck. He practically climbed onto the desk, his knees on the wood, and he took her.

He just fucking took her. Her spine dug into the wood as he fucked her. His hands curled around her head as he drove into her. His cock hit that spot inside her that sent her galloping closer to the cliff. She felt him everywhere.

Every thrust consumed her. He filled her completely, and he owned her body with his. The world rotated on its axis again, as Brent Nichols fucked the last ten years of missing, the last ten years of longing, the last ten years without him, right out of her.

Time was crushed to pieces in the way he took her.

She could barely move, and she didn’t care. Couldn’t care. All she wanted was to give herself to him. All he ever wanted was her. And she gave, and she gave, and she gave.

Her back scraped the desk as the friction drove her to the edge. “Please,” she called out, as tremors of lust slammed into her, assaulting her with pleasure and sending her flying as her body detonated. The world slipped away into bliss, into ecstasy, into the end of missing-the-love-of-your-fucking-life.

There was no more missing. There was only having.

He held her harder, gripped her head. “I love you,” he grunted as he thrust, reaching his own release. “I fucking love you so much.”