Chapter Seventeen
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A week later, while in flight across the Pacific Ocean to Bright, Australia, Viviana was naked and curled up against Grant’s side on the bed of his private jet. She’d never flown on anything so extravagant and had been nervous at first. However, after having sex against the hallway leading out of the main cabin, then in the shower, and one last leisurely time on the bed, she was feeling quite relaxed. She traced the strong muscles of his chest and said, “If this flight is much longer I’ll need a day of rest before going to see Mrs. Thompson.”
He nuzzled her neck. “I missed you. I missed this side of us.”
“Apparently.” She chuckled. “Me, too.”
He ran a gentle hand down her neck, across her collarbone, and down her arm. “Have I told you how amazing you are?”
“You may have mentioned it once or twice, but don’t let that stop you.”
“My parents adore you, just as I knew they would. Kenzi told me the women in the family think you’re exactly what I need. Lance almost pissed himself when Asher refused to arm wrestle you; he thinks Asher was afraid to lose. Even Ian calmed down after meeting you. You not only helped me pull my family back from the brink of chaos, but you won them over while doing it. That is no small achievement.”
Her face warmed with a pleased blush. “You told me to be myself around them so I was.”
He kissed her nose. “Maybe just a tad less swearing in front of my dad, though.”
“I’ll try. You know how I get when I’m nervous,” she said with a grimace.
Grant shrugged and smiled. “On second thought, it’s probably good for him. He needs to lighten up.” He tucked a hair behind her ear. “I didn’t tell any of them we’re going to Australia.”
“Are you feeling guilty?” She raised herself up on one elbow, not minding at all that his attention was instantly drawn to the jiggle of her bare breasts. She loved that he found pleasure in her body because she certainly found pleasure in his. Despite being sated from their sexual marathon, she ran her hand down his stomach and loved that his cock surged in her hand.
He closed his eyes and groaned with pleasure. “I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you but it’s hard—because I am again—that’s what you do to me. You reduce me to a bumbling, horny mess.”
“Sorry.” She moved her hand away from his sex. Their attraction to each other was addictive, but there was a serious reason for their trip. “What were you saying?”
He opened his eyes. “I forget. It was important though.”
Viviana pulled the bedsheet up to her chin. “Should I cover the distraction?”
“No, but this might help.” He bunched up a piece of the sheet and pretended to stuff it in her mouth.
She swatted his hand away. “Oh, you’ll pay for that.”
He laughed, rolled onto his back and pulled her onto him so she was straddling him. “I certainly hope so.”
Looking down at him, laughing with him like she was, she knew she would never love another the way she loved him. They were two people who shouldn’t complement each other, yet somehow they did on a level neither had experienced before. Sometimes the intensity of their connection scared her, but she refused to let that ruin her time with him. “All joking aside, what did you want to say?”
He rested his hands on her bare hips. “I have a feeling Alethea’s instincts about Pamela Thompson are right. Her brother was a custodian at Stiles’s clinic. She was a nurse there. Her brother drowned in a pool at a hotel he wasn’t staying at. It had to be murder. Pamela fled without telling anyone where she was going or taking any of her things with her. People do that when they’re afraid. She might be another dead end, but there’s a good chance she knows what happened to Kent. Tomorrow morning we could be heading home in an entirely different mood.”
She didn’t know what Grant was about to say, but she’d learned to give him time to find his words. Meeting his family had shown her why he’d built such a large buffer zone between them and his emotions. He’d never stopped caring about them, but he’d learned to protect himself by hiding in his work.
What was truly beautiful about him was that even as he’d pulled away, he never stopped taking care of his family. She’d listened to the teasing stories his siblings had shared and the common thread she’d heard was that nothing—not mockery, not rejection—stopped him from doing what he knew was best for his family. In her eyes, he was already the hero he thought he’d failed to become.
No, not the chest pounding, strutting type his family seemed to admire. Grant chose a quieter path. It was one with less fanfare and gratitude, but more noble in its goal because it served the greater good rather than his ego.
She’d once considered him weak because he took a punch without striking back. Now that she knew him she understood he was strong enough to not need to win every fight. One day, she hoped his family would see him for the remarkable man he was. Finding Kent could be what would finally open their eyes.
“Are you paying attention?” he asked with a smile.
“Sorry,” she said, returning her attention to him. “I was thinking about how wonderful you are.”
His eyes narrowed playfully. “Good cover story. Now focus. This is important.”
“Yes, sir.”
He opened a drawer beside the bed and took out the ring box she’d once rejected. “You set a criteria for me proposing again that I can now meet. Viviana Sutton, I love you. No one has ever stood by me the way you have. You inspire me to be bolder. You humble me by refocusing me on what is most important in life—family. Marry me because there is no me without you—no me I want to be.”
With tears filling her eyes she leaned down and kissed him. She could have simply said yes, but what would have been the fun in that? She raised her head and asked, “Even if I’m ordinary and average?”
There was a time when he would have rushed to deny it, and she would have doubted his explanation, but they were past that. A cocky grin spread across his face. “Even then.”
She pinched his side, but not too hard. With him, she was also strong enough to not need the win. They were on the same side. “Let me see that ring again,” she asked as if she weren’t bursting with happiness over his proposal.
He took it out of the box and held it before her. At the same time, she edged back onto him so his hardening cock was enfolded by her sex. She began to move her hips back and forth, wetting him while exciting herself. “I’ll have to think about this before deciding this time.”
“Think hard,” he growled and pulled back, thrusting himself deeply inside her. “And fast.”
She gasped with pleasure and her movements became more circular. There was no rush, just a slow, steady burn. “It’s the right size. Not too big. Not too small.”
He thrust upward again. “I’m glad you like it. Now say yes and give me your fucking finger.”
She bent over him, plundering his mouth thoroughly, before whispering against his lips, “Yes.”
He’d dropped the ring during their kiss and had to feel around on the bed beside him for it. All the while, she used her hips to take him deeper and her inner muscles to tighten around him. By the time he slid the ring on her finger, they were both glistening with sweat and hungry to taste more of each other.
He rolled them so he was above and kissed her breasts gently before thrusting harder and faster into her. The ring sparkled on the hand she ran across his powerful shoulders, adding another layer to this claiming.
She was his, body, mind, and soul.
He was hers just as completely.
Sex was now as much about joining up as it was about the pleasure. She wanted him closer, deeper, in her mouth, all around her. He was every breath she took and when she finally gave herself over to an orgasm it was like slow moving lava that overtook her inch by inch until it consumed her.
He groaned as he came then growled, “Mine,” in her ear.
She tightened her legs around him in a full body hug and growled back, “Always.”