CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dean
AFTER SIGNING AND SENDING THREE HARD copies of my resignation letter via certified mail, I have a few hours before my flight leaves tonight. I walk to the Art Institute of Chicago and look at Impressionist paintings, Greek vases, Japanese silk screens, German sculptures.
I take the stairs to the second floor and walk through the arms and armor collection. I stop in front of a full suit of plate armor dating to the sixteenth century. The steel breastplates are perforated for bolting a lance rest or reinforcing armor, the close helmet fronted by a pivoting visor. A knight would have worn the suit in the field or for a tournament.
My brain processes the facts, but I also wonder about the man who once wore the armor. It’s the part of history I like the most—thinking about the people who lived, the knights who served their liege lords, the pledges and vows, the training in horsemanship, weapons, battle skills, hunting.
The chivalric code. Honor, loyalty, sacrifice, duty, faith. Ideals I learned about when I was a kid devouring the stories of Galahad, Lancelot, Arthur, and Gawain. Then at thirteen, when I told my brother he wasn’t really my brother, I broke just about every tenet of that code.
I sit on a bench and take out my phone. I’d left a message earlier for Liv that I should be home by ten. I pull up an email window and type a message.
TO: My beauty
FR: The guy who loves you
I walked into Jitter Beans that morning in a hurry. Thinking of a hundred things. Lectures, office hours, a grant proposal deadline.
The world stopped when I saw you behind the counter. I had a flash of unreality. That it couldn’t be you, Olivia R. Winter, the girl from three weeks earlier who’d taken my breath away.
But it was. You were explaining the difference between two kinds of coffee to a customer. I wanted him to get the hell away from you, and I was plotting some dark move when you glanced up and saw me.
You knocked my heart right out of my chest. Sent it up to the stars. I looked at you and thought, “I could fall in love with her.”
I didn’t know that I already had.
I’m going to kiss you for a long time tonight.
I send the message and turn off my phone. Push to my feet. Study the knight again, the weapons and helmets. Sometimes not even all that steel armor was enough defense.
I leave the museum and spend the rest of the afternoon walking around downtown Chicago before catching a taxi to the airport. The tedious routine of travel is enough to dull my thoughts. An icy ball forms in my chest.
The flight is delayed, and I text Liv that I’ll be late. After the hour and a half drive back to Mirror Lake, it’s past midnight when I finally go into our apartment and push open the bedroom door.
The bedside lamp is on. Liv is half-curled under the covers, one hand still loosely holding a book, her body moving in the rhythm of sleep.
I set my briefcase down and go to take a shower. After pulling on a pair of pajama bottoms, I take the book from Liv’s hand, glancing at the title. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. She’d once told me how much she liked the heroine, a hard-working, imaginative girl who loves books and writing.
I put the book on the nightstand and climb into bed. The sheets are warm from Liv’s body. I tuck myself against her, put my leg over her thighs, press my face into her hair. Tighten my arm around her. Breathe. Her fragrant smell fills my nose.
She shifts, wiggling back against me, settling her ass against my groin. I feel her start to wake before she turns to face me. She’s heavy-eyed, flushed with sleep.
“Oh, hi,” she whispers, rubbing her cheek against my shoulder. “I was trying to wait up for you. Did you get my voicemails? What happ—”
I press my mouth to hers, stopping her words. A little moan catches in her throat. She shifts to wind her arms around my neck, parting her lips under mine, letting me in, pulling me closer. I close my eyes and sink into her. Tension fades, replaced by the spark of lust that fires my blood.
I run my hands over Liv’s curves, tugging at the hem of her tank top, the waistband of her pants. Soft, she’s always so soft, so warm, even more so when she’s sleeping, as if she keeps an extra reserve of heat inside that only radiates from her when her defenses are down.
“How is it you’re always so warm?” I bury my face in her neck, pressing my lips against her collarbone.
“Because of you,” Liv murmurs, slipping her hands into my hair. “You drive away the cold and melt the ice. You’ve always made me bloom.”
My chest constricts. I want to drown myself in her sweet goodness. The heat of her burns off my own lingering cold. Her mouth opens, her teeth scraping my lower lip, her tongue sliding over mine. Lust jolts through me, welcome, familiar. I push my hips against her, wanting her to feel the growing ridge of my cock.
She makes a throaty noise that echoes inside me. Everything else breaks apart. There’s only her, only us, only the warmth of our bodies. I push my hands underneath her shirt, rubbing her smooth torso up to her full breasts.
She arches her back, pushing herself into my hands, her nipples hardening against my palms. I squeeze her breasts, stroke my fingers over the tight peaks, slide my hands into the hot crevice beneath them.
“Take my shirt off.” Liv pulls her mouth from mine, her eyes darkening to the color of cocoa.
I grab her shirt and pull it over her head. Urgency floods me at the sight of her naked breasts, her nipples like berries. I hook my fingers into her waistband and tug her pants off, tossing them to the floor. Then I just look at her—my beautiful wife with her rounded hips, the slopes of her shoulders and waist, the dark curls between her legs, the curve of her stomach, the arch of her neck.
I move lower on the bed, pushing the sheets aside, getting between her legs. My erection pulses against the loose material of my pants. I put my hands on Liv’s inner thighs, rubbing the tender flesh before easing her legs apart.
She sinks back against the pillows, watching me, her breathing quick and her face flushed with pleasure. She’s already hot. I ease one finger into her, my blood pulsing as she moans and closes her inner flesh around me.
So easy. It’s so easy with her. I know exactly what she likes, wants, needs. I circle my finger over her folds, rub the knot of her clit, push her legs farther apart before moving down to put my mouth on her.
“Dean!” She arches upward with a gasp.
I pause, inhale the scent of her, wait for her to settle. I press my hands against her hips and lick her with long, sweeping strokes that make her twist and buck up into my grasp. The taste of her fills my head. My cock throbs, and I shift to rub my groin against the bed.
“Oh, God…” Liv groans, running her hands up and down her body, squeezing her breasts. Tension vibrates through her. “So good…”
I move my hands back to grip her inner thighs and push my tongue inside her. She lets out a cry of pleasure, pulling her legs up to her hips, opening herself fully. Her cries become louder, a stream of pleasure that fills my ears and drowns out everything else.
She reaches down to grab my hair, twisting her body beneath me. When she comes, her whole body flexes and shakes, her hips curving upward, a groan tearing from her throat.
“Dean, oh… hurry, please…” She pulls me back up to her, her hands on the back of my neck as she crushes her mouth to mine.
She’s all soft, yielding heat, her breasts pillowing against my chest. I get on top of her, pressing her into the bed as her curves surrender to my weight. I want to enfold her, surround her, consume her. She slides her hands down my back to tug at my pants.
“Take these off,” she whispers, trailing her lips down to my shoulder.
I shove my pants off and grasp my aching shaft. Pressure floods me. My blood is on fire. Liv pushes to the side, her breath fast as she fumbles for the drawer of the nightstand.
I grab her wrist to stop her. Her breath catches in her throat, her eyes widening as she stares at me. The air thickens between us, drenched with heat and untold possibilities.
“I want to come inside you.” My voice is rough.
Something flickers to life in her expression that I can’t read, can’t define. I press my mouth against her cheek, down to her neck, back up to her lips. She puts her hand on my chest, right in the middle, as if she wants to feel my heartbeat.
Everything inside me fills with her.
“Let me.” I press my forehead to hers. My chest burns.
“Yes,” Liv breathes, tenderness filling her brown eyes as she searches my gaze. “Of course, Dean, love of my life. Yes.”
She strokes her hands over my back and writhes beneath me, opening her legs, pulling me closer. Beneath the physical pleasure coursing through my blood, there’s an immense shifting inside me, like the plates of the earth locking together.
Liv slides her hand down my abdomen and closes her hand around my cock. The touch of her fingers almost makes me come. Her breath is hot against my ear. I move again to position us both before surging into her tight channel with a groan. Sensation explodes through me. Liv winds her legs around my hips and her arms around my back, moans vibrating from her and into me as I ease out of her and push back in.
I want it to last forever, the clench of her pussy around my shaft, the hot dampness of her body beneath mine, the jostle of her breasts. I plunge into her again and again as lust fogs my brain and instinct takes over. My muscles tense and strain as I move faster, Liv’s cries driving my own need higher.
I brace my hands on either side of her head, wanting to feel the full length of her against me. She parts her legs wider. Our gazes lock through the heavy air. Sweat trickles down my chest. I push into her again, reaching between us to put one hand over her pussy and circle her clit with my thumb.
I love this, love her all spread open for me, watching her get all twisty and desperate, her long fingers plucking her nipples, her hair sticking damply to her shoulders. Another flick on her clit, and she comes with a cry, her pussy rippling around my cock. I surge into her, my mouth coming down on hers—open, wet, hot.
Liv clutches my biceps and closes her teeth on my lower lip. My head spins with the feel of her, every part of me driving toward the base need to mark her, claim her, make her mine again.
“Take me,” I whisper. “All of it.”
“Yes.”
She wraps her legs around mine, her fingers digging into my shoulders, her lips sliding over my jaw. Pressure cords my entire body. I thrust fully inside her as the pleasure explodes, shooting through me and into her with a flood.
“Dean, I… I feel it,” Liv gasps. “Oh...”
I sink on top of her, my chest heaving with ragged breaths, my cock still inside her. A shudder courses through her. Tears fill her eyes. I put my hands on either side of her face and kiss her—her lips, her cheeks, her chin, her nose, her eyelids.
I ease aside and take her with me, pulling her halfway on top of me. She hides her face in the slope of my shoulder. Her tears dampen my skin. I stroke her back, her hair, breathing in the sweet smell of her.
She’s trembling. Her heart beats against my chest in rhythm with mine. She rubs her damp face against my shoulder. My entire being fills again with the need to give her everything, to take care of her forever, to always prove how much I love her.
“Okay, beauty.” I press my lips to her temple, tightening my arms around her. “Let’s see what finds us.”