Cupping her hands behind her back, I yank her to me hard and fast, her naked breasts smashed to my chest. I’m about to kiss her and turn her over and spank her when she says everything I didn’t know I needed to hear in a mere three words. “I was lost without you.” A moment later, she pushes to her toes and presses her soft lips to mine.
Just like that, she spreads a softer, sweeter emotion through me and that dark hardness only she understands submits to her. She owns me. There was a time when I might have tried to fight such an absolute need, but there was never a chance. Not with Mia.
I tear away her jacket and toss it aside, cupping her head and slanting my mouth over her mouth, drinking her in, drugging myself with that sweetness of hers that is so damn perfect. The kind of sweetness that brings a man to his knees and I’m already there. I’ve been there. Her fingers tangle in the thick strands of my hair and it’s as if we’re swept into a far, far land, in the middle of an ocean where only we exist. Where we’re drowning in each other.
It’s Mia that ends that kiss, tearing her lips from mine and reaching for my tie. Impatient, I grab it and yank it out of my collar. Another time, I’d use that tie, I’d twist it around her wrists. Five minutes ago, before her confession, before her kiss, I’d been in that place where the past year fucks with my head. A place where I’d lost her and my father. I’d have done just that. I’d have used sex to take us away, to consume us, and run from the pain. Instead, I’m here, I’m present, and I don’t want to be anywhere but here and present.
I’ve barely tossed it aside when she’s fumbling with my buttons. “Why are you not naked right now?”
“You first,” I murmur, turning her around and unzipping her skirt. She kicks off her heels and when my hands slide under the material, I slide it, and it alone since she’s still pantyless, down her hips. She steps out of it and when I might otherwise hold her here, I don’t. Not now. That’s not what I want now. She rotates to face me and just her standing there willingly naked and vulnerable is enough. I don’t care about control right now. And my need for that is a dangerous black hole I need to avoid.
Trust.
I have to give it to get it.
I have to remember that my walls created her fears.
I unbutton my shirt and then just tear my shirt over my head. I’ve barely tossed it aside and she’s pressed against me, soft and warm. She presses her lips to mine again, and the minute her tongue strokes mine, that need only she stirs inside me explodes. I just plain burn for Mia, a soul-deep, feel-her-in-every-part-of-me burn for this woman. I let her taste that on my lips, feel that in my touch, I hold back nothing, and it’s not long before my pants are gone. I sit down in that chair where we’ve made love and fucked—sometimes all in the same night, so many times—and take her with me.
She straddles me and I wrap my arm around her tiny waist, anchoring her, kissing her nipple and suckling before I lift her and press inside the wet heat of her body. She slides down against me, taking every inch of me inside her and settling snuggly against my hips. My hand splays between her shoulder blades, erasing the separation between us by molding all her soft curves to every hard part of me.
“I could live inside you,” I growl softly, my mouth slanting over her mouth, my tongue stroking deep, and we sink into that deep, drugging place where there is nothing but us, nothing but our need for each other. We sink into that burn that has nothing to do with fucking, and everything to do with just how insanely deep this bond we share has become. I don’t taste distrust. I don’t taste our separation. I taste our future. I taste our hunger. Hers. Mine. Ours. I drink it in, I drink us in, and she does the same, our bodies swaying together. Our tongues savoring each other.
My lips caress her neck, her shoulder, her pebbled nipple. I caress every inch of soft skin I can find but it’s when she murmurs, “Grayson,” again, like she really was lost without me, and now she’s found, that I truly unravel in the best of ways.
My fingers wrap her silky brown hair, and I bring her mouth to my mouth. “I was lost without you, too, Mia,” I confess, and then I’m kissing her again, and she’s kissing me, in a collision of need, an explosion of passion. The air shifts, the demand between us fierce. I pull her down onto me and thrust into her over and over until she gasps and buries her face in my neck. Her body trembles, her sex clenching around my cock. I groan with the feel of her squeezing me and shudder into release.
I collapse into the soft chair and Mia with me, and for a full minute, we just lay there, naked, our bodies tangled together. This woman is everything to me. My best friend, my confidante, the future mother of my children. She shivers and I roll her over, handing her a tissue while I grab my shirt, wrapping it around her.
We end up sitting there, me holding my shirt together around her, the fire flickering around us, the warmth between us. She presses her hand to my cheek. “Let’s talk about why you wanted to elope.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Grayson
The past…
I stand outside of my father’s Manhattan apartment and I can’t make myself go inside. How the hell am I supposed to tell him that Mia and I broke up? How the hell am I supposed to say the words that gut me? How the hell can I accept that I lost her?
The door opens and he stands there, staring at me, my father, the man who has inspired me to be just like him. His eyes narrow on me. “What happened?”
“I’m going to need a drink to answer that.”
He studies me for a few probing beats and then motions me forward. “Get your ass in here, boy.” He turns away and I stand there at the door, unable to enter. I waited for weeks to tell my father about this. Weeks where I hoped Mia would come back to me. I waited because I knew that the minute I tell my father, this is real. She’s really gone. And she is. I have to do this.
I enter the apartment and shut the door.
I find my father in the living room on the couch, the fireplace crackling with two glasses of whiskey already poured. I try not to think about how much Mia loves this room and that fireplace. I join him and sit down, losing my tie, and reaching for the drink. I down it and my father refills the glass. “Where’s Mia?” he asks, homing in on the problem, because he knows me. “She hasn’t been around in a while.”
“An employee took her top off, pressed herself against me, and while I was trying to get her off me, Mia walked in.”
“Oh fuck,” he murmurs, downing his own drink. “How long ago?”
“Three weeks.” I look at him. “I didn’t tell you because I was certain I’d convince her it wasn’t what she thought it was.”
“Was it?”
“No. Hell no. There’s no one for me but Mia.”
“But you haven’t won her back.”
“No. And I won’t. I’m done trying.”
“Why would you stop trying?”
“She went to work for Ri. And Ri wants her. He wants her in a bad way.”
“Does he have her?”
“She went to work for him, Dad.” I refill my glass.
“Does he have her, son?”
“Mia would never have gone to work for him if he didn’t. She knows he’s my enemy.”
“Sounds like you want an excuse to quit fighting for her.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “I just know when to give up. You taught me that. Don’t fight a losing battle.”
“Working for Ri and fucking him are two different things.”
“No,” I say. “If she’s working for him, she’s fucking him.”
“Like you were fucking that woman in your office?” he challenges.
“It’s not the same thing.”
He arches a brow. “Why isn’t it?”
“I didn’t choose to have that woman pressed up against me. Mia chose that job.”
“She probably thinks you chose it for her by fucking that other woman.” He doesn’t give me time to reply. “On a positive note, you know she’s not after your money. She walked away from y
ou and it.”
“How is that positive? She walked away.”
“From you and the money. And if she comes back, it’s for you. Just you.” He doesn’t give me time to reply yet again. “Did you know that I broke up with your mother once?”
“You did? When?”
“Before we got married. She thought I was being an arrogant ass and that I picked a stunning secretary for her ass, not her skills.”
“Did you?” I ask.
“Hell no. I almost didn’t hire her because of her ass. I didn’t want your mother to think I was chasing said ass, and still, she did. I was angry at her for thinking so little of me and I didn’t go after her at first. That all but did me in. Took me six months to win her back. You know what I did?”
“What?”
“We eloped. I put a ring on her finger the minute I had the chance.”
“But I’ve seen the wedding photos,” I say. “It was a huge wedding.”
“Six months after we eloped. I made damn sure your mother knew there wasn’t another ass on the planet that could get my attention.” He lifts his glass. “And the rest is history. Kept her for the rest of her life, and I hired ugly secretaries from that point on.”
I laugh, but it’s not genuine. I’m not going to get Mia back. I’m not going after her to try. She has Ri now and I hate the fucking pain of losing her.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Mia
We’re still sitting there in front of the fire in our special chair, with my hand on his cheek, but Grayson is far away in his mind. “Where are you right now?”
He catches my hand in his. “Very much with you, Mia. What do you want to say to me?”
“I guess I could start with all the thoughts I’ve had since you brought it up.”
“I’m listening,” he says thoughtfully.
“I’m confused,” I admit. “Part of me is thrilled that you’re that eager to make me your wife.”
“And the other part of you?”
“Afraid it’s because it’s you that doesn’t trust me anymore.” He opens his mouth to speak and I don’t give him the chance. “This is my home. This is our home.”
“Yes. It is.”
“I should never have left.”
“I shouldn’t have let you leave. But we’ve talked about this. We have to put it behind us. It’s in the past.”
“No,” I say. “No. It’s not. We’re both still terrified of the damage our break-up did to us. I’m afraid you’ll wake up and hate me for leaving. You’re afraid I’ll leave because I already left. That part of you that has lost everyone you love will never fully trust me not to leave again.”
He looks away and that cut of his gaze guts me. I start to stand and he catches my wrist, his eyes meeting mine again. “I trust you like I’ve never trusted anyone, even my father because you know all those inner parts of me that I show no one else. And you still love me.”
My heart squeezes and I press my palm to his cheek. “And you know mine. You know I will never leave again.”
“Then elope with me.”
“You say that like I need to elope with you to prove that I won’t leave.”
His hands go to my waist and he pulls me close. “Elope with me because you can’t wait any more than I can wait. That doesn’t mean we can’t have our big wedding. It just means we spend the holidays as husband and wife.”
“I don’t know if I should say yes or no. I want you to believe in me and us enough to trust that I’ll still be here on the day we set that wedding date. But I also want you to know that I don’t want to wait either. I want to be your wife.”
“Did you know that my mother and father eloped?”
Her brows furrow. “But I saw the photos.”
“That’s what I said when my father told me. They’d broken up, like us, over my father’s secretary.”
I sit up. “What?”
He catches my hand and pulls me back down on the cushion, his hand settling on my hip, his leg twined with my leg. “He didn’t cheat, baby. It was similar to what happened to us. Mom was jealous of his secretary. He was upset she didn’t trust him. They were apart for six months. When they finally came back together, he wasn’t giving her the chance to believe there was any woman for him but her. They eloped and then planned their wedding.”
This explains so much. “Was that his idea or hers?”
“He didn’t say, but I got the impression it was his.”
Emotions expands in my chest, so many emotions. “You really want to do this, don’t you?”
He inhales a breath and looks skyward, seeming to struggle with his own emotions, a rare thing for this man, before he levels me in a turbulent stare. “I need you to marry me now. It’s not about trust. It’s about needing my woman, my best friend, my life, to be my wife. It’s not about you leaving, it’s about you not living another day that could be your last or my last, and not being my wife. Marry me because we need to be husband and wife.”
Those words hit me like a wrecking ball. He’s not worried about me leaving. He knew Ri for years. He just saw him lying lifeless in a stairwell, but more so, he saw him holding a gun to my head. Grayson tried to get Ri to shoot him to save me. He’s afraid we’ll end this life without ever being husband and wife. If I say yes, though, I’m giving in to that fear. I’m feeding that fear. A thought slides into my mind and I go with it. “How about a compromise?”
“Meaning what?”
“I’m not sure I want a big wedding-”
“No, baby. I want you to have your dream wedding. This isn’t a this or that.”
“Hear me out, please,” I say, the influence his father had on this decision and his life in my mind now, feeding this idea. “There is so much press right now. Grayson Bennett’s wedding will be TMZ-worthy all over again.”
“I want the world to know I’m marrying you, Mia.”
My heart squeezes and I press my hand to his jaw. “And I love you for that, but what I’d love is to have a ceremony on New Year’s Eve at the house with the tree still up. That way your father is there in spirit.”
“What about the lighthouse?”
“It’ll be too cold for the lighthouse, but when everyone leaves, we can escape to be there together, our private place, alone. I can still wear my dress. It will be small and intimate and special.”
He searches my face. “You really like this idea?”
“I love this idea. I can’t believe we didn’t think of it before now. It’s still a fast turnaround with Thanksgiving only two weeks away, but it’s the perfect way to start a new year together. My only negative is the three months won’t be over. But it will be close and we could lock ourselves away here for the last two weeks, just you and me. And this makes this our story, not your parents’ story. What do you think?”
He studies me for several more beats, his green eyes warm before he molds me to him. “Yes. Let’s get married on New Year’s Eve in the Hamptons house.”
I smile a genuine ear-to-ear grin. “Then I want to go look at my dress. I’m actually dying to see it right now. I never saw the final dress after alterations.” My brows furrow. “You haven’t seen it, right? That’s bad luck.”
“I haven’t,” he assures me. “It’s bagged in the upstairs spare bedroom. Go look, baby. I’ll go open a bottle of wine.” He stands and pulls me to my feet and kisses me before he reaches for his pants.
I smile again, excitement bubbling over as I highjack his shirt that I’m still wearing and take off for the bedroom door, and hurry through the apartment, still not taking time to enjoy the luxurious living room. It takes me about two minutes to climb the winding stairs and run down a hallway to enter the walk-in closet. I flip on the light and butterflies flutter in my belly at the sight of the garment bag. Hurrying forward, I unzip the bag. My heart in my throat, silly nerves fluttering all over in my belly for no reason at all. Once the zipper is down, I don’t pull the dress fully from the bag, but I don’t have to. I stare in wonder, a
stunning white gown that is simple elegance accented by tiny butterflies in the lace. Butterflies that to many cultures, and to me, mean hope and a positive future but they hold another meaning to many that somehow feels all the more appropriate: resurrection. The resurrection of our love. Everything else fades away but this man and our wedding, images of me in this dress, and Grayson handsome in his tuxedo. And the tree that we’ve decorated together in the background, symbolic of many more years together to come.
My heart squeezes and I zip it back up, before rushing from the closet and the room in search of Grayson. I find him in the kitchen behind the shiny gray marble island, filling two wine glasses, the television over the island playing the news. It’s something he always does, like a habit. He turns on the news when he’s in the kitchen. It’s this familiar part of our life that warms me all the more. I missed these moments when he’s just being himself when we’re just sharing our lives, living life.
I hurry to his side and wrap my arms around him, this man who is my Prince Charming.
“It’s still the dress and you’re still the man. There was never going to be another man.”
“And there was never going to be another woman,” he says, cupping my face. “You’re home, Mia, and that home is with me. Forever.”
“Forever,” I whisper, and when his mouth comes down on mine, it really is like I’m finally home. I’m where I belong. With him.
He offers me one of the wine glasses and once he picks up his glass, we’re about to toast when the newscaster says, “We have breaking news. There’s been an explosion in a New Jersey residential home with a fire that is now threatening nearby residences. While firefighters work to stop the blaze and contain the damage, we’re getting word that the home belongs to an attorney named Brian Johnson.”
Love Me Forever Page 11