“Veda I would give my life for you. I would die for you. Maim for you. There isn’t a trust fund in the world large enough, a job illustrious enough, or a threat scary enough to ever pull me from you. The fact that you called an Uber is actually beginning to piss me off a little bit…”
She breathed out a laugh, tightening her arms around his waist while setting her chin in his chest.
“When will you finally accept how loyal my love for you is? Huh? How deep it runs? When will you believe it?”
“Well, I definitely believe it a lot more now.”
He kissed her forehead, pulled back and searched her eyes while pushing her curly hair behind her ear. A lump moved down his throat. “Do you think you can still love me without a job? Without the power of the Blackwater trust fund? The power of the Blackwater family?”
She chortled, giving him an amazed look. “Gage? I love you in spite of the Blackwater family.”
His eyes grew moist.
She saw it, and it sent her shooting up to her toes, covering his lips with hers.
He bent down and accepted her kiss, letting his lips live on hers until he had to pull back for fear the lack of oxygen would make him pass out.
They breathed in at the same time, chests swelling together.
Veda was amazed that there wasn’t an inch of uncertainty in his eyes as he nodded towards his Phantom, parked on the corner.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he whispered.
And together they walked to Gage’s car, arms locked around each other, both filled with a light so bright it gave the moon shining in the black sky a serious run for its money.
As they approached his car, Veda snuck a look over her shoulder, over the arm he had around her neck, and up to that white stone balcony.
Celeste drew in a breath the moment Veda met her eyes, her hands clutching the balcony rails so tightly it made her pale knuckles blush, looking down at Veda and Gage with contempt staining her green eyes. The breeze made her waist-length, black hair dance, the delicate wisps fluttering across her heaving bosom and stricken face. The wisps shaded her eyes, but not the fire burning within them.
Veda was unable to tear her eyes away.
Neither was Celeste.
They each held the gut-churning gaze until Gage opened the passenger door of his car, and Veda was forced to break the stare so she could climb inside.
She didn’t expel the breath she’d been holding until he’d closed the door behind her.
—
With every word Gage said, Veda’s heart climbed higher up her throat. Not even the comfort of his strong arms wrapped around her from behind or the bulge of his biceps against the sides of her waist was enough to calm her.
His deep chuckle warmed her ear as he bit the lobe between his teeth, slowing to a stop while pulling her ass against the zipper of his pants, against his hardness, tightening his clasped hands at her bellybutton while turning her towards the first guest bedroom in his mansion.
Veda’s eyes peeked inside as he whispered more of the terrible, terrible words that had been scaring her to death since the moment they’d arrived at his mansion.
“And this could be the nursery.” He continued his dedicated quest to make her empty her stomach, squeezing her as if he could feel the tornado swirling to life in her belly. “We’d have it painted a different color for each baby.”
“Nursery?”
Baby?!
Her eyes filled with horror as he continued leading her down the long hallway again. The black staircase railing sat to their right, jumping out against the cherry wood floors. A massive crystal chandelier hung from the vaulted ceilings, glowing down at the grand staircase they’d just cleared, making the white stone columns that soared to the ceiling seem even grander than they already were.
His chin tickled her shoulder as he nodded to the staircase railing that overlooked the grand foyer. “And right there? That’s where our oldest will threaten to throw his siblings over the rails because he’s sick of them sneaking into his room to spy.”
“So our oldest is going to be a sadistic asshole? Will he slaughter puppies and kittens too?” Veda couldn’t help but wonder if, with a mother like her, most of her kids were bound to end up crazy.
Even more than that, she couldn’t help but wonder when she and Gage had ever talked about having kids.
Oh, that’s right, we haven’t. The thought of it was enough to send her into a mild panic attack. She couldn’t do anything but say a prayer for the poor bastard that ended up with her for a mom.
She covered Gage’s hands as he stopped her at another bedroom. “This would be our oldest’s room. This door would always be closed and locked with a ‘Keep Out’ poster taped to the front. The only signs of life would be the death metal music blasting into the hallway from under the doorsill. If we ever dared knock, he’d scream ‘go away’ at the top of his lungs over the music. He’d rather starve than join us for dinner every night.”
“Death metal? So our oldest really would be a psychopath, huh?” Veda found her heartbeat tripling, wondering when in the last ten minutes she’d agreed that kids were happening, let alone a kid who listened to death metal.
Every time she’d convinced herself that her relationship with Gage couldn’t get any scarier, he found new, uncharted territory. The territory he tread right then, however, was by far the scariest.
She couldn’t have kids. Ever. How could she have kids when her biggest goal in life was to cut out the testicles of her enemies? When most of the people she dreamed of slashing were people Gage called his friends? If, by some miracle, she and Gage did have kids, would they be bound to end up exactly like the wealthy people she’d grown to hate? Her plan had been to come to Shadow Rock just long enough to finish her residency, exact retribution, and then get the hell out of town.
But now, apparently, she was not only staying in Shadow Rock but also raising a family?
A family comprised of kids that listened to death metal?
She barely swallowed back the bile that raced up her throat.
Kids couldn’t happen.
Ever.
But as Gage guided her through the halls of his mansion, his heartbeat against her back, his scent floating in behind her, she couldn’t make herself tell him. She couldn’t kill the dream he’d been conjuring up since he’d parked his Phantom in the driveway before giving her a guided tour of the home she’d only been in a handful of times. In the time they’d been dating, they spent the bulk of their time at her apartment because it was closer to the hospital.
That night, Gage hadn’t even gotten her into his foyer before he’d started fantasizing about her, ten years from now, standing at the front door, handing off lunch pails and waving their kid’s goodbye as they ran to the school bus every morning. About the dinners they’d have every night at the white marble table in his dining room. About the epic water slide they’d build in the expansive pool in the backyard. About all the different places they’d have fun conceiving that imaginary family—which so far included the laundry room, the kitchen island, the staircase and, curiously, even the closet that held the hot water heater. Apparently, Gage had every intention of christening every inch of that house.
Christening, she could handle.
What she couldn’t handle was the fact that Gage could look at her and actually see someone’s mother. Surely he knew what a mess she was by now. She hadn’t exactly made it a secret.
He stopped at another room. “Our middle child’s room. She’ll have a pink princess bed that goes empty every night because she’ll always sneak into our bed to cuddle with us. We’ll never have the heart to turn her away…”
“Gage…”
He stepped forward, making her stumble over her feet until they’d reached the master bedroom. Like the rest of the house, the master suite was simple, modern, clean, and mostly white with dashes of gray, including the headboard that was so tall it almost reached the ceiling. The plush white bedd
ing begged to be pounced on. Sheer white curtains danced with the night breeze from the open doors of the balcony, inviting in the crash of waves from the beach at the bottom of the cliff.
His breath warmed her ear. “Our bedroom will be her favorite room in the house. She’ll love it so much because she’ll know it’s where we made our love official. Our marriage official.”
If Veda thought her heart had been in her throat before, it was only because she hadn’t yet realized the choking sensation she experienced right then. She gasped when his hands left her waist, the warmth of his body left her space, and the softness of his lips left her ear. She both yearned for and dreaded the retreat of his warm body, unable to decide which was more powerful, and when she slowly turned on her heel to see where he’d gone, she knew why.
Gage’s chest swelled as he drew in a breath from the floor, where he’d taken a knee. In his trembling hand, he presented a black velvet box, open to reveal the oval halo engagement ring gleaming from inside.
“Holy shit…” Veda clapped her hands over her mouth while taking a healthy step away from him, forced to bend over at the hip when the tornado in her stomach moved to a full-on tsunami.
She could help but wonder… why?
Why did this man love her so much?
Clearly he could see what a disaster she was? What a mess? She’d told him what a mess she was, point blank, several times, and still there he was, down on one knee, his vulnerable eyes screaming that he wanted to make the mess standing before him, his forever.
The ring box trembled under his fingers, forcing him to clutch it with both hands, and even then it wasn’t completely steady. A lump moved down his throat, and moisture filled his eyes. His chest heaved with the evidence of his feeling.
“Veda…” He swallowed. “Earlier tonight I said that I didn’t know what my dreams were. And it wasn’t until I said it out loud that it hit me. How wrong I was.” He shook the ring box. “You are my dream. Our relationship. Our love. Our future. How happy you make me. How you open up a world of…” He released the box with one hand so he could hold it as a claw over his heart, the moisture in his eyes building more by the second, threatening to teeter over. “A world of happiness, and light, and joy that I never knew was possible. A world that I could only see in my dreams when I was a kid—before the real world got to me and told me that dream wasn’t possible. You walked into my life and proved to me that it was. You proved to that kid inside me, the kid that always believed in true love… that it was possible.” He took a moment. “Veda, will you marry me?”
She had to stop this, but when she opened her mouth to do it, all that came out was. “Yes…”
Gage clenched his teeth, and the tears that spilled out of his eyes, down his cheeks, proved they’d clenched in an attempt to hold back the emotion that had proven impossible to fight. “Yeah?” he choked out a laugh.
Veda hadn’t realized her eyes were alight with just as much emotion as his until she felt the moisture rolling down her own cheeks. She nodded rapidly.
In the next instant he was on her, moaning a passionate kiss against her lips, the velvet from the box stroking her cheek as he cupped her face. They fell into a deep kiss, their soft cries and whimpers meeting in the warm caverns of their mouths, hushed words of love mixing between their hungry kisses, the wetness on their cheeks mingling.
Gage pulled back but kept his forehead sealed to hers.
Their eyes fell to the ring box in his hand.
Veda gasped out each breath, more fervent by the moment. The distant voice in her head that begged her to put a stop to this died a violent death. The light he illuminated inside her drove a sword through that voice’s heart, delivering the final, fatal blow as she lifted her left hand up.
Gage removed the ring and dropped the box, his fingers shaking so wildly that, as he tried to slip the platinum ring on her finger, he missed several times.
Their tear-filled laughter met, growing stronger each time he missed, and when her hand began shaking as well, the job became even tougher.
But he didn’t give up.
Veda knew he never would.
They sighed together when he finally managed to slip the ring on, their lips meeting the moment it was snug around her finger.
Their laughter fell away as their lips and tongues swept together, the kiss strong with both their desires to display their love. Her fingers disappeared in his hair, his in hers, and everything fell away.
The darkness.
The anger.
The debilitating need for revenge.
It all fell away, and all that existed was him.
When he swept her off her feet and carried her to the bed, Veda thought… maybe this time.
Maybe this time… the darkness would stay gone for good.
19
“I love you,” Gage whispered in the midst of their gentle panting, digging his fingers into the back of her naked thighs.
Veda grinned around the nail trapped between her teeth, her curls surrounding her head on the white pillowcase like a crown. Her brown eyes shrank in the beautiful way they always did when she smiled at him like that.
“I love you,” she said, the last strings of her words cut off by the whimper that left her full lips when he hit the spot he’d learned she loved. The spot he could only hit when he went in balls deep.
Any other time he’d been inside her, he’d turn his head from her when he felt his eyes glistening with evidence of his amazement at the woman below him, the incredible feeling of her pussy tightening around his dick, and the fact that his hardness was wet with her desire, proving he could do to her everything she did to him.
But tonight, for the first time, she let him whisper his words of love without cutting them off with a kiss, or a move she knew was guaranteed to steal his focus and entrench him in a purely sexual place. No, she returned his adoring gaze and whispered the words back. She didn’t run. She didn’t fight.
And as Gage’s eyes fell to her splayed thighs, pressed into her chest and giving him a bird’s eye view of his slick dick, glistening with their love as he pumped, he was convinced this was the closest to heaven he’d ever get.
The softness of her hands ran up and down his biceps, flexing along with his hardness with every stroke, and made his abs tighten as he fought to hold out. He wanted to make sure she came twice before he finished, and the struggle to reach the second sent his teeth clenching. He had half a mind to beg her not to touch him. Not to let the tips of her nails dig into his skin. To swallow back her breathy moans, which drove him the craziest of all.
His heart, however, wouldn’t allow it, so when he felt his first nut building before her second, he pulled out of her completely, feeling the ecstasy-fueled frown tightening his eyebrows as her pussy pulsed in its reluctance to release him. His dick popped out into the cool air of his bedroom, shining with the evidence of her first orgasm, instantly twitching to be back inside her warm, velvety walls. He licked his lips at the sight of her entry squeezing shut from his retreat and, holding her thighs to her chest, he lay down on his stomach and buried his tongue inside before they had a chance to finish closing.
“Yes,” she cried, her fingers tangling in his hair, nails scraping his scalp as his tongue found her entry and he rubbed the bed of his thumb on her clit. He stroked that nub the way he knew would make her cum fast—spending most of his time spreading her juices over her swollen lips with his tongue, only brushing the aching bud of her clit every so often. He lifted his eyes to watch her face as he followed that proven map like a lifeline, chuckling into her wetness as her body flinched with every brush of the sensitive nub.
He moaned against her as her back bent off the bed, and knowing she was there, he covered her clit with his thumb completely, no longer teasing it, giving it every inch of his attention as he stroked it like he was trying to start a fire within her. Her cries moved to begs, and he spread his lips wide over her pussy to drink in every ounce of cum that spilled out o
f her, sucking and stroking until her back had collapsed on the bed, and the only moisture that remained on her soft pussy was the gleam of his saliva.
Her hushed, satiated purrs warmed his heart, and his hands were on her thighs again, pushing them into her chest while sliding his aching dick back inside her. He sank in with ease, a moan tearing up his own throat at the sensation, her pussy still pulsing with remnants of her peak, making his dick jerk from where he was planted deep.
Her bare breasts still heaved, and he reached out to cup each of them, squeezing over and over as he thrust.
She held his cheek with her left hand, and when he lowered his eyes and saw her engagement ring gleaming up at him, his dick twitched with the beginnings of his own orgasm.
He caught her thumb under his teeth as he came, biting it softly as he leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers, no longer fucking her with patience and care, but blindly, his pumps making both her and the bed bounce out of control, sure that he was close to biting her thumb off as he filled her with his load, staying deep as shot after shot left him.
She cupped his cheek and spread her legs wider all on her own, silently inviting him to give her everything he had.
And he did.
He couldn’t wait to spend the rest of their lives giving her all of it and more.
—
“What do you think?” Gage asked softly, laughing as Veda held her hand up in the air, fingers flexed as she moved them back and forth, making her engagement ring flicker. “Took me ages to pick it out. I kept the manager two hours past closing time. I think he might’ve murdered me if I hadn’t made a purchase.”
“Are you joking?” she whispered. “You did so good. This thing is bigger than my fist. Outstanding job, Blackwater. Really. Just legendary.” She let her hand fall back to his chest, raking her fingers through the dusting of hair between his pecs.
“Promise me something,” Gage said, several moments later. Their skin was still sticky from the sweat and dew of their lovemaking, but neither of them had moved to take a shower. Instead they just cuddled together, staring up at the ceiling. The beds of his fingers stroked her brown thigh, slung over his pelvis, softly brushing against the tip of his soft penis, threatening to rile it back up for round two. A lone curl at the crown of her head spun around his finger.
Tingle (Revenge Book 2) Page 18