“So you busted out the work after all, huh?”
He shrugged and slid the plate of pasta toward her. “Had to. I have a meeting with HR Monday about the new employee benefits plan, and since dear old Dad suspects I’m off my game, he’ll be there waiting for me to screw up so he can swoop in and make me look like a jackass.”
Her mother had her issues, but never in her life had she tried to do anything other than support whatever Fate wanted to do or be.
“Why is he so set on trying to tear you down? Does he not want you to be CFO?”
Dean’s dark brows dipped toward one another. He had the most expressive face. Fate took a moment to appreciate the elegant angles of it.
“Honestly? Sometimes, it seems like he’s pushing me for my own good, making sure I’m achieving at my highest potential, but other times…”
She turned on the stool and let her legs tangle with his. The fine hairs on his tickled her smooth skin. “Other times,” she prompted.
Dean’s gaze drifted then moved to their entwined legs. “Sometimes, he’s just pushing to push. Makes it hard to tell if he’s wanting me to man up or bow out.”
Fate made a soft, discontented noise in her throat. “What does your mom say about it? I assume from the way your dad’s reputation at work precedes him that they’re divorced.”
The man across from her stiffened visibly. “My mother passed away when I was fifteen. He began cheating on her long before that though.”
Fate winced. It was clear that this was the root a lot of Dean’s anger at his father grew from. She hated seeing him hurting but felt as if a window to his soul had been opened to her.
“I’m sorry—for your loss and that he behaved that way.”
The wounded man across from her swallowed and lifted his eyes to hers. “Thank you. Though neither is anything you should be sorry for.”
“I don’t have any memories of my dad. I was barely walking when he passed away. But I can say, sometimes when my mom would slip off into her addictions, it was like losing her over and over again. So, in a way, I can understand how painful that must be. Can I ask what happened to your mom?”
“Cancer,” he answered evenly. “She was sick for several years before she actually went.”
Fate took the information in. “It’s none of my business, but did your dad start messing around before or after she got sick?”
Dean paused and seemed to be contemplating her question. Fate had lost her appetite from the heavy conversation, so she pushed the plate back toward him in case he was still hungry.
“You know, I’m not sure. I was young. But after, I think.”
“Maybe that was his way of coping.” She saw the anger flare in Dean’s eyes and placed her hands up between them. “Not saying it’s okay, because it’s definitely not. Just speculating.”
His fiery glare cooled a little. “You could be right. I don’t know. I gave up trying to figure him out a long time ago.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” she offered, hoping this conversation wouldn’t take them somewhere they couldn’t return from. “Maybe you both gave up on each other.”
She was relieved that he didn’t look angry anymore, just a little defeated, when he said, “Maybe.”
“Dean?”
His eyes roamed the paperwork on the counter before returning to hers. “Yeah?”
“What will Monday be like? Aside from your meeting, I mean. What do you think it will be like for…us?”
He took a deep breath, causing his muscular shoulders to lift several inches. “I guess we won’t really know until we get there, right?”
She nodded in agreement. Even though they’d said that they might continue the physical intimacy, she still had that impending feeling of doomed trepidation that they’re time was running out.
“Done?” Fate stood and lifted the leftover box above the garbage can.
“Yeah.” Dean’s steady gaze remained on her as she walked over to him. She combined his papers into a neat stack and set them aside on a stool. “Apparently, I’m done working too.”
She nodded, slowly climbed up onto the counter, and sat facing him. He raised his eyebrows.
“I already had dessert. You promised to make me your dessert earlier. I’m ready for you to make good on that promise.”
The marble countertop was cold on her back, making her thankful for the barrier of his shirt. Dean’s capable, warm hands slid up her thighs and parted them.
“I can’t think of anything I want more than this right now.”
She trembled beneath him. “That makes two of us.”
He placed a chaste kiss on her inner thigh. “You taste so sweet, Fate. So fucking sweet and addicting. I love tasting you.”
“I love you tasting me.” She was alive with the electric current than ran beneath her skin. Each touch of his hand or lips or tongue jolted her already buzzing body.
Her hands gripped the solid edge of the countertop for stability. Lying back she couldn’t see anything other than the dim recessed lights on the ceiling.
Dean licked and sucked his way to the center of her, languidly trailing his tongue around her closed folds until she whimpered out loud.
“I’ve always had issues with patience. Did I ever mention that? I’m an impatient man who has a hard time waiting for what he wants.”
Fate made a noise of agreement. She could see that about him, but his breath between her legs made it hard to articulate much of anything in that particular moment.
“You made me wait, though, didn’t you?”
The tremble in her legs rose to her thighs. “Y-yes.”
A thick finger parted her labia and she twitched. “Be still, beautiful girl. We’re just talking right now.”
“O-okay.” The steady quiver continued higher.
Dean began unbuttoning her shirt from the bottom up until she was exposed to him fully. “Maybe I should make you wait. Maybe I should let you see how I felt those long months after you left me alone on the beach.”
“Please don’t,” she cried on a breath. “I told you that was a mistake. One I regret.”
“Where’d you go, beautiful? After you left me?”
Fate had to take a few deep breaths to gather her wits before answering. One solitary digit stroked her from opening to cleft and back again in a slow, torturous motion—making it almost impossible to speak clearly.
“I ran to a garage. Hid behind it and then walked on the road back to my hotel.”
“And what as so important at your hotel that you felt it necessary to desert me?”
The anticipation was taking hold and her teeth were trying to clench. “Nothing. Nothing was worth leaving you. It was a mistake.”
Maybe as a reward for her honesty, or just because he too was running low on restraint, Dean slipped a finger inside her throbbing opening.
“I was a fucking madman. I looked everywhere. I had so much more to show you. There was so much more I wanted to do to you.”
“Show me now,” she begged, full on panting as he let his finger sink inside and then retreat.
“You sure about that, beautiful? Because it was a long wait. I had to be very, very patient. And I meant what I said when we arrived yesterday.”
She tried to rack her brain to recall what he’d said specifically, but so much had happened.
“I,” Dean began, lifting one of her legs onto his shoulder. “Am,” he continued, hoisting the other leg. “Going to fuck you,” was punctuated by a firm lick of his tongue that spread her swollen lips and allowed him full access to her clit. “Every.” He paused, sinking a second finger into her pulsating pussy. “Way.” Another rough lick. “Imaginable.”
Fate’s head swam, the room around them seeming to pitch and roll before swirling into a tailspin.
“Tell me you’re ready, Fate. Tell me that I can fuck you any way I goddamn well please.”
Everything stopped. The hot moist breath against her center, the fingers, the tongue. Th
e rotation of the Earth. All of it. He left her bereft as he waited for an answer.
She had to focus on one point on the ceiling to regain her sense in order to speak coherently. “You can. You can fuck me any way you please, Dean. I-I want you to.”
“Sit up now. Come to me.”
Her entire body quivered as she used her elbows to prop and then propel herself upright. Under the glow of the dimmed lights, a few of them gleaming against his dark hair, he looked like a fallen angel with arms extended to rescue her. But once she’d allowed him to carry her from the counter to the bedroom, a low sound from the back of his throat brought to her mind nothing but evil.
This man was no angel. And he was about to show her just how bad he could be.
“I need you on all fours for this, sweetheart.”
Her stomach tensed as if she’d done a million crunches that morning.
Dean lowered onto the bed, waiting until she’d assumed the commanded position until he crawled in behind her.
“I’m not going to lie to you. This will be painful at first. If it gets too bad, you can tell me and I’ll back it down and fuck you however you want. But I can make you come like this. That’s a promise.”
Before she could ask a follow-up question to his caveat, his hands gripped her outer thighs and eased them apart. He leaned forward to remove her—well, his—shirt from her body and tossed it aside. She didn’t know when he’d discarded his underwear, but she felt the unmistakable brush of his bare cock against her ass. He was fully hard and ready for her. She just didn’t know if she was fully ready for what she suspected he had in mind.
Once he was back in position, he surprised her by sliding his palm all the way to her clit. He used his middle finger to stroke the length of the throbbing bundle of nerves before sinking it into her opening.
His voice was barely louder than the ocean beside them when he spoke. “Scared?”
“A little,” she whispered back, relishing the deep exploration of his finger.
“I’ll make sure it’s nice and wet for you. Stay with me, okay, baby? This is for me, because you left me and made me wait, but since it’s your first time, I want you to enjoy it.”
Her arms and legs began to quake beneath her as Dean slid his Fate-soaked finger all the way back to her ass.
“Dean,” she cried out impulsively, unsure as to what she was going to follow it with.
“Shh. I’ll be gentle. I’ll make sure you’re primed for me first. I know you have to be able to sit down tomorrow.”
His words probably weren’t nearly as reassuring as he meant for them to be.
Fate gripped the sheets beneath her tight in her hands. No amount of sheet holding would ease the shock that exploded through her body when he pressed his finger knuckle-deep into her impossibly tight entrance.
There was an intense pinch followed by a burning that blanked her mind. She felt full and stretched and…dirty. But it felt surprisingly good in the most severe way possible.
“Tell me if it’s more than you can bear, sweetheart.”
The words fell on deaf ears as she writhed in his proficiently skilled hands. She lost track of which hand was where when he managed to reach her clit and massage it while maintaining his rhythmic ministrations inside her.
Some strong-willed part of her refused to break, refused to tell him that she couldn’t take it no matter how far over the edge she fell. Because she could take it, she was, and lo and behold, she was enjoying it.
A thin sheen of sweat was covering her entire body by the time she felt his hands moving from her most intimate parts. His finger was replaced by something much thicker. Dean rubbed the head of his cock forward, dipping into her pussy and then sliding back to ease gently into the pucker of flesh behind it.
A low, guttural moan escaped her as he ventured deeper. She’d never known that pain could be sensual, but when Dean’s fingers dented her flesh as he moved inch by inch into her, something clicked and the world made sense again.
The give and take, the push and pull, the pleasure and the pain—it was all the perfect balancing act, much like the ocean tide and the gravitational forces that controlled it. She focused on loosening her clenched muscles enough to let him inside without so much excruciating friction.
“That’s all of it, baby. I’m all the way in now. You’re doing so good, so fucking good.”
She wanted to tell him that she could take it, that he could move more—that she wanted him to—but with him engorged in her forbidden depths and his fingers alternating between fluttering motions against her clit and fucking her pussy, she had no words. All she could manage were whimpered moans and the pressing herself against him.
He seemed to comprehend her wordless reaction. “My good girl. My sweet, beautiful, daring, girl. You never stop amazing me, sweetheart.”
She cried out when he began to take her more purposefully, but the pleasure outweighed the agony. His praise encouraged her, and she moved with him. It felt much better when she was the one driving so to speak.
Dean allowed her to set their pace for a few brief moments until, suddenly, he jerked forward—simultaneously going the deepest he’d ever been with both his fingers and his cock.
An overwhelming tidal wave of triumphant pleasure tore through her, ripping jagged incisions through the center of her body, and she collapsed, pinning his hand between the mattress and her clit. Riding out her orgasm on his hand, she moaned into the pillow as Dean flooded her body with his searing release.
The slow burn continued even after Dean had pulled out of her. She remained motionless, lying on her stomach and listening to her own heartbeat and breathing until Dean returned. A cool washcloth gently passed through the still-stinging parts between her legs. He was careful and thorough in his cleanup.
“Want some water or something else to drink?” His voice filled the darkened room as Fate tried to locate hers.
“Water’s good,” she rasped out.
While he was gone, she slid his shirt back on and tried to button a few buttons with trembling fingers. Giving up after a few successful attempts, she curled around one of his enormous plush pillows.
She listened to the sounds of clinked glasses and running water in the kitchen. Consciousness threatened to fade while she waited for him to return.
“Here, baby.”
Fate sat upright and took several long sips of ice water. When she handed the glass back to him, he stared down at her for a long, straining moment.
“God, you’re so fucking beautiful.”
Her eyes widened up at him. She could only imagine how she looked. Hair messy and damp, his shirt sliding off one shoulder, eyes glazed over.
“You are.” He shook his head as if searching for the words to explain his attraction to her. “That first night, swear to everything holy, I thought you might be some mythical creature come to steal my soul. But you were so damn beautiful that I would have given it to you.”
She kept quiet, afraid to move or speak and risk breaking the magic that kept him with her, kept him from running. He wasn’t running. He was opening up and being honest.
Dean lowered himself into the bed beside her, propping on one elbow and facing her. Fate mirrored his position and admired the way the moonlight lit his handsome face.
“I asked the universe for a sign. It sent me you.”
Her whispered confession made him smile. But his expression turned serious far too soon for her liking. “I felt it the moment I saw you. A compulsion like I’d never felt before, as if some unseen force propelled me toward you without my consent. I’ve felt it ever since.”
Fate rested her head on her hands and nodded against them. “I feel it too. I’m just…a little afraid of it. Of what it might cost us.”
“My mom used to say that things worth having didn’t come easy and that the kind of girl that was worth waiting for wouldn’t wait on anyone. Those two adages keep coming back to me every time I think of you.”
She inche
d her hand over toward his. “Do you do that often? Think of me?”
Dean kept eye contact, only breathing and watching her. “Define often.”
Fate grinned. “More than once a week.”
The slight curve of his lips faded and his gaze became a heavy, tangible thing she could feel pressing into her.
“I thought of you every day, Fate. And I didn’t even know your name. Even after I did… I think after that, it was more like several times a day.”
She wanted to keep this moment, to keep him here with her just like this. Both of them exposed and vulnerable. It was real and honest and—despite her exhaustion— exhilarating. But she knew it wouldn’t last forever. Nothing ever did.
“Sleep with me tonight. Don’t leave. Just… Just sleep with me, please.”
He nodded, letting his fingers interlace with hers between them and placing a soft kiss on the top of her hand. “I’m not going anywhere. Goodnight, sweetheart.”
“Goodnight, Dean.”
They’d woken up early and showered together, which had taken twice as long due to unhurried lovemaking under the cascading water.
“See? It wasn’t so bad waking up with me was it?”
Dean had forced himself to nod and try to look like it wasn’t a significant issue. But the truth was, waking up with her had been both shockingly sensual and edifying, making him wonder if not waking up with her in the future would now seem wrong. She was even more beautiful when rousing herself from sleep, something he hadn’t previously believed to be possible. But one look into her still dream-drugged eyes and he’d had to have her.
After taking his precious time with her in the shower, he’d driven them to the dock where his boat was. The Wishing Star wasn’t a fifty-foot yacht by any means, but she was his and he was proud of her.
He’d made some calls the day before, and a catering crew from The Grill had brought pancakes and bacon along with Fate’s favorite—Nutella-filled crepes—plus several displays of fruit onto the boat before their arrival.
Her shining, emerald eyes and the way her entire face lit up when she saw the spread was enough to make his entire day.
“This is beautiful. Thank you for this,” Fate told him, leaning over and kissing him sweetly on the cheek.
Falling for Fate (Second Chance Book 2) Page 23