by J. S. Scott
“Not yet,” he answered with a grin.
I kissed him tenderly, knowing I’d savor this moment for the rest of my life. I never expected him to want to marry me right now, but I certainly never considered saying no. Sebastian meant everything to me, and I couldn’t imagine life without him anymore.
The tenderness sparked quickly to passion as he took control of the embrace, holding the back of my head while he devoured my mouth.
“I need you, Paige,” he said gutturally when he’d pulled his mouth from mine.
“I’m already yours,” I told him honestly.
He grasped my ass, and I hopped up and wrapped my legs around his waist, desperate to have him inside me. “Fuck me, Sebastian. No foreplay, no teasing, no waiting.”
Putting my feet back on the ground, I started to strip off my clothes, watching as Sebastian desperately did the same. He finished first, then moved close to me and pulled strategically at my panties, stripping them from my body easily and painlessly.
“Again?” I groaned, knowing he’d just destroyed another pair of the expensive lingerie he’d given me.
“I’ll get you more,” he rumbled as his hands roamed my body possessively.
I couldn’t get out anything except a moan as his fingers roamed between my thighs, then expertly slid through my folds and straight to my slick clit. “Jesus, Paige. You’re always ready and wet for me.”
I couldn’t argue with him. My body responded to him just as readily as his did to me. “Fuck me, Sebastian. Make all of this real.”
My head was still spinning form his proposal, and all I wanted to do was get him inside me. My heart, body, and soul needed him to confirm what I already knew to be true.
We belonged together. I didn’t know if it was fate. But like Sebastian, I was beginning to think we had always been meant for each other.
“This is all very real, babe,” he drawled as my back hit the wall.
“Now,” I demanded, tightening my grip around his waist in a silent plea for him to join our bodies together.
He didn’t hesitate to surge forward and impale himself inside me with enough force to make me cry out. “Sebastian. Oh, God. Yes. Please.”
My body was clamoring for him, and I inhaled his intoxicating scent as he buried his cock to the root inside me.
It was a frenzied, uncontrolled madness that took both of us over as Sebastian pummeled his cock in and out of my slick channel, fucking me like he had to do it or die.
My climax built so quickly that it left me breathless, panting for release. We surged together, Sebastian positioning me so every stroke rubbed against my engorged clit, building a pressure that was almost painful. “I can’t wait,” I whimpered, grinding against him as he slammed into me.
“Then don’t,” he groaned. “This. Is. Real.”
I plunged my fingers into his hair and gripped it hard as my orgasm took control, tossing me around in the waves of pleasure that came flooding through my body and permeated my heart.
Holding on tight, my release so intense, I bit down on his shoulder as our bodies continued to rock together.
“Oh, fuck. I love it when you do that,” he groaned, hammering harder as we both hurdled toward release.
The sounds of our harsh breathing filled the air as we clung to each other, absorbing the final ripples of pleasure from our volatile orgasms. Sebastian stumbled to the couch with our bodies still connected, only allowing us to be separated when he flopped onto his back on the sofa and pulled me on top of him.
We were both slick with sweat as I tried to slow down my breathing and calm my racing heart.
“That was real,” I teased when I’d finally caught my breath.
“Very,” he agreed as he slapped me playfully on the ass.
“I love you so much,” I whispered breathlessly, resting my hands beside his head to push myself up.
His eyes caressed my face, his intense expression telling me everything I needed to know.
Staring down at the man who had literally changed my life, I realized that our meeting couldn’t be an accident. How did one find exactly what they needed at just the right time?
I craved this beautiful man like I needed oxygen to breathe.
“I love you, sweetheart,” he finally responded, his tone heavy with emotion.
We skipped the fancy dinner and ate hotdogs at home. Then we spent the night sealing the deal on our engagement completely naked, which in my opinion was much more pleasurable than getting dressed for dinner.
CHAPTER 24
Sebastian
“How’s the plans going for the new property?” Trace asked as I sat in his office a week after I’d gotten engaged to Paige.
“Good. Really good.” The purchase was progressing, and the details on design and usage of the space was being finalized. “I think it’s a better site than the New Mexico lot, and it’s closer to Denver, so I can be out on site more often.”
“How’s Paige?” Trace asked.
“Mine.” Putting that ring on her finger was the best damn thing I’d ever done. But it still didn’t stop the urgent desire I had to insulate her from anything that would hurt her in the future. “I’m completely obsessed about her happiness, which I find pretty uncomfortable,” I admitted to Trace unhappily.
He looked at me curiously. “Why?”
I shrugged. “It’s not fucking normal. I almost hate the fact that I pushed her into taking a new job. I can’t see her. I can’t make sure she’s okay. It might make me crazy.”
Trace let out a booming laugh. “That’s how it is when you’re madly in love,” he said, amused.
“I do love her. So much that I’m not sure it’s healthy.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting her to be happy, Sebastian. And there’s no crime in missing her. Hell, I still get irritated when I don’t see Eva in the morning.”
“I know.” Trace could be a real asshole if he didn’t at least get to kiss his wife goodbye in the morning. “Oh, hell. I’m starting to act exactly like you,” I grumbled, suddenly noticing the similarities.
“Welcome to my world,” Trace said drily. “You’ll live through it. It just feels like you won’t sometimes. Paige is worth it.”
I was quiet as I considered his words. Really, Paige was worth any sacrifice. And she was happy. I just wished I didn’t miss her so damn much. “Maybe I’ll feel more secure when we’re married.”
Trace shook his head. “Nope. You’ll worry even more because you’ll have a new level of connection.”
Now that I thought about it, Trace had become worse about his obsession with his wife after the wedding. “I’m fucked,” I replied in a graveled voice.
“Then don’t marry her,” Trace replied lightly as he took a swallow of coffee from his mug.
“Not happening. I was sweating bullets about whether or not she’d say ‘yes.’ I’m not going through that shit again.”
Sometimes I still wondered how a player like me could end up with a fiancée like Paige. She was the type of woman who cried over getting something as simple as a new watch or lingerie…or even a new coat. Yeah, she’d always say it was just because I was thinking about her, but I’d never known a woman who gave a damn if I was thinking of her. With other women, it was the gift, and the price that counted. But not my fiancée. With her, it really was the thought that counted.
I was rock-hard in seconds as my mind drifted off to the night we got engaged…
“Sebastian!” Trace shouted.
I looked at him guiltily. “Yeah.”
“You were somewhere else,” Trace concluded.
“Yeah. For a minute. What did you say?”
My brother gave me a knowing look before he said, “Is Dane going to make it for the wedding?”
“He’d better,” I grumbled. “Or I’ll go drag
him off his island.”
I wanted my younger brother present to share my happiness. I sure as hell was only getting married once, and I wanted all the witnesses I could get.
“I don’t think you’ll need to. I executed our plan,” Trace said quietly. “I think you’re right. He needs help in more ways than one. I know he’s busy, but I think he’s using his success as an excuse to avoid the world entirely. Even his family.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure how Paige was going to like our plan, but I didn’t think she’d object to us helping her best friend and my brother.
“He’ll kill us if it doesn’t work,” I pointed out to Trace.
“Well, at least he’d have to leave his island for that,” my older brother said with a grin.
I smirked back at him. “Yeah. He will. I hope Kenzie can bring him back to life again.”
“She sounded excited about a new job, especially one that pays a lot of money, and involves Dane’s art career. The only thing she didn’t sound happy about was leaving the city.”
I frowned. “Yeah. Paige mentioned that she liked the city life.”
“But she seemed more than willing to deal with that.”
I had yet to meet Paige’s best friend, but I knew she could use the money, and she had the skills and experience to help Dane. In fact, I was fairly sure she could understand my younger brother better than we did right now.
“Good. I—”
“What in the world did you two do to my best friend?” An angry female voice that I recognized instantly sounded from the entrance of Trace’s office.
“Paige?” I said, confused as I turned to see her standing just inside the door. She looked beautiful in a light blue dress and heels, her hair up in a considerably less stark hairdo.
Christ! She looked fucking amazing. Unfortunately, she also looked pissed.
She ignored me as she approached Trace’s desk. “You sent my best friend to some remote island somewhere?”
Trace calmly motioned to the chair next to mine. “Please sit. She wasn’t supposed to tell you until Sebastian had a chance to let you know first.”
She sat on the edge of the chair, then demanded, “Talk! Tell me why you sent my friend off to the middle of nowhere. And it better be good. Kenzie hasn’t had the easiest life. And I had to take some time away from a new job I love to find out what you’re doing.”
One thing I loved about my fiancée was the fact that she fiercely defended someone she cared about, or people that she felt were being taken advantage of. I still adored that trait, but right now, I was wishing she’d be a little less defensive. But that wasn’t going to happen. Paige was born to fight for those who couldn’t.
“I was going to tell you,” I confessed. “We were trying to help Kenzie, not hurt her. Trace and I offered her a job as Dane’s assistant. She’s getting paid a small fortune, which I think she could use. She doesn’t have to pay the expenses of living in the city, and it will help my little brother. You said she loved his work, and would love to work with him. So we made her a proposition.”
“One she couldn’t refuse, I suppose,” Paige said with a sigh. “She loves living in the city. She’ll hate living on an island with nobody to talk to. Will I even be able to talk to her?”
“She’ll have Dane. And yes, you can still talk to her. Maybe he’d be willing to work with her on her art,” Trace suggested.
I watched Paige cross her arms and she shot me and Trace a warning gaze. “How does Dane feel about her coming to work with him?”
The office went quiet, the crickets chirping as I searched desperately for an answer that wasn’t a lie.
“Oh, God. He doesn’t know?”
More crickets that went on and on.
“It’s better this way,” Trace said firmly. “Dane is retreating from the world. But once Kenzie shows up, I’m hoping he’ll pull out of that.”
“She could end up hurt,” Paige answered angrily. “Did that ever occur to either one of you?”
“If Dane rejects her, then we’ll still pay her,” I said insistently, not wanting Paige to think we’d throw her best friend to the wolves.
“It’s not about the money.” Paige looked at me accusingly. “I’ve told you some of Kenzie’s history. If he rejects her, she’ll feel even worse than she already does about herself. It took her a long time to accept what happened to her. It turned her whole world upside down, and not in a good way.”
Honestly, I hadn’t thought about Kenzie’s feelings. “We thought we were helping them both,” I answered huskily.
“Dane won’t hurt her,” Trace said quietly.
“Maybe not physically—”
“Not emotionally, either.” Trace’s expression was thoughtful as he continued. “Our little brother has been through too many of his own challenges, and even though he won’t admit it, he’s lonely and hurt. He won’t do that to somebody else.”
Paige sighed. “I hope you’re right. It’s not that I don’t want her to have every opportunity she can get, but I’m worried about her living in a hut somewhere in the wilderness. She’s my best friend, and the only person who had my back for years.”
I wanted to remind Paige that there were any number of people who were there for her now, including me. But it didn’t make up for the years she’d had to struggle alone. “A hut?” I finally questioned.
“I’m assuming this place is remote.” Paige glanced at me, then at Trace.
“It’s remote, but it’s far from primitive,” Trace explained. “Dane has all the niceties any person could want, and some that Kenzie has never even thought about.”
I watched an expression of relief spread across Paige’s beautiful face. “She sounded excited, especially about meeting and working with Dane. But I don’t want her to be disappointed.”
“She won’t,” I assured Paige confidently. “She can come with Dane to our wedding. If she’s the least bit miserable, we will find her something else, something a hell of a lot better than being employed with odd jobs in New York.”
“You’re right. She wasn’t in a good position,” Paige admitted. “But I don’t want her situation to go from bad to worse. I offered to help her, but she wouldn’t take anything from me.”
Unable to stop myself from touching her, I took Paige’s hand. “She’s as stubborn as you are,” I told her with a grin. “She wants to work for what she has, and she doesn’t want handouts.”
“You really think this will help both of them?” she asked anxiously. “She was on the road, so I lost my connection with her earlier. I couldn’t get a lot of information.”
“Honestly…yes. It certainly can’t hurt, and we’re paying top dollar.”
She squeezed my hand, and my heart kicked against my chest wall.
Paige finally visibly relaxed. “I hope you’re right.”
“Me, too.”
She stood, her hand still in mine, as she said regretfully, “I have to get back to work. I guess we’ll just have to see how it all works out. But I think you both should have told Dane what you were doing. He’s an adult. He should be able to make his own choices.”
Trace nodded. “Agreed. But he’s also our brother.”
“I know,” Paige said softly.
“I’ll go with you downstairs,” I said eagerly, getting up to walk with her to the elevator.
“I’ll see you at dinner next week,” Trace reminded Paige.
She smiled. “I’ll be there. I wouldn’t miss Italian night. Pasta is my weakness, and I already know that Eva can make it better than any restaurant I’ve ever been to.”
Trace and Paige parted amiably, and we walked hand-in-hand to the elevator. We stepped into one of the lifts that was open and empty.
I didn’t miss the opportunity to wrap my arms around her and momentarily absorb the feel of her into my soul. “Every
thing will be okay,” I promised her.
She put her hands on my shoulders and looked up at me with her beautiful blue-eyed stare. “I hope so. I do want Kenzie to be happy.”
“And I want you to be happy,” I countered.
“Oh, I am. Right now we’re right back in the place where it all began.”
So we were. In the very same elevator we’d rode up in on that fateful day when Paige had grabbed me by the balls and never let go.
I crowded her against the wall playfully. “Are you going to ask me to move?”
She smiled at me, and my heart damn near exploded from my chest.
“No,” she said teasingly. “I don’t think I will. I think I’d rather you kissed me.”
“The smell of your hair still makes me hard,” I admitted as I inhaled deeply after I buried my face into her thick, dark locks.
“And you still smell like sexy, hot male and butterscotch.”
I decided I could live with that as I swooped down to capture her mouth, wanting to brand Paige Rutledge as mine forever.
Maybe we’d come full circle as we shared a passionate exchange in the very same elevator where we’d first met, but kissing her just got better and better.
How could I ever have known that the woman who got me hard for the first time in a long time would end up meaning everything to me?
I wrapped my arm around her waist as we exited the elevator on the ground floor, then stopped her in the lobby, which was considerably more crowded than it had ever been those several times she’d rejected me.
“Have dinner with me tonight?” I asked teasingly. But maybe I just wanted the satisfaction of hearing her say ‘yes’ this time.
She appeared to catch my meaning and smiled up at me. “Why, yes, Mr. Walker, I think I will.”
“About damn time,” I grumbled as I kissed her on the forehead.
I decided I really did want to hear her say she was willing to be with me, because my heart still hammered with elation, even though she was wearing my ring.
I grinned like a fool as I walked her to her car, feeling like the luckiest bastard in the world.