Dusk Until Dawn

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  Her fear, the feeling that she’d never find love, that she wasn’t good enough to feel this way, evaporated in an instant. “You won’t.”

  The tension in his body disappeared, and he turned her in his arms so that she faced the wall. “What are you going to do with it?”

  “What are you talking about? The wall?”

  “Yeah, the wall. I bought the building so you could have a wall.”

  “Too much. This is all, too much.” She craned her neck to stare at him. “How much did this cost?”

  He shrugged. “The insurance payout from my car took care of the down payment.”

  She grabbed his hand. “I saw the video. What did you say to her?”

  “I told her that I wasn’t going to take her back.”

  “Did you play her the Taylor Swift song or did you actually tell her that like an adult?”

  “I told her in front of a therapist.”

  “You must have been an awful husband.” She kissed him briefly on the mouth. “You’re going to have to be better if we ever get married.”

  She didn’t know why she said that. It was stupid to go there when they’d been apart until a few minutes ago.

  “You might marry me?”

  Her whole body flushed with relief and the thought of forever with Javi. “Don’t worry about it.” She pointed at a blank space on the wall. “I might paint your portrait with a horse’s ass right there.”

  “You’re still mad at me?”

  She smiled and nipped at his jaw. “Not at the moment, but that image works for when I’m not mad, too.” At his confused expression, she said, “You fuck like a satyr in heat when you’re not acting like an asshole.”

  “That’s it.” He picked her up off her feet and carried her into the warehouse. “I’ll show you around later. I was thinking, since I bought the whole building, that this would work as a studio.”

  He’d thought of everything, and Maya’s heart beat doubled in time. This was real. He was really hers, and he wasn’t taking it back.

  When he put her down, there were more candles and dinner set up. The sweetness of the gesture had her looking around for flat surfaces where she could have her way with him.

  “I figured you wouldn’t eat at the opening, so I wanted to have food for you.”

  Food could wait. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him long and slow. When she pulled back, she said, “Love you. But I’m going to need you to fuck me to seal the deal.”

  And then he pulled out the air mattress.

  Epilogue

  Javi came home from work wanting his girl. He’d secured a new client today, and they needed to celebrate. He felt up the bottom of his gym bag for the ring box he’d picked up on the way home from the office. Although they’d only been living together, officially, for the past few months, he was ready. With Maya, he wasn’t about to wait years to make her his for real.

  But he knew the celebrations would have to wait as soon as he saw Alana’s car parked in the guest spot in the garage.

  He walked into the loft, expecting the counters to be littered with empty bottles and the space to be filled with laughter. He was half right. The counter had a quarter full bottle of tequila, three shot glasses, and many spent lime wedges.

  Both of his sisters sat on his couch. He couldn’t see Carla’s face right away, but he saw concern and panic in the way that Alana and Maya looked at her. What the fuck?

  He cut around the couch and caught a ragged sob coming from his baby sister. “What happened?”

  Maya looked up at him, and sighed. “Geoff dumped her.”

  Between sobs, Carla added, “He said I wasn’t exciting enough.”

  “Fuck that guy. You’re the funniest person I know.” Alana sounded more than a little drunk.

  Javi didn’t know what to do. He was honestly sort of relieved. Geoff wasn’t nearly good enough for his baby sister. No one probably was, but definitely not that putz. So, although getting rip-roaring drunk hadn’t exactly sped his recovery from his divorce, a good bender was definitely called for.

  “Do I need to go kill him? He’s not my best friend, so I won’t feel bad about it.” If Cole ever screwed over Alana, he would only feel a little bad about rearranging his face. Geoff was fuck-all to their family. Because now that he’d dumped Carla, he was definitely fired.

  “No. I just need more tequila.”

  He tipped his chin at Maya. “Is that the last of it?”

  She winked at him, and he cursed Geoff Madsen. If not for his untimely dumping, he’d be inside his woman by now. “Alana picked up supplies on the way. “

  “There’s two more bottles of tequila, and then we have wine.”

  Javi looked up at the heavens. His sisters were never going to leave. And they were going to get blackout drunk with his girl. He was not going to get engaged tonight. Or laid, apparently.

  When he looked down, Maya winked at him again and mouthed, “I love you.”

  * * * *

  By shot number three, Maya had switched to water and Javi’s sisters hadn’t noticed. Poor Carla. She didn’t think her fiancé was the right guy for her, but it always sucked to get dumped.

  She left Alana and Carla sleeping in her and Javi’s bed and crept out to the living space. Javi was still awake, cleaning up the destructive path that his sisters had left in their kitchen. Luckily for her, he was doing it without a shirt.

  Lucky. That’s how she felt most of the time—these days—but especially now. Thanks to Javi, she had a big family. She had sisters. Occasionally, they were a pain in the ass, like tonight when she’d been planning to have a naked weekend with her man. But, she was still grateful for their love and acceptance.

  “Psst.” Javi’s head swiveled towards her and she wrapped her arms around his back. He stopped wiping down the counter. She kissed the spot between his shoulder blades. “Drunk and drunker are finally asleep.”

  “And you’re not drunkerer?”

  “No. I switched to water after a few shots. I figured that someone needed to mind the asylum.”

  He grabbed her hands where they connected at his chest. “Marry me.” He gripped her fists tighter. “I was planning on asking you tonight, but my sister—”

  He turned around, and looked at her as though it wasn’t even a question. Their lives were entwined together already. She felt like they’d gotten married that night at the Wynwood Walls. She didn’t need the ring. She’d never expected anyone—much less Javi—to propose to her.

  “Are you sure you want to get married again?”

  He nodded once, resolute. “If you hadn’t wanted to be with me, I never would have thought about getting married again. I would have been alone forever. I probably would have kept pushing my family away and acted like an asshole until I died.” He kissed one of her palms. She was shocked that she hadn’t turned into a puddle on the floor. “You are the only person I’ve ever known that could bring me back from the dead. I was walking around dead inside before you showed up.”

  “You would have gotten over it.” And she knew he would have. He was a strong man; he loved his family, and he would have cleaned up his act for them. She was glad to be a part of it.

  “I’m so grateful—”

  “Don’t say no.”

  She shook her head and his hands tightened on hers, as if he was afraid that she was going to leave him. “I’m not saying no. I’m saying yes. I was going to tell you how grateful I am for you. I don’t know that I would have been grateful if we’d been together before, if it had been easy.”

  “Neither do I. I love you so much. It still scares me sometimes.”

  Something about a big, macho man telling her that he was afraid broke her, every time. “Then we can be scared together.”

  “Always, mi cielo. Always.”

  He turned around and wrapped her in his big arms, she leaned into his warmth, and the tenderness she felt for him quickly turned t
o lust.

  He only released her to grab his gym bag from the corner of the concrete counter. He pulled out a ring box, but he didn’t do the down on one knee thing. “I’m getting this thing on before you wise up and change your mind.”

  He slid a perfect diamond solitaire on her finger. The stone itself was black, and the band was titanium, if she wasn’t mistaken. It was unique and strong, just like them.

  “I don’t know what to say.” Her voice cracked as she stared at the ring and back at Javi.

  “Say yes again.”

  “Yes. I love you.”

  “Even better.” He grabbed her left hand and kissed the spot where her palm met the band of the ring. Her heart beat so fast, it almost felt like she was having a panic attack. This was really happening.

  She needed to connect to him right now. She wanted him skin on skin. But, with his sisters in her bed and liable to wake up if they really got into it, their options were limited.

  “We haven’t fucked on the roof garden in a while.” When she said that, he laughed against her hair. He grabbed her hand in a flash and pulled her towards the private elevator. “You’re not even going to put on clothes?”

  “It’s my garden. Anybody comes to trespass, they can see me bare-ass naked.”

  Maya laughed. They had a few close calls with news helicopters over downtown fooling around on the roof, but desperate times and all.

  Waiting for the elevator to take them up one floor felt like it was taking forever. Javi had clearly lost patience, and his hands were underneath her tank top and the band of her shorts. She wasn’t wearing panties, so his hand spanned almost to where she needed him most.

  She loved the way he looked after his sisters; he was a big, strong shoulder to cry on for Carla. Something like that shouldn’t turn her on, but it did. It made her want to drag him off to a dark corner, like she was doing now.

  She could do this whenever she wanted because he was her fiancé. A surge of possessiveness had her turning him against the elevator wall as the doors opened. She loved this garden, more since he’d bought it for their private use.

  She hadn’t asked him to do that, but somehow he’d known that she wanted that space to be theirs. And it helped when Karrie had reverted most of his trust fund—minus a reasonable settlement—to him. Apparently, she’d felt bad about smashing his Porsche and made some changes to her life. Like leaving town, which was just as well with Maya.

  But Maya didn’t need the extravagant gifts. She liked that he wanted to give her everything, but she didn’t need it. The garden was gorgeous though. Javi didn’t flip on the fairy lights that they used when they wanted to have dinner. Instead, he lifted her off her feet and carried her to the patch of grass she’d installed.

  “Put me down.”

  “Never.” His voice was half-growl, half-serious. “I’ll never let you go.”

  “But you have to put me down to fuck me.”

  “Good point.” He set her down on her feet and grabbed her face in both hands. She gripped his sides, his hot skin felt amazing against her fingers. She wanted to draw him again, but that would have to wait. “We have to consummate our engagement.”

  “I thought that only counted with marriage.” She laughed even though she was on board with the idea of consummating anything and everything where Javi was concerned.

  “No. We’ll have to wait until after Cole and Alana’s wedding to start planning because my mom is going to lose her shit about cancelling Carla’s wedding to that pendejo.”

  She brushed his hair back with her hand. “I don’t care when I get to marry you.” She brushed his bottom lip with her index finger. “I really care about the consummation part right now.”

  He lifted her off her feet and she wrapped her legs around him. He lowered them both to the grass, which felt cool and comforting against her exposed skin.

  Right away, he dipped his head to her stomach and lifted her T-shirt, following the exposed skin with his mouth. It trailed heat through her body, all the way to the center of her chest. This man was everything to her, he was her beating heart.

  When he got her shirt off, he reared up over her and ground his pelvis into hers. His hard length against her clit sent sparks through her entire being. His dark gaze, haloed by moonlight, was almost too beautiful for her to keep her eyes open to. But she did. She didn’t have a choice, but to behold the man that she had loved since the moment she met him. And, finally, he was all hers. She could finally trust that.

  “I love you so much,” he said on one grind. “But, if I don’t get to fuck you right now, I’m going to die. I might have walked away from the table with the potential for millions of dollars today, but I still felt like an open wound because I couldn’t have you last night.”

  “I was working.”

  He ground into her again, and she groaned with pleasure. “I love it that you’re so busy you can’t come home to me every night, but I also hate that I can’t get inside you the second I get home from work. Because I don’t just ache for you when I wake up in the morning and when I get home from work. I ache every second of every day to feel my cock inside you.”

  The material between them was getting annoying, so she bucked her hips and used his surprise to tug down his boxer briefs. By the time they were both naked, she’d rolled on top of him.

  “Rub up against me; get my cock so wet.” She loved the things he said when he really wanted to come. Every time, he sounded so grateful. The way he talked made fucking her sound like it was both his prayer and his penance.

  She wasted no time and seated herself on his cock. “You never have to convince me to sit on it now.”

  “No, I don’t. But I keep thinking about this pussy in meetings, and it’s going to get me in trouble.” He grabbed her ass and ground against her so her clit hit his pubic bone, and her thoughts scattered. “I’m not going to let it, though. It’s so fucking good.”

  That last little bit of begging sent her over the edge, and she came, gasping and collapsed into his chest.

  He rolled her over, grabbed her leg, and pushed her into his shoulder so he could get deeper. While she was okay to let him get off and forgo a second orgasm, that would never do with Javi.

  “Touch yourself,” he said, his voice raspy and begging.

  She complied, and her clit was on fire again within seconds. He had her pinned in the grass, and she was certain they’d both have grass stains marking their skin when they went downstairs. She didn’t care, they needed this. Up on the roof, they felt meant to be. Their love for each other was like a force of nature, and nothing could disturb what they felt for each other.

  Feeling him go rigid and come inside her set her orgasm off. Her body bowed into his and he captured any noise she made with his mouth. When it stopped for both of them, he stayed inside her. She felt like they were the same person sometimes when they were like this, primal and unhinged with pleasure.

  “I love you, Javi. So much it hurts.”

  He put his hand on her heart. “Then I’ll always have to make it better.”

  And she finally believed that he would.

  Don't miss the next book in Andie J. Christopher's One Night in South Beach series!

  One Mistake Restraints

  Carla Hernandez needs to drop off the glamorous Miami grid. Her aunt's house in Havana seems the perfect place to get over being dumped by her fiancé—and figure out why she keeps messing up her life. But photojournalist Jonah Kane’s unexpected presence is one sizzling mistake she’s hungry to make.

  One Temptation Restraints

  Jonah thought his favorite Cuban refuge would help him get some badly-needed peace. Still, he’s ridden out way worse than the tropical storm trapping him with Carla. And he’s going to handle this spoiled little princess on his own dominant, seductive terms just until the storm is over. Too bad this sexy wild card only makes him only want more. And more . . .

  No Restraints
>
  Now Carla’s back home—but not quite alone. When her baby is born, she’s going to raise it on her own, no matter how much she still burns for Jonah. But Jonah can’t get over her irrepressible spirit or the passion they shared. And trying to walk away is only making things too hot to resist . . .

  Click here to get your copy.

  Meet the Author

  Andie J. Christopher writes edgy, funny, sexy contemporary romance. She grew up in a family of voracious readers, and picked up her first Harlequin romance novel at age twelve when she’d finished reading everything else in her grandmother’s house. It was love at first read. It wasn’t too long before she started writing her own stories—her first heroine drank Campari and wore a lot of Esprit. Andie holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame in economics and art history (summa cum laude), and a JD from Stanford Law School. She lives in Washington, DC, with a very funny French Bulldog named Gus. Please visit her at andiejchristopher.com.

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