by BJ Harvey
“I didn’t expect you to literally fall at my feet, beautiful,” he says.
“What can I say? You blew me away,” I reply with a smile, pressing my lips to the pulse in his throat and staying there.
“Do I need to take you to the ER? I caught you, so you didn’t hit your head, but if you want to go get checked out, I can drive you. Or see if Cade can call ’round here? Even Cohen said he’d come over.”
I lean my head back and meet his eyes. “I forgot to eat. I’ve always been a fainter. Ever since I was a kid.”
“Like one of those goats you see falling over on the internet?” he asks, his lips twitching.
“Yep. That’s me. Freak me out with romantic gestures and I’ll literally swoon at your feet,” I say, giggling.
He runs his index finger down the side of my head, the tip tracing my hairline and hooking a loose piece of hair behind my ear. “I wanted to knock your socks off but not like that.”
I shake my head, closing my eyes when he dips his chin to brush his lips against mine.
“The last thing I want to do is move, but I really need to go turn dinner off. Can I get you a glass of water? We’ll save the wine for another night.”
“Okay,” I reply softly, meeting his warm gaze.
God, I could fall for this man.
He gently moves me off his lap and stands, bending over to put me back where he was sitting against the arm of the sofa. Then he does the unexpected, reaching down and grabbing the grey blanket from the floor and draping it over me.
Too late. I’ve already fallen.
“Call out if you need me, and if dinner isn’t ruined, I’m going to feed you then put you to bed.”
I smirk but his narrowed eyes tell me it’s not adult playtime.
“To sleep. I don’t want you driving home by yourself, and I’d rather hold you all night and make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine, Jax. Honestly, it’s happened before. I just need to get my sugar levels up.”
“Can you do this… for me?” There’s absolutely no arguing with the look on his face. If all I have to do is stay the night in bed with him—not a hardship—to make him feel better and wipe the worry out of his eyes, then there’s no question.
“Yes. And water would be lovely. Oh, and if dinner is ruined, I’ll order takeout. Just being here with you is enough. The candles, the wine, and picnic were awesome though. We’ll have to do that next time,” I say, smiling up at him.
“Fuck it,” he says, bracing one hand on the couch by my shoulder, the other tangling in my hair. Then he’s kissing me, or devouring me, to be more accurate, and I may feel weak and a little light-headed, but I give as good as I can until I melt into the couch. He kissed me pliant. And he can do that any damn day he wants in the future.
Fainting and burned dinner aside, as far as first official dates go—or maybe it’s our second—it’s absolutely perfect. There’s absolutely nowhere else I’d rather be and no one else I would want to be with. So to me, it’s a win—win.
11
Jax
After ordering Chinese takeout, we camp out on the couch, sitting side by side, our legs entwined. Then I offer her some clothes and the shower, and I meet her in my still pink bedroom upstairs.
I crawl in behind her in my boxer shorts—sleeping naked would’ve been far too tempting—and she is asleep within minutes of me spooning her.
Opening my eyes on Sunday morning, the first thing I do is smile. That’s because in my arms is a sleeping Ronnie but also, her fingers are laced with mine around her chest. Even in our sleep we’re drawn to each other, having not moved overnight. I lie there, not willing to move because I don’t want to lose this moment.
“I know you’re awake,” Ronnie murmurs sleepily, squeezing her grip on my hand, but not letting go.
“Only just. I was lying here enjoying the moment.”
“It is a very enjoyable moment.” She pushes her back against my front, making me groan as my morning wood is cradled by her ass. “Part of you feels like you have other ideas on how to make it even better,” she teases.
“We agreed to take it slow,” I say roughly, unable to stop from rolling my hips with hers.
“This is slow,” she says breathlessly, grabbing my hand at her waist and moving it under my T-shirt she’s wearing.
When my hand touches the soft skin of her breast, I curse. “Damn. Doesn’t feel slow,” I say, my body taking over as I roll onto my back, bringing her with me so she’s lying on top. With two hands free, I cup her face and turn it to the side, craning my neck to kiss her lips and thrust my tongue between them.
When she moans into my mouth, my hips piston up, slipping between her legs and gliding against her damp underwear. “Fuckkkk,” I groan when she clenches her thighs together, tightening the grip on my cock.
“Definitely… not… slow… now,” she pants, her tongue rubbing against mine. I need to stop this before I give in and slide into that wet heat I’ve been craving since I first pushed inside her two weeks ago.
I release her mouth, and my hands drop to her waist. I lift her up my body so her legs are spread over my shoulders. I shift down the bed, hooking one arm over her hip to shove her underwear to the side. My fingers find her clit just as I dip my tongue inside of her and take my fill.
Her back arches, one hand slamming against the headboard. I press back and forth, moving her hips and growling when she starts riding my face. Her scent drives me on, her raspy moans making my cock as hard as stone. She’s all I can taste and smell, and like an addict, I can’t get enough.
When she leans forward and wraps her fist around my cock, moving up and down the shaft in firm, long strokes, I know it’s going to be a race to the finish, and I’m not a man who likes to lose.
I suck and lick, my fingers circling her clit faster. I push my tongue deeper inside, my hips bucking up into her hand. When cold air hits my skin and her hot, wet mouth surrounds the head of my cock, she shows me she’s willing to play dirty to win.
Then again, so am I.
I tip her pelvis and flick over her swollen bundle of nerves at rapid speed, pressing my index finger into her and curling the tip against her G-spot. Her body stills as she takes me to the root then she explodes, her body rocking with her orgasm, my mouth dipping to her sex to lap it all up. That’s all it takes for me to climax, my muscles contracting with every pulse as she continues to glide her lips up and down my cock.
When we’re finally spent, she rolls onto her side, collapsing against me with a kiss to my chest. “Such a good morning,” she says with a smile against my skin.
I look over at her, my eyes hooded, my body so relaxed I have doubts I’ll ever be able to walk again.
And we didn’t even go the whole hog.
That would’ve damn near killed me. Again.
I roll onto my side so we’re facing each other. Moving her leg over mine, I glide my hand up and down her thigh. “I really did want to take this slow.”
“Slow is overrated,” she says, brushing her lips against mine. “And that was so much more fun.”
When she tries to move away, I press a hand between her shoulder blades and hold her there, staring into her addictive blue eyes. “You make it so hard to be good.”
“Sometimes being good is overrated,” she says with a mischievous grin.
I cup her jaw. “I meant what I said. I won’t be inside you again until I know you’re mine.” I tangle my fingers in her rumpled hair and kiss her again, this time deeper, longer, and full of everything I’m feeling in this moment, hoping like hell I’m not the only one falling harder than I ever have before. It’s like the year of avoiding her was the most prolonged foreplay of my life and now that I’ve had her, my body is catching up with my heart.
When we finally pull apart, she settles back down on my chest and we lie there in satisfied silence. She runs her hand up and down my chest.
“Can I ask you something?” I say, looking down to look at
her.
“Anything.”
“Why did you go back to school?”
“How much did April tell you?” she asks, her lips tipping up. Ah, sprung!
“That you flew the coop and escaped the locked family cage of expectation.”
Lifting her head, she quirks her brow at me. “She said that?”
My lips twitch. “Not exactly.”
She smiles and drops back down, settling in again. “Well, eighteen months ago, I chose to take the bull by the horns and quit my job, sever professional ties with my somewhat overbearing parents, and take a bet on myself.”
“Kind of like what Jamie did with this house-flipping business.”
“Yeah,” she says softly. “Probably why I like the guy.”
“Then I’m lucky he’s taken, and you chose me.”
“Well, there are two of you, remember,” she says, a smirk curving her lips. “But I was drawn to you almost instantly. There was something there that I couldn’t ignore.”
“I was just the idiot who thought I should ignore it.”
“And how do you feel about that decision now, Ken?”
“Pretty fucking stupid.”
“I agree,” she says with a laugh.
“So, you left your job, your career…”
Her fingers roam my skin mindlessly as she continues. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been artistic. The creative side of my brain was always more dominant, and despite this being glaringly obvious to my teachers as I moved through school, it was drilled into me that Nelsons worked hard to get into Harvard Law. ‘Oh, you’re top of the class in Art and Design; that’s okay. It’ll look good in your law school application.’ ‘You’ve painted an amazing mural on your bedroom wall while we were away? That’s cute, and a good way to channel your teenage rebellion.’ That sort of thing.”
Not wanting to interrupt her, I continue to rub her back, enjoying the closeness and intimacy of the moment.
“I even managed to talk my parents into letting me complete a conjoint Arts and Business degree before Harvard. The only certainty and indisputable part of the equation was that I must go to Law school regardless.” She pauses for a moment. “I continued my dutiful daughter role, working for my father’s firm here in Chicago when I came back from Boston. But I was never fulfilled like I was whenever I did something like paint, or sketch, or muck around with photos and designs on my computer.”
“It was your passion.”
She nods. “After lulling me into a false sense of acceptance, they started pressuring me to settle down with someone, I think that was the last straw. I felt suffocated and was desperate for fresh air.”
“You’re strong and needed room to be you.”
I dip my head and meet her gaze. “How can other people see that yet my own parents never could? They still can’t.”
I cup her jaw, sweeping my thumb over her cheek. “Because anyone who takes the time to get to know you—to see the real you—will only ever want you to be happy. Whatever you need to do to get there.”
“I’m going to be me.” She takes a deep breath and slowly exhales. “My father has still not accepted nor forgiven me. We’re cordial, but our relationship has never been sunshine and roses, and probably won’t be again.”
“I’m sure your parents love you.”
“My father only cares about success, money, and appearances,” she says, her tone laced with bitterness. Breathing deep, she exhales slowly and the tension leeches out of her.
“So, having taken back my life and feeling a sense of freedom I hadn’t had before, I embarked on the most important project of my life—becoming who I was always meant to be.”
“What did you do?”
“I started with a month-long holiday in Bali with a lot of soul-searching, yoga, meditation, and cocktails on the beach, then a few self-discovery pilgrimages through Europe where I came up with a plan.”
“Going back to school?”
“Yeah. Graphic design, graduate marketing classes, and photography—which you already know about. Once I finish, I’m going to intern for a few of my old legal clients who have stuck by me, and then work for myself.”
“Mm-hmm,” I say, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “That sounds like a very good plan.”
“And that brings me to now, sleeping with a man I never knew would end up being my professor, but not wanting to be anywhere else—in life or in this bed.”
She looks up at me, her eyes glistening, and in this moment, I know I’m done for. She owns me; whether she knows that yet, I’m not sure. She didn’t even need to try and work her way into my heart because I think she’s had me since that first day I met her in the driveway.
She must see something in my expression. Her lips part and, unable to resist, I dip down and kiss her, a soft, languid touch that has her body melting against mine. She sighs contentedly, leaning her cheek on my shoulder, our faces still close.
“I’m happy,” she says, lifting a hand to run her fingers through my hair. “I thought I was before, but I think I was missing one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Not what, but who.” She swallows hard, closing her eyes for a second before opening them again and staring straight into mine. “I think I was missing you.”
My heart jumps, “Damn… how do you expect me not to want to make love to you now that you’ve said that?”
“Wishful thinking?”
“We need to get out of this bed. Somewhere public where I can’t jump you.”
“You sure about that?” she says, bracing herself on one arm and hovering above me.
I lift my head, knowing exactly what will happen if I kiss her again. I get to within an inch of her lips before ducking underneath her arm and rolling off the bed, chuckling as she drops back onto the mattress with a frustrated growl.
I stop and lean against the doorframe. “C’mon, Barbie. I’m taking you on an adventure.”
She lifts her head and quirks a brow, biting her lip, and it takes everything in me not to rejoin her again. “Adventure?”
“Just to a few vintage building shops and a recycling plant. Nothing too exotic. I’ll leave you to get dressed and I’ll go make us coffee. We can call by your place on the way if you want to change clothes.”
“It better be better than sex,” she grumbles. “Otherwise you owe me another orgasm.”
This time, I grin. “That’s a debt I’ll happily pay. Now get up, and I’ll see you downstairs.”
“Clit tease,” she mumbles.
I leave the room and make my way downstairs, laughing as I go.
12
Jax
Two weeks of juggling classes, office hours on-campus, and working on the pink lady, and I’m running on empty. I’ve also never felt so alive. It’s a contradiction I never thought I’d ever feel, but I think it’s the kick in the ass I needed to get me out of the Groundhog Day rut I had found myself in.
I’ve seen Ronnie in class, and last Thursday, she knocked on my door at the end of office hours and together, we broke our own rule about keeping our relationship private in public. It was behind my closed door, but risky all the same. I managed to somehow keep it PG, purely a make-out session with Ronnie’s back flat on my desk. But the temptation to take her then and there was real and very hard to resist. Thankfully, that Chelsea girl didn’t say or act any differently from any other student. But I’m not naïve enough to believe she isn’t a potential threat. Then she surprised me by taking me out to dinner at my favorite burger joint, something she confessed she’d found out by ringing Bryant. It made me feel good and was definitely a sign that we are on the right path to where I want to be.
I can’t think of that right now though because tonight, I’m going to tell Jamie that I’m dating his fiancée’s best friend.
Ronnie is adamant he already knows but Jamie is not a man to bottle stuff up. He used to carry the world on his shoulders—he still does, to some extent—but he’s seen the li
ght when it comes to not communicating with those he cares about and those who care about him. If April or Bryant had let it slip that Ronnie and I had become involved, at the very least I would have gotten the “don’t fuck this up” speech. That hasn’t happened.
So tonight, at our two-weekly golf night with us four brothers—myself, Bryant, Cohen, and Jamie—and Jamie’s best friend, Ezra, I’m going to tell him. Especially since tomorrow, we’re all going to be at Axel’s eighth birthday party and it’s going to be the first family event Ronnie and I will attend together as a couple.
That’s if Jamie doesn’t throw me off the top deck of the driving range when I tell him.
Bryant picks me up in his truck. I put my seat belt on and manage a “hey” before my phone rings and Ronnie’s name shows on the screen.
“Hey, Barbie. You’re on speaker, so don’t say anything too inappropriate.”
“Um… is it Bryant or Cohen that can hear me? ’Cause it wouldn’t be Jamie,” she says awkwardly—and adorably.
Bry and I both chuckle. “No need to answer. I know that laugh anywhere.”
“We’re not that identical, Ronnie. You know that, right?”
“I’ve always wondered if—”
“Beautiful, if you ever want to see any part of mine again, you won’t ask my brother if our dicks are the same size.”
“I just want to know. It’s important for all womankind,” she adds, and I can imagine her sitting down, pouting at the phone like we can actually see her.
Bryant gives me a side glance, his lips quirking up. “I’ll tell you next time I see you, Ronnie. Maybe even show you—ow! What was that for?” Bry asks, rubbing his arm where my fist punched it—hard.
“You offered to show my girlfriend your dick,” I growl.
Bryant laughs. “She asked to see it!”