by Annie Dyer
"Are you going to get inside me, Jackson or am I going to get myself off?"
"Fuck," I said, all other words beyond me.
"That's exactly what I want you to do. Fuck. Me. Now."
I leaned over her and guided my cock to her entrance, moving it around her slit and over her clit. She squirmed underneath me, trying to angle it inside and I laughed before I pressed into her hard, making her cry out, fingernails embedded in my back once again. Bucking into her again, I kept my thrusts controlled but deep, lifting her ass to alter the angle and hit that spot inside her that I knew would cause her to break over me and milk my cock hard. Her tits bounced in her bra, hair coming loose, her eyes on mine as she told me to fuck her hard and she loved my cock.
"I want you to come," I said. "All over my dick."
"Need you to come inside me," she said. "Don't you dare come anywhere else."
I used my knees to stabilize myself and pinched her nipples hard. Her pussy clenched over and over and I felt her fill up with my hot come. I groaned loudly, watching her expression, her eyes fixed on mine,
Somehow, I found the composure to stay upright, my hands soothing her tits and nipples. My cock remained buried inside her, semi-hard and I wished I had Friday off so I could spend the day in bed, switching between talking and fucking and loving her.
Her hands wrapped around my forearms and she smiled contently. "I think you've filled me," she said. "I need you to keep doing that."
"Gladly." I bent down and kissed her forehead, then her lips, moving us onto our sides, facing each other, her leg over my hip. "Every morning and every night and all day on a Sunday."
She laughed, moving my hair out of my face. "I think I love you," she said. "I think this is love and you're it."
She ripped my heart from my chest and owned it and I kissed her, softly, as tenderly as I knew. "I know I love you," I said. She kissed me, gently taking my bottom lip between her teeth, my cock hardening. "And I'll tell you over and over after I've had you again." I started to move, shallow, slow thrusts and put my fingers to her clit.
This time her orgasm was quiet, gasping. She clutched onto me as if she was drowning, relinquishing all her control to me. A few deep, hard thrusts and I followed her,
"I love you," she said, tucking into me. I held her, all soft skin and tenderness and all mine and I wondered how this had happened, how I had gotten so lucky.
Vanessa
Being held in his arms made me feel safe, as if I was cocooned in some luxurious bunker, one with extra firm muscles and delicious tattoos. I nuzzled into his chest, feeling the rhythm of his heart, a slow, steady beat that I wanted to fall asleep to, but the pins keeping most of my hair up needed to come out and if I didn't wash my face, I'd have the skin of a hormonal teenager come the weekend.
"I need to go to the bathroom," I said, not moving. "I need to take my hair down."
His thumbs pushed into the muscles on my back and I think I purred. It definitely wasn't a human noise. "Sit up and I'll sort your hair. It'll be easier to get all the grippy things out."
I looked at him in surprise.
"I have sisters. Claire came by to my old apartment at four in the morning once, completely pissed up, and demanded I sorted her hair out. She then fell asleep in my spare room. That was after being sick in the bath," he said, moving me to a seated position, his fingers combing through my hair for pins and grips. "Feel free to remind her of that."
I laughed, my hands on his thighs, feeling the muscles there. "I'm keeping a low profile with your family until they've forgiven me."
"They're fine. Seph might make some strange threat but that's just because he's trying to act like he's strong enough to protect us all. It's what happens when you're the youngest brother," he said then dropped a kiss on the top of my head. "You're beautiful."
"I'm not: I'm sweaty, I smell of sex, my hair must look as if I've been dragged through a forest and small animals have nested there and my makeup is probably halfway down my face."
He chuckled, low and deep. "And if any of that was true, you'd still be beautiful. If you smell of sex, have messy hair and are a bit sweaty, it's because I got you that way." He nipped at my shoulder. "I love you." He'd already said the words, but saying them again now, while he was de-hedgehogging my hair, made it feel concrete, real. "I want this."
"I'm not having my hair put up every evening just so you get to practice this strange fetish," I said, my hands running up and down his thighs.
Fingers massaged my scalp, applying pressure at certain points. "I could live with only doing this every so often. I want this to be our normal."
I eased back into him, my head sitting under his chin. "I think it already is."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Epilogue
Payton
Four suited men stood in a line, their arms over each other's shoulders and smiled for the cameras. The family resemblance was unarguable: the height, the firm jaws, the faces that had been sculpted from stone. But my eyes were fixed on only one, the one whose grin became wider as he saw me.
There was laughter, then Seph pushed Callum as their bickering continued and my man strode over to me, his hands automatically finding my waist and closing the gap between us. "It's been an amazing evening," he said. "I think you'll be taking on more staff at Van Marketing after this."
Jackson was probably right. I'd had several people come over and enquire or take our business cards. Grant Callaghan had spoken about us in the speech he'd given, only briefly as it should be, but enough to ensure that we'd receive a mention in the magazine that was reporting on the event. "I'm not thinking about that for the rest of the night," I said, my hands slipping under his suit jacket, sliding over his shirt.
We'd had an almost blissful few weeks since I'd moved in. There had been a couple of disagreements, mainly around him being determined to pick me up every time I went out with friends and another over my takeover of the bathroom, but they were what I'd expected. I'd discovered his moods and ways to improve them and we'd started to transform the house into something other than the monotone palate that it was. It was becoming ours.
"The band's about to start," Jackson said. "That means everyone can relax." Most people already had; champagne had been consumed since just after midday, afternoon cocktails and beers after that and I knew it was almost time for the whiskey to be brought out. It was Grant Callaghan's final official function as the lead practitioner at Callaghan Green and he'd thrived on the occasion, his face never short of a smile.
Jackson, on the other hand, looked nervous. He'd given a speech, as had Maxwell, both of them as smooth as scotch and not using notes. But other than that, he'd occasionally appeared twitchy, his attention elsewhere. "You can relax too," I said. "You've been nervous all day."
He laughed although I didn't get the joke. "Come with me, Vanessa."
I looked around the room, still wary that this was my company's event, although Alice had been the lead. "I should..."
"I need you to come with me."
I followed him out of the room as the band began, down a darkened corridor. One hand held him, the other clutched the skirt of my fishtail dress to avoid standing on the hem. "Where are we going?"
He slowed, stopping outside a door. "Here."
The door opened. A room filled with pillar candles and flowers was presented to me. I looked around in stunned silence, unsure, my chest echoing with the heightened beat of my heart.
Jackson closed the door behind us and took my hand again, leading me to an antique chaise lounge. "Vanessa," he said, his jaw clenched and he bit his lips together. "Maxwell told me I may as well give you my balls in a case when he saw what I'd done with this room."
"You're nervous," I said, reaching to touch his face. "What's bothering you?"
He smiled. "Van, I have a room filled with candles and flowers. My brother thinks you own my balls. What could I possibly be nervous about?"
"Oh." Realisation dawned.
He dipped to one knee, his hands holding my leg. "Van, it's probably too early for this and I should be waiting for some set period of time first but I don't want to. I think I knew when I saw you doing pull-ups in my gym that I'd met my match in every way there is and I want to be able to call you more than my girlfriend."
I knew my eyes had tears in them but there was no way I was going to let them fall. He studied me, watching my expression. "I love your independence, your determination, your intelligence. I love how your mind works and I love how you make me feel."
"You haven't mentioned my body or the sex," I teased. "Or even my boobs."
He glanced down and tried to hide a smile. "I was aiming to be as romantic as possible, but all that too. I love making you come and hearing you say my name when you do. I want a future with you and our own family. There's no one else I'd rather share my life with." He let go of my leg and fumbled in his jacket pocket, pulling out a small box.
"Vanessa, you don't have to say yes, because I'll ask again if you don't and keep on asking until you do, but," he pulled out the ring, a diamond surrounded with light blue sapphires. "Will you marry me?"
I held out my left hand, spreading my fingers as an answer because my brain was currently incapable of getting my mouth to say one word.
He grinned, pushing the ring onto my finger. "I'm assuming it's a yes as you're not running from the room."
"It's a yes," I managed to exhale, not realizing I'd been holding my breath. "I'll marry you."
He looked up to the ceiling. "Thank fuck for that." And then I was in his arms, pulled up from the chaise and his lips were on mine, hands on my waist and ass and I was devoured. It went from demanding to tender and lasting.
Our mouths broke apart, hands still encasing each other. "Does everyone know what you were going to do?"
Jackson smiled, reaching for my left hand and looking at the ring. "My family. Your dad – I told him I was going to propose." They'd met twice, once in London and once in Derbyshire when we had escaped for a weekend. "Everyone's going to know when we go back out there."
My eyes skipped between him and the ring. He looked elated yet disbelieving at the same time, as if he was stunned that I'd agreed to marry him. "The ring's beautiful."
"It was my mother's," he said. "She had three rings. Dad said a few years back that there was one for each of her boys when we found the person we wanted to be with. If you want something new I can do that though."
I shook my head. "No. This is perfect. Did you have it resized?"
"I borrowed one of your rings. Shall we go out and tell everyone? We don't have to stay until the end of the night either," he said, his arms back around me.
"Let's go," I said. "Let's tell everyone and then I can have you to myself."
All eyes fell on us as we entered the large room where everyone was. A loud cheer was led by Marie and Payton, the rest of the room catching on fairly quickly, which was no mean feat for four hundred guests.
"She said yes," Jackson said and then held up his fist in victory. I stood next to him, amazed at the euphoria he was showing and knowing it was reflected right back. I felt high, as if someone had administered this amazing drug.
"We clearly did something right with bringing you up if you managed to persuade this wonderful lady to marry you," Grant said, shaking Jackson's hand and the kissing my cheek.
"Congratulations," Claire said, moving closer in. "Let me see the ring."
I held out my hand so she could examine it, pulled away from Jackson momentarily. I wanted to head back home where we could be alone but first I wanted to remain here and just enjoy the moment and being wrapped in a family.
I saw Killian shaking Jackson's hand and saying his congratulations and then Jackson was pulled away by Max and Seph, both of them slapping his back and making crude comments along with disbelief that he'd found someone daft enough to agree to marry him.
"You will have sisters, and irritating brothers," Claire said. "Package deal."
"I can't wait," I said, studying the ring. "I was so surprised."
"Really? No one else was!"
I laughed. "Clearly. It was a good job I said yes."
Seph shimmied over, his contact lenses replaced with wide rimmed glasses making him look like an utter geek. "So when am I going to be an uncle?"
I smacked his arm.
"You're allowed to hit him harder than that," Claire said. She glanced around. "Where's Killian?"
"He's had to make a phone call," Seph said. "He didn't look too happy."
Jackson found me, sweeping me against him, muttering sweet words followed by dirty ones that no one else could hear. The band started up and he pulled me to the dance floor to a round of applause that barely registered because all I needed was the warm heat from my man. Then we were surrounded: Jackson's parents, Seph and Payton, Max, Callum and Ava, my friends, our whole world surrounded us and the center of mine still held me, and I him, as we would do forever.
The End