And then he did.
And wasn't that what people did for each other?
I had a feeling Donovan's intent with his confession was to make me see how impossible everything was between us. But it did just the opposite.
"I guess I thought we could save each other," I told him.
His eyes widened, like he hadn't been expecting that. Like I'd caught him off-guard, which was hard to do with him.
He chuckled even—he was so surprised. "You always were smarter than me."
I would have made a big deal about his compliment because he rarely gave me credit for my brains, but I didn’t give a flying fuck about what he thought about my IQ at the moment.
I did care about what it meant that he’d said it, and I sat up, wary. Hopeful.
"I don't want to love you from afar, Sabrina." He stood in front of me, naked, vulnerable, and I was already lost to him. "I've done that already, and it's not enough anymore. And I've fucked up. But no one else can love you like I can up close. No one."
Of all the things he'd ever offered me, it was the first time he'd only offered himself. It was the only thing I’d ever wanted from him, really.
"I know," I said, and my voice caught.
"You do?"
"Of course I do." I pushed aside my laptop and climbed across the desk because it was the fastest way to him. "Who else is going to love me like you do?" I rubbed the palm of my hand across the scruff of his cheek, and he closed his eyes, sighing into my touch. "This isn't how everyone wants to be loved. But it's how I want to be loved. I love the way you love me."
He opened his eyes and brushed a strand of hair out of my face before planting his hand on the side of my neck. "The way I love you brought a rapist into your house,” he said, with both worry and apology.
"And the way you love me brought you there to save me in time. Both last night and ten years ago."
His mouth opened slightly, and I brought my thumb up to trace along his lower lip, silencing whatever regret he meant to share next.
"We can't look back and say ‘what if this happened’ or ‘what if this didn't’,” I said. “We’ve both lived long enough to know that sometimes the good is anchored to the bad, and if we changed a single detail, who knows if we'd be here now? I want to be here. Now."
"I tossed and turned on the sofa last night.” So he had stayed. I should have known he wouldn’t leave me alone. "Knowing you were just in the other room, wishing I knew how to say exactly that."
"You don't have to know. That was my point. You just have to try." My knees were going numb from kneeling on the hardwood of the desk, but I didn’t care.
"This is me trying.” He brushed his knuckles across my cheekbone, and when he did, his fingers were trembling. “I'm going to fuck it up sometimes."
"Just fuck it up with me, not on your own anymore." But I didn't want to talk about failures, because we were always going to fail. That was a given. And maybe—together—we wouldn’t fail sometimes too.
“I can do that.” His mouth hovered over mine, but he had yet to kiss me.
"I love you so much I don't know how to keep it all inside of me."
"Even though I'm controlling and interfering and frequently cross boundaries?" His lips grazed mine, and I wondered how he’d ever managed not to light me on fire with his kisses before this. I was kerosene. I was waiting to be destroyed.
"Do you even know the meaning of the word boundaries?" I teased.
The smile he gave seemed almost like a shrug. "You're moving in with me. I decided already.” He wrapped his arm around my ass and pulled me tighter against his body. “I can't stand thinking about you in another building after last night. I need you close to me, where I can keep you safe.” Finally, he kissed me, likely trying to stifle any objection I might have.
I didn’t actually have any objections. Mostly because I was still stunned by the declaration in the first place.
I pushed off him gently. “Are you...serious?”
"Completely. Except that wasn’t exactly the whole truth.” He paused, watching for my reaction. "I want you with me to keep you safe, yes, but also because I want you in every part of my world. I want it to be our world."
"I always wanted to be in your world,” I said, nodding. I was saying yes.
"Sabrina, you are my world." He studied my face, his hazel eyes warmer than I'd ever seen them.
He kissed me again, tender and brief, but it was powerful in its simplicity, like the single square a pawn moved when it finished its journey across the board and was crowned queen.
"Come on. Let's get out of here before I'm tempted to give Weston another show." He lifted me off the desk and set me on the floor. "The movers should be at my place with your things soon anyway."
"Movers? At your place?" I smoothed my skirt as I sorted out his words in my dizzy love-struck head.
Wait.
I froze, comprehension settling in. "Did you already have movers packing up my apartment?"
He looked mildly guilty. "Is there a wrong answer here?"
I'd just told him I would accept him and how he did things. But surely he hadn't moved me in with him without my permission. Had he?
Wasn’t I kind of hoping that he had?
“The only wrong answer is an untrue one,” I said honestly.
"Then, yes. I’ve had movers packing since shortly after you left to come to work. I didn’t tell you until now in case you were planning to argue about it. I thought it was better the office was empty for that so we could have proper makeup sex when you were done." He gave me his best devilish grin, and if it wasn't a purposeful test, it was a test all the same.
And it wasn't even hard to pass. Because I was only a little bit irritated, and even that was only because I thought I should be.
Mostly I was happy. Completely, overwhelmingly happy.
"You were that sure you were going to win me over?" I asked, teasing him. I reached behind me to shut my laptop, and turned back to where he was waiting.
"If I didn't, I was going to kidnap you."
Damn, he'd make a sexy kidnapper. There would be ropes and blindfolds. I could imagine all the ways he’d violate me…
"Can we pretend that's what happened?"
"You're such a dirty girl." His tone was filled with mischief. He reached his hand out toward me.
"And you're such a filthy man." I put my hand in his, and it fit, exactly. "I guess we're perfect together."
Epilogue
Nine Months Later
She's tight as my finger pushes inside her. Tight and hot and soaking wet.
"Donovan," she scolds, pressing her thighs together, as if that will keep me out. Her cheeks flush and beneath the thin cotton of her sundress, her nipples turn into hard beads. She glances up at our driver in the front seat, but I think she'd rather find he's looking than that he's not.
Her pink tongue flicks along her bottom lip and her lids have fluttered closed as I rub against the wall of her pussy.
Fuck, I want to suck on that tongue. Then I want to wrench her hands behind her back and shove her to her knees in front of me and make her use that tongue on my cock.
"How am I supposed to finish looking over Tom's report when you distract me like this?" Her hands are shaking as they continue to try to hold the tablet up.
"Do you want me to stop?" I should stop. We only have ten minutes or so before we’ll arrive at Pinnacle House, which is not nearly enough time to satiate either of our needs. I shouldn't have even started this. But I'm antsy. Eager. And it's always hard to keep my hands off her.
"No!" She grows more coy. "I mean, your hand is already down there." She spreads her thighs, making room for me to explore, sighing as I do.
"Put down the iPad," I coax, nibbling along her jawline. "We're on vacation now. Tom has things covered at the office."
She mumbles something that I assume is acquiescence since she drops the tablet and succumbs to my ministrations.
It's differen
t to love her like this.
Near her. In her space.
It's not harder, but it's not easier. It's different.
I can no longer move pieces on a board without feeling the consequence of their shift. Before, I could send her to LA. I could give her a new job. I could deliver her an opportunity. And then I could sit back in my chair with a cigar and a drink and feel good about the decisions I had made. For her.
There was no living in those moments with her. I was an emperor who ruled her, and though I was pleased when she yielded, though it fulfilled me, my love for her wasn't directly attached to her.
But now, there are times she sits next to me, and I can feel her breathe. Or when she's trying to work out a problem, she gets moody and short and her words are brusque and I feel the brunt of her agitation. I never felt those details when I loved her from afar. Then when she figures out her solution, her glow is nuclear. She could solve a small country's energy crisis with that fucking smile.
These are all details I never got to know before. They are precious. The touch of her hair, the smell of her, the feel of her skin. How her body feels when it bucks against mine. The sounds she makes when she laughs, when she cries, when she's mad. When she comes. Her heartbeat as it drums against my fingers when I run them along her neck. The weight of her in my arms. The taste of her mouth, of her cunt. The way she's sometimes fragile and sometimes strong and sometimes both at once.
She rarely surprises me. I learned her in that decade, like a man studying for the final exam that comes before a dream job. She is my dream, and now I'm living. With her.
Which is somehow a whole hell of a lot better than living for her, and that was pretty incredible already.
I manage to bring her to climax just as we turn down the driveway of my parents’ country house. Good. She's relaxed. Soft and affectionate. I adore her like this. She always seems so pure and vulnerable when she's just come, and it makes me want to treat her very, very badly. I want to fuck her in fifty filthy ways.
I'm uncomfortably hard thinking about it.
But it will have to wait.
We’ve visited my parents a few times in the nine months since our first visit together here. She was right when she said I'd never tried with them. Nothing can make up for the relationship we had when I was growing up, but I'm an adult now. I can accept responsibility for my part going forward. I can't say that we've grown close, but we're definitely closer. We talk about mundane things—business, the weather. Scientific advancements. Safe topics. My mother, it turns out, is very fond of Italy, and enjoys talking to Sabrina about her heritage. It's not much. But it's a start.
They are roots that Sabrina and I have begun to plant. It’s exciting. Different. Not what I ever imagined for us, but I’m only looking forward now.
Especially after today.
Today.
I can’t believe it’s happening.
I’m suddenly nervous as the car stops in front of the house. My knee bounces with wound-up energy, and Sabrina notices.
“Make a beeline for the bedroom, and I’ll take care of you,” she whispers as we climb out of the car, thinking my agitation is due to my raging hard-on.
“Let’s go into the front room,” I say, trying to remain vague so I don’t give any of my plans away.
“Oooh. This sounds exciting.” The blush in her cheeks says she’s thinking I have something dirty in mind.
She’s going to be surprised. Pleasantly surprised, I hope.
She walks into the house ahead of me, greeting Edward as she enters, then strolls into the front room. I don’t have to wait for her to notice the crowd outside. The windows are large and the backyard is the main focal point. They’re impossible to miss as they mill about drinking champagne and punch, and talking in the late summer afternoon sun.
“Is there a party going on?” she asks innocently. She scans the scene more closely as I walk up tentatively behind her, and I can feel it when she realizes. Her breath catches audibly. It’s obvious. The chairs are set up in rows facing an archway decorated in flowers. All our friends are in the yard—Weston and Elizabeth, Nathan and his girlfriend, Trish. Some employees from work have been invited. Roxie is here with Frank and Tom Burns has brought his wife. Dylan flew in from London, but, since he’s such a Scrooge about love, and because he can’t stop sneaking glances at Audrey, I gather she’s the real reason he’s here.
And if nothing else gives it away, it’s her presence that must. Sabrina’s sister wouldn’t be here if this was anything else.
My girl—the love of my life—turns to me, visibly trembling. “Donovan…?” Even her voice is shaking.
I’ve already pulled the ring out of my pocket where it’s been burning against my hip the whole ride up. “I’m not asking you,” I say, stepping toward her. “That’s not how we do things.”
Her eyes are tearing up despite the smile that won’t budge from her gorgeous lips. “That’s okay. I have a safe word.”
She does. And that’s why I knew I could do this—could pull off a surprise wedding without ever having talked about marriage and know it wasn’t a huge mistake.
Still, I’ll give her the chance to call this off. “Are you going to use it?”
I hold my breath even as I begin to slip the platinum diamond ring on her finger. I’m not wrong about thinking she wants this—I know I’m not—but I’ve been wrong before.
“No,” she says softly, and I can tell she’s too choked up to say anything else.
“Most men want to hear the word ‘yes’ when they’re slipping a ring on a woman’s finger.” I slide the band past her knuckle and into place, and then bring her hand up my mouth to kiss her palm.
A tear falls down her cheek. “Thank God you aren’t most men.”
“Thank fucking God.” I pull her to me and kiss the hell out of her. There’s a hair technician and a makeup artist waiting upstairs for her as well as several wedding dresses for her to choose from. Audrey will come in to help her sister get ready. Weston brought a tux for me and I’ll need to change as well. Our guests haven’t been waiting long, but they’ll grow antsy soon, so we need to get hustling.
But not right now.
Right now, I’m kissing her. I’m holding her. I’m loving her. These aren’t moments to be rushed. These are the moments I want to live in.
Weston and Elizabeth have a story of their own. Book one in their duet, Dirty Sexy Player, is available for preorder now.
Fixed Forever
Fixed #5
His past was supposed to be behind them.
June 25, 2018
Preorder now
Did you know…
This book is available in both paperback and audiobook editions at all major online retailers! Links are on my website.
If you’d like to order a paperback with a cover that looks like the ebook version you’ve just read, my signed paperback store is open several times a year here.
Also by Laurelin Paige
The Dirty Universe
Dirty Filthy Rich Men (Dirty Duet #1)
Dirty Filthy Rich Love (Dirty Duet #2)
Dirty Filthy Fix (a spinoff novella) (November 21, 2017)
Dirty Sexy Player (Dirty Games Duet #1) (July 23, 2018)
Hollywood Heat
Sex Symbol
Star Struck
The Fixed Universe
Fixed on You (Fixed #1)
Found in You (Fixed #2)
Forever with You (Fixed #3)
Hudson (Fixed #4)
Fixed Forever (Fixed #5)
Free Me (Found Duet #1)
Find Me (Found Duet #2)
Chandler (a standalone novel)
Falling Under You (a standalone novella)
First and Last
First Touch
Last Kiss
Written with Kayti McGee under the name Laurelin McGee
Hot Alphas
Miss Match
Love Struck
Written with Sier
ra Simone
Porn Star
Hot Cop
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About Laurelin Paige
With over 1 million books sold, Laurelin Paige is the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling Author of the Fixed Trilogy. She's a sucker for a good romance and gets giddy anytime there's kissing, much to the embarrassment of her three daughters. Her husband doesn't seem to complain, however. When she isn't reading or writing sexy stories, she's probably singing, watching Game of Thrones and the Walking Dead, or dreaming of Michael Fassbender. She's also a proud member of Mensa International though she doesn't do anything with the organization except use it as material for her bio.
www.laurelinpaige.com
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Acknowledgments
Many books are hard to birth for different reasons. Dirty Filthy Rich Love was not hard because the story blocked me in any way, but because my body did. First, emergency gallbladder surgery then a broken arm, both causing major delays in the writing of this book. Eventually, I had to learn a completely new way to get my words down on screen, and now I can say I have discovered the world of dictation—a world that has literally changed my writing life.
Dirty Filthy Rich Love (Dirty Duet #2) Page 23