by Natasha Boyd
“It’s really beautiful in the fall,” I said with a sigh.
She hummed and then her body stiffened. “How do you know?”
“I’ve been here before.”
Her shoulders fell under my touch and I couldn’t stand keeping it from her for one more second. “Oh,” she said solemnly.
I let go of her and moved to the nightstand where I’d left the box. When I turned back to her, she was holding herself with her arms across her body.
“You okay?” I asked.
Her head wobbled and she gave me a weary smile. “I just don’t like thinking about you sharing this place with anyone but me. But it’s okay. It’s a great house, so I see why you wanted to bring me here too.”
I breathed another small laugh and moved to her smoothly. The moonlight painting her from the windows made me weak. She was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen. My hand rose to brush her cheek and her brow wrinkled at me. “Do you know how much I love you?” I asked.
Danielle’s teeth scraped at her bottom lip and she shrugged.
I rolled my eyes and smirked. “Oh, come on. You’ve got me wrapped around your little finger and you know it, Sassy,” I teased.
When she cracked a smile, I swallowed thickly and held the little red box out to her. She stared at it for a moment, breathless, and then she looked up at me again, her eyes full of uncertainty.
“I was here in the fall because there was an open house…”
She looked back at the box and I put it in her hands, coaxing her to open it, but she remained still.
“I live and breathe you, Danielle. I’d give you anything. Everything. Forever,” I said. I pulled the top off the box, revealing a key attached to a silver keychain in the shape of a W. She gulped. Fuck. “We don’t have to live here right now. It’s for whenever you want it. It can be just for little getaways, even. I know you’re not ready to leave your job and Georgia, but I just thought eventually—when you’re ready, we could—” I was desperately trying to salvage this. How had I been so utterly fucking stupid?
She traced the shiny metal W with her fingertip slowly, still killing me with her silence.
“It’s ours,” I whispered. “Ward and Weston.”
“You bought me—you bought us this house?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes dropped to the floor and I felt my stomach fall there as well. When she took a step in the direction of the door, I opened my mouth to beg her to let me start over. I’d sell it. I’d bulldoze it if she wanted. But she didn’t walk toward the door. She walked toward the bed. And she grabbed my hand before I was out of reach and led me there with her. My head clouded and I dropped the box on the nightstand. When she stopped at the side of the bed, I met her gaze.
“Dani—” I started.
Her index finger silenced me, pressing gently to my lips for a second. When her face softened, a smile curving her lips and lust rouging her cheeks, my breath came a little easier.
“I’ve missed you too much to wait any longer for this,” she whispered. She slid her arms over my shoulders, linking her hands behind my head to bring me to her lips.
The world faded away when my mouth met hers. I stopped thinking of her reaction to the key the moment she pressed her body to mine. I picked her up and put her on the bed, hastily shedding my clothes before climbing over her. Danielle grinned up at me and my enthusiasm. When she reached for the hem of her shirt, I stopped her hands.
“I’ve waited too long for this to let you undress yourself,” I said, nuzzling my face against her bare stomach as I slowly slid the fabric up her ribs.
Danielle let out a sexy little sigh and let her arms drift above her head to the pillows. I took pleasure in disrobing her as slowly as I could stand. But I wanted her. I needed her. I let my tongue taste the softness of her breasts and the sweetness of her pussy, taking my time exploring her body, getting drunk on her moans. I devoured her. Sucking at the heated core that had grown wet for me instantly made her cry out. My fingers eased inside of her, rhythmically fucking her into a state of wild abandon. She sent my name out to the ceiling as she cracked apart, devastated by bliss. But as she shook beneath me and I kissed her to let her taste herself against my lips, I felt a wicked grin creeping onto my face.
We were just getting started.
I hoisted one of her legs up against my chest and didn’t bother giving her a breather before I pushed my cock inside of her.
“Fuck,” she groaned, the guttural response making my cock twitch as I moved within her.
I could already feel her walls clenching around me, bringing me to my peak sooner than I’d hoped. But she was too fucking good. She made me feel like a teenager. The woman could blow me a kiss and make me hard. She’d lick her lips and it made me want to come. Thrusting deeper, I looked down to see her smiling at me. I wet my lips, my brow furrowing as sensation started to ripple through me uncontrollably.
I kept my eyes locked with Danielle’s, quickening my rhythm as she started to let go of the noises I found so incredibly hot. I leaned into her, one of her beautiful legs hooking around my hip, the other firmly against my chest. The closer I got to her face, the deeper my cock moved into her. A staggering breath fell from her lips. I dipped to kiss her, the feeling of her tongue in my mouth while her pussy gripped my shaft leaving me gasping.
“I love you,” I said against her mouth.
Her response was a deep grunt and her hands clutched my hair. My mouth twitched up on one side. It was a request and I knew it. It had taken her a little while to get over that fight we had—the night before she walked out on me—but she’d started wanting her hair pulled again. I threaded my hands in her hair and made a fist, just barely tugging at the strands as she lay against the pillows. Her eyes rolled back and a throaty moan rang out of her. Her pussy held onto me like a vice and I felt her shudder as she cried out again. Fuck. Her noises, the sound of her breath, the little squeaks she cracked out as she came—those were my undoing.
I pumped into her more, panting in between kissing her mouth roughly. When she finally moved her hands down my chest, scraping her nails across my stomach, I winced in pleasure and came with a groan.
Her fingers relaxed on my abs and her legs loosened against my frame. I slumped beside her, pulling her body close to me. My hands stroked her hair and I fell in love with the feeling of her breathing beside me all over again. We’d been together so many times but no matter how many times I had her, how many ways I loved her, I was always reminded of what it was like in the very beginning. I still loved her like I’d just kissed her in the courtyard. I still wanted her like she was sporting a garter belt and stockings. It was only now that we had travelled miles away from both of our initial doubts and fears that I knew for certain Danielle was mine and I was hers. We’d fallen so hard, so fast, so…stupidly, but we’d fallen for real. My dream girl was real. The fantasy I’d conjured up beside my weak mother was with me now and forever, in the home I knew in my heart we would raise our children in.
I WATCHED AS Evan rose from the bed, the sheets falling away from his naked body making my core tighten as though he was still within me. I sighed audibly and he turned around, brazenly nude, with a sinful smirk on his mouth.
“Like what you see?” he teased.
“Shut up.” I laughed, rolling onto my side toward the nightstand.
He chuckled from near the window where he was slipping his pants on. “I’m gonna let the dog out and lock up,” he said.
I answered him with just a smile and a nod. The moment he was gone, I reached over to the little red box he’d presented me with. I slipped my middle finger though the loop of the key ring and stared at the silver W and the matching key against my palm. The metal caught the light of the moon through the three massive windows to my right. Ward and Weston. I sighed again, this time heaviness settling in my chest instead of leaving it. We’d talked about it. He’d mentioned moving in and getting married and having babies, but this key was real. This gigantic fucking
house was really real.
I wanted all of those things with him. I’d imagined Evan as my husband. The thought thrilled me, but a part of me was still so apprehensive. It had only been a few months. I let go of a quiet laugh alone in the bedroom. We had barely been together two weeks when I told him I loved him. Maybe fast was just how we operated.
The jingling of Fifi’s tags made me look up from the haunting key. She trotted in and flopped on the floor on Evan’s side of the bed just like she did at his apartment. Evan appeared in the doorway and his face fell when he saw the key in my hand.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” he asked quietly.
“No,” I replied. “I’m just…” I didn’t know how to say it. I wasn’t even sure I knew how I felt, so what was there to say? Evan made me happier than I’d ever been in my life. Of course I wanted this house—this life—but it was all moving so fast. How was he so sure about it all?
He made his way over to the bed and shed his jeans before slipping under the covers beside me. “I want to tell you something,” he started. His voice was a low whisper, thick with emotion, and it made me instinctively reach out to touch his cheek. “I’ve wanted to tell you for a while, but the timing just never felt right,” he continued. “When Mom was sick—a few weeks before she died—she started this conversation with me about the kind of girl she wanted me to find. I joked about only needing a girl with long legs and nice rack.”
I laughed and shook my head, snuggling closer to him as he continued.
“But then I realized she was serious. She was worried about the kind of life I’d have after she was gone and she wanted me to be happy. So together, over a few minutes on an ordinary day, my mom and I came up with the one. A tall brunette with a good job,” he said, eyeing me carefully and drawing his words out. “And a good head on her shoulders. Someone who could take my shit and give it right back. A pistol. A spitfire.”
“Somebody sassy,” I breathed.
Evan’s mouth twitched into a sad smile. “Yeah.”
We stared at each other in silence through the glow of the moonlit room. I traced my eyes over the curves of his lips and the perfectly straight line of his nose, thinking to myself just how much I loved him.
“I was so scared of never finding her,” he said softly. “I thought I found her once, but it was all wrong. Eventually, I stopped looking and I shut off the part of me that even believed she existed. And then one night, you flicked that switch. You were there and you were…her.” He smiled. “You’ve always been the one, Dani. No matter where we are or where we’re going, you’re always going to be the one.”
My eyes brimmed with tears and my chin trembled. I wished I could thank his mother. I wanted to hold her close and thank her for bringing such an amazing man into this world. I wanted some way to tell her that her baby boy was okay, that he was safe and strong and such a good man. Warm tears trickled down my face and I moved to place my hand over the spot where her name marked his chest. Evan’s hand wrapped around mine and held it to Annie’s name tightly.
“Hey,” he whispered. “Don’t cry, baby. We don’t have to live here if you don’t want to.”
I gasped for a breath and shook my head as my sobs faded into restrained sniffs. “It’s not that. I love this house. I love you for buying this house. You’re crazy, but I love you,” I said with a faint laugh. “It’s just sometimes…sometimes it’s too much and I don’t know how to handle it. I went so long without your kind of love that the breadth of it…the way it fills me, the way it lays down roots in my heart…it just overwhelms me.”
The back of Evan’s hand caressed my cheek and drifted down my neck. His eyes were tender on me but I could see the worry in his gaze. I smiled and sucked in a breath before letting out a calming sigh.
“I just love you so much, it’s hard to believe it’s all real.”
He grinned and swiped his thumb over my bottom lip, soothing the plump spot I had bitten nervously. “It’s real, baby. Since that very first kiss.”
Evan coaxed me to his lips and kissed me in a way that reminded me of our first kiss. When he pulled back, I missed his mouth on mine instantly.
“Let’s get some sleep,” he whispered.
I nodded and snuggled into his chest, feeling the heaviness of my limbs and the exhaustion from my emotional breakdown swallow me up into sleep.
MY HANDS REACHED out for him and only found the coolness of the sheets at my side. I opened my eyes slowly. The room was bright, those huge windows shining in the morning sun reflecting the snow that continued to fall.
I slipped into the long sweater I’d worn the day before and found my panties on the floor by the bed. The amount of time I spent searching for my underwear since I’d met Evan had tripled. He wasn’t just a panty-dropper, he was a panty-flinger. I stood peering out the window at Lake Ontario and smiled. I wondered what it looked in the summer sun or with spring flowers lining the backyard leading to the pool.
Warm fur brushed against my leg and I looked down to see Fifi spying up at me with curious dark eyes. We’d become fast friends, pals right from that very first meeting. Sometimes I thought Evan was jealous of how quickly she’d taken to me. She liked to snuggle with me on the couch even though she was the utter opposite of a lap dog.
I stroked her head and rubbed one of her black ears. “Hey girl, where’s your daddy?”
“I’m in here,” I heard Evan call.
Fifi trotted off toward his voice and I followed. I’d walked into the master bathroom in the middle of the night but had barely opened my eyes, so seeing it now in daylight, I paused to take it all in. Everything in the house was gorgeous, but this bathroom was nicer than my entire apartment. I glanced around but didn’t see him anywhere. There where vanities on both sides of the large room with a huge garden tub under the window. I peeked in the walk-in closet and didn’t see him, but I did see plenty of space to be filled with my clothes eventually.
I heard a clanging followed by Evan muttering, “Shit,” under his breath.
I didn’t know how I’d missed him, but he was standing in large stone shower with a wrench in one hand and a shower head in the other, affixing it to the faucet that hung down from the ceiling. He was shirtless and barefoot, clad only in a pair of gym shorts, and I wanted to flick on the hot water and push him against the wall of that enormous, luxurious shower and have my way with him.
With a few more quick motions, the large rainwater-simulating shower head was in place and Evan tore his gaze from the ceiling and the shower head to me. “Good morning, beautiful,” he said with a crooked grin.
“Already playing handyman?” I teased.
“Just customizing the shower for you, princess,” he retorted.
My brow rose and a smirk tipped my lips though my stomach betrayed me by sinking. “So you think because I turned into a puddle last night, I’m all set to move in?” I quipped, only half-kidding.
Evan licked his lips and blinked slowly, keeping his smile thin. “I’ll say it again. We don’t have to live here now or any time soon. But I know how much you like the showerhead at my apartment. I just figured I’d be nice.”
I hid the deep breath I pulled in. I didn’t need to be scared of this. He was everything I wanted and more. I stepped into the shower with him and planted a kiss on his mouth as I smiled. “Yeah, yeah,” I said.
Evan chuckled and swatted my ass as I pulled away from him with a grin. When I turned back, he was slipping his gym shorts off and turning the handle to test the newly installed showerhead. My eyes trailed south and I bit my lip as the water poured down. I was hungry and damn, he looked good enough to eat.
“I made sure someone came by yesterday morning with groceries, so help yourself to some breakfast, babe. I’ll be down in a sec,” he said.
“Did you think of everything?” I asked in amazement.
“Yes,” he smirked.
“Was that actually Harrison’s idea?”
He stepped under the water and I st
ared at him through the half-wall of glass that separated us. “Yes,” he replied, his grin growing wider.
“Thought so,” I teased. “I’ll thank him later.”
I snatched my cell phone from the bedside table and pulled up Georgia’s number from my favorite contacts, putting the phone to my ear as I made my way downstairs.
“Good morning, sunshine!” she answered just as I made it to the kitchen.
“He bought me a fucking house.” I’d been dying to tell her since the second I saw that keychain, so it just kind of burst out of me. She was silent on the other end for a moment and I tried to picture her face. When she didn’t laugh or make some crack about my magic lady parts spellbinding Evan, I paused, staring into the refrigerator blankly.
“Oh my God. You knew and you didn’t tell me?!” I exclaimed.
Georgia croaked a weak little noise. “Do you hate it?”
I started to laugh and shook my head as I grabbed the orange juice to pour myself a glass. “No, I don’t hate it. I love it. I just didn’t realize what a little sneak he could be. How long have you known?”
She sighed and I could tell she felt guilty. “A few weeks. He’d mentioned it a while ago, but he called me before he made the offer.”
He’d been that sure of me for a while. Part of me felt bad for ever doubting it, but it was like I’d told him the night before as he had me crumpling into a mess of runny mascara—sometimes his love was too much. It wasn’t a bad thing at all. If I died of an overdose of Evan Weston’s love, I’d die happy. I just hated how gun-shy I still was. Here was this man making every effort to give me everything and I was constantly staring at him like he had three eyes.
“Georgia, you should see this place,” I breathed.
She laughed. “Trust me, mama, I saw pics.”
“Is it absolutely crazy of us, though?” I asked.
I heard her exhale something between a scoff and a laugh and waited for her to berate me for my apprehension. Georgia and Evan were the only people who could get me to snap out of my inner battles.