by J. K. Coi
He swallowed his confusion and reached for Bria’s hand. He opened his mouth and shut it three times trying to put the words together to say what she needed to hear. I want to be what you need. I want you to know what I’m feeling. The loss of our baby put a hole in my heart that will ache until my dying day, and without you, that hole only gets bigger until it swallows me completely. Don’t give up on me.
Dez’s hospital room door opened and Julie poked her head out. Bria dropped her hand and looked away, a grimace of regret and disappointment tightening her forehead.
“Do you guys want to come in and say hello?” Julie asked.
Bria smiled weakly and shook her head. “I think we’ll go on home and visit again in a day or two when he’s had a chance to rest and adjust. I’m just glad that he’s awake.”
Julie stepped forward and hugged them both. “Thank you for everything,” she said. Her gaze narrowed. “Can I say something to both of you? Something I’ve learned after weeks of this excruciating uncertainty?” She glanced over her shoulder. Her spirit was obviously back there at Dez’s bedside.
“Julie, whatever this is can wait until you and Dez are back home,” Leo said.
“No, it can’t. I need you guys to know how important you are to me and Dez and my brothers.”
Bria put her hand on Julie’s arm. “Oh, honey—”
“Bria, I can’t even begin to imagine what you went through the last time you were in this building.” She paused and glanced at Leo. “But after spending night after night in the chair outside Dez’s door, not knowing whether he was ever going to walk out of that room, I know that you weren’t alone in your pain. No matter how insulated you might have felt, you and Leo went through it together.”
“Julie, please—” Bria’s voice was a thin plea for mercy, and Leo’s shoulders stiffened defensively.
“Julie, I don’t need you to fight my battles,” he bit out.
“I’m only saying this because the idea that Dez might wake up in that bed tomorrow morning and decide that it’s too hard, and he doesn’t want…” Her voice broke with unshed tears.
Bria looked shell-shocked and broken once more, and Leo wanted to swear a blue streak. He put his hand on Julie’s arm. “You’ve been through a lot the last few weeks, Julie. Go to Dez, then get some sleep, and don’t worry about anything else.”
She looked back and forth between the two of them and finally nodded. With another round of hugs, she retreated back into Dez’s room, and he and Bria were left alone in the empty hospital hallway.
The burst of hope he’d been feeling all day fizzled at the pallor in her face. “Let’s get out of here, okay?” he said.
She looked up at him without saying anything for a long time. He almost thought she was going to refuse, so he took her hand gently and pulled her along to the elevator.
Outside, he flagged down a taxi and gave their address to the driver. Bria still hadn’t said anything, but Leo wasn’t willing to let go of their progress, to let either of them slide back into the darkness that had characterized their last few weeks.
“She’s right, you know.”
Those were the words he’d wanted to say, but they hadn’t come from him. They’d come from Bria.
He tried not to show his surprise, although his heart was pounding and the butterflies in his stomach swarmed.
“It feels like all I’ve done lately is give everyone else great advice: open your heart, give second chances, embrace forgiveness.” She glanced up, but the darkness shrouded her expression from his view. “I know you love me. I know you’d do anything to keep me from harm. And I know that you mourned our baby in your own way,” she whispered. “Maybe it’s wrong of me to demand more than you can give. Maybe I should be grateful to have you in my life at all.”
His stomach turned. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she was settling for something. “Bria.”
“Don’t.” She inched across the backseat of the car and touched her soft lips to his chin and let her fingers trace their way up his chest. “Just let me feel my way.”
He wanted to promise that things would be different as long as she stayed right here in this moment with him, but talking was impossible. He covered her beautiful, sweet mouth and kissed her with all the drowning need and desperation of the last few weeks. He drew her scent into his lungs, buried his hands in her hair.
When the car stopped, he scrambled for a handful of bills from his wallet and shoved them over the headrest at the driver without bothering to count it out or wait for change.
Somehow, they made it up the drive to the front door. Thank God they didn’t have to ride an elevator up twenty flights to get to an apartment. If Bria had time to stop and think about what she was doing, she might back away from him again.
That thought parked itself in the back of his mind as he stuck his key in the lock, and Bria nibbled her way down the taut cord in his neck. And as he kicked the front door shut behind them, it still hadn’t faded.
Her hands slipped into his jacket and pushed it off his shoulders as she was shrugging off her coat and kicking off her shoes. He wanted this more than anything but couldn’t help wondering if she was swept away because of the strain of this evening, or if her feelings had really changed.
He took her by the shoulders and tore his mouth away with a groan. She blinked, her lips full and pink. His hard, aching cock begged him to forget about the niggling qualms eating at him about her motivation, but his heart said that if they did this for the wrong reasons, he was going to see that empty, broken look in her eyes again tomorrow morning.
She moved in to kiss him again. He held firm, even though it was killing him to do it. “Bria, wait.”
“Why? Isn’t this what you’ve been advocating for? Me to come to my senses and remember what we are to each other?”
He groaned. “Is that what this is?”
She paused. “Does it really matter right now?” She leaned against him and went up on her toes to whisper in his ear, her breasts pressed to his chest, her soft breath a teasing sigh across his skin. “Isn’t it enough that I’m willing to acknowledge that what we’ve been doing isn’t working? Isn’t it enough for me to admit that I haven’t been able to shut you out completely, even though I tried?”
He swallowed hard. “I’m never going to settle for enough, Bria. Not when it comes to you, to us.”
He wasn’t prepared to accept half measures from the woman he’d promised to love forever, the woman he had been fully prepared to spend the rest of his life with. Is that how she felt about him?
Thankfully, she didn’t retreat. At this point, he wasn’t sure if he would have been able to let her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. The urgency in her broke against him like a tidal wave.
Leaning over her, he toed off his shoes as his fingers worked the buttons of her blouse. She already had his shirt half undone and was tugging it from the waistband of his pants while her mouth opened under his and she offered him her tongue.
They fumbled their way across the foyer to the stairs, dropping clothing on the marble tile along the way like bread crumbs marking the path. At the bottom of the stairs, Bria broke away and shimmied out of her pencil skirt, leaving her in nothing but a deep purple push-up bra, matching panties, and a pair of thigh-high black stockings.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he said. His cock pushed out the front of his pants, leaving absolutely no doubt what he planned to do to her.
He felt like a wolf ready to pounce. Instead, he stalked her like a lion, moving in intentionally slow so as not to spook her. But she didn’t look afraid or uncertain. Her eyes glittered with desire, and she smiled when he stopped in front of her and pulled her back into his arms.
His heart pounded. “I don’t think we’re going to make it to the bedroom.”
Her eyes widened, and she glanced down at the hard marble steps. He’d taken her right here once before, on the first night they got the keys to this place. There’d
been no furniture in any of the rooms yet, no electricity, no nothing. Everything had been scheduled to be turned on and moved in the next morning, but they hadn’t been able to wait to come and see their dream home—the place where they were going to spend the rest of their lives and build a family together.
He’d felt the same way then. As if they were taking the first step of a brand-new journey. Maybe tonight could be another new beginning for them.
His arm was a firm vise around her waist as he rested his knee on one step and lowered her down, all while tasting every inch of her delectable mouth. She spread her legs, and he fit his hips between her thighs. Her hands curled around his taut biceps as he continued to hold her spine away from the hard edge of the step and balance himself over her.
Need clawed up his throat and escaped with a guttural groan as she reached between them, worked his belt buckle open, and reached into his pants. Her touch was gossamer light at first, but he ground his cock into her hand until she closed her fingers tightly around his length with a gasp.
Her head fell back, exposing the delicate column of her neck and jawline, and he opened his mouth on her chin, marking her with his lips and tongue.
The lace edge of her bra barely covered the rosy areolae circling the tight nipples poking up at him against the delicate fabric. He needed to suck on them but didn’t want to shift his grip, which was the only thing keeping the steps from digging into her spine.
“Show me your breasts,” he said. He was so close to the edge, his voice was barely discernable from a growl.
Bria paused for just a moment before biting her bottom lip and cupping her breasts for him. At his tortured moan of agony, she got bolder and smiled. She pinched her nipples and teased them through the material to even tighter points.
“Leo. Oh, Leo, please.” She lifted her ass off the step and arched so that she could rub herself along the length of his cock. She’d soaked her panties through. He closed his eyes and dipped his head, but jerked his gaze back up because he wanted to see Bria. He didn’t want to miss a second of this.
“Your breasts, Bria,” he reminded her. “I want them bared for me. Now.”
She tugged the cups of her bra down and lifted the small round globes to display them, just for him.
“Jesus, that’s good. You’re killing me.” He was wound tighter than he’d been before any trial or before climbing into any boxing ring.
She covered herself. “Maybe I should—”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” he hissed, tightening his arm around her waist until she squealed. He almost dropped her, afraid for a second that he’d hurt her because he hadn’t heard such a sound of delight come from his wife in so long.
She grinned, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He was undone. With a yank, he tore her thin panties and positioned himself to enter her.
With the head of his cock slick with her warmth, he forced himself to pause. “Bria, are you—?”
“Yes,” she cried, holding on to him tightly. “God, Leo. Don’t stop now.”
He couldn’t. Her eager cries spurred him on. But despite her urgency and the blood pounding in his head and through his body, pushing him to take her hard and fast, Leo gritted his teeth and went slow. As slow as humanly possible. Slow enough to savor every moment.
Bria buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder. Her ragged, hot breaths on his skin made him harder, and his movements were jerky and far from smooth, but he couldn’t help it.
As soon as her soft moans turned to cries of pleasure and those familiar, delicious spasms started to clench on him, he covered her mouth to catch those cries and let go of the overwhelming pressure that he’d been carrying inside for months.
Chapter Eleven
Before Bria could catch her breath, Leo slipped both arms under her and lifted her against him. He stood and continued up the stairs, leaving all their discarded clothing behind.
A hot blush flooded her cheeks. As amazing as it had been to give in to the moment without thinking about consequences or motivation or anything else, she remembered why they’d chosen to be uninhibited on the staircase only once before: her ass had gotten cold against the marble tile, and even though he’d been careful not to crush her, her tailbone had scraped the edge of the steps, and her muscles ached—and not just in the good way.
She didn’t say anything when he carried her through the door of her bedroom. After all, it had been their room not too long ago.
He laid her on the bed and stood over her. He was the only man she’d ever been able to feel completely free with. She’d never been self-conscious when Leo looked at her, whether she was completely naked or bundled up in her homeliest flannel pajamas, because she’d always known that no matter whatever flaws she might see in the mirror, he saw only perfection. When he’d said that he never needed big tits or long legs or a tiny waist, that he only needed her love, she believed him because he never lied to her.
Her chest constricted. She was the only one who lied in this relationship. Lies about how she felt, lies meant to keep herself from being hurt again. She’d asked him to open up to her, but she still hadn’t shared her deepest fear with him.
Bria swallowed, taking a page from Leo’s book and pushing the difficult thoughts out of her head to just feel.
His pants barely clung to his hips. The ends of his belt dangled from the loops and his button was undone, although apparently he’d zipped himself halfway back up before carrying her up the stairs.
“Are you coming to…bed?” she asked delicately, a rush of fear and uncertainty choking her.
To her relief, he dropped his pants and kicked them aside. He stood straight and proud, a confident man who had no shame and no illusions about his effect on her. She thought he would smile and revel in his victory, but there was a seriousness in his gaze that only deepened as he laid his palm on her shin and slid his hand up her leg and over her knee to her thigh.
Bria had been worried that she wouldn’t be able to have sex again without feeling all the pain, heartache, and hopelessness from the loss of the baby. And there’d been a smidgeon of alarm earlier, but now she was mostly…relieved. That was due in no small part to Leo’s ability to focus on her so completely that she couldn’t help but do the same to him.
Her nipples tightened as she looked down and realized that the band of her bra was still fastened around her rib cage, her breasts still spilled out freely, and the remnants of her panties still circled one leg.
Slowly, he tugged the torn silk all the way down to her ankle. She lifted her leg to let him pull them off, and he placed her leg over his shoulder and leaned down to rain kisses all the way up the inside of her other leg.
When his tongue delved deeper, she hissed and would have levitated right off the bed if Leo hadn’t put a hand over her abdomen and held her in place so that he could continue to torture her with pleasure.
Soon she was writhing beneath him, tugging on his hair and digging her nails into his shoulders, begging him to let her come.
Just when she started to think he might actually be punishing her for the last few weeks, he lifted his head and shifted over her so that both his elbows dug into the mattress on either side of her head. He looked down into her eyes at the same time he slipped inside her in a long, purposeful thrust.
She whimpered at the exquisite feeling of fullness and wrapped her legs around his waist to draw him even deeper.
Her second orgasm of the night came hard and fast, with a third rolling in on the heels of it like a snowball building on itself as it barreled down the hill.
When she caught her breath and opened her eyes, she was struck by the intensity of emotion in his eyes as he watched her. “Say it,” he ordered in a hoarse voice.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, touching the tip of her finger to his cheek. She was sorry for so much.
He winced and turned his face into her hand, kissing her palm. “No, that’s not what I meant,” he said. “I don’t nee
d apologies, Bria. I need to know this isn’t a onetime thing. That we’re going to deal with our shit together, because I can’t lose my wife again.”
She nodded, even though anxiety was settling back in quickly. “You’re all that I’ve ever wanted. I want us to figure things out, to give each other another chance.”
He kissed her on the nose and chin before lingering over her lips until she curled her hand around the back of his neck and arched against him like a cat.
“I think I’ve already proven that we’re a fantastic team,” he said as he shifted to lie beside her, planted his elbow in her pillow, and propped his head on his fist so he could look down at her. All the while, his other hand traced lightly across her shoulders, down her arms, and over her belly. “In more ways than one.”
He smiled confidently.
Her chest ached. He still didn’t understand. He looked at her like he’d just won a big case by the skin of his teeth. Leo was a born lawyer, a born fighter, and he still thought that all he needed to do was figure out the right strategy, attack from the right angle. He didn’t realize that not every situation was a battle to be won. Sometimes, losing meant more; it made you stronger.
“Don’t think that means I’m coming back to Ashton Granger Markham,” she warned, some of her earlier hope that he would finally be more open with her fading.
He shook his head. ”You’re killing it at your new firm. You’ve brought in some big clients, and associates like Nadia Foster are scrambling to catch up.”
She sighed. “I tried, but it’s all falling apart. I’m not cutthroat enough to make partner, and after this week, everyone knows it.”
“There’s more to being a good lawyer than cutting the knees out from beneath the opposition.”
“Oh really?” She raised a brow. “And I’m sure that when you walk into the courtroom and see a lawyer on the other side who has a reputation for being a pushover, you start shaking in your boots,” she said sarcastically.