EXES - A Second Chance Billionaire Romance Novel

by Aria Hawthorne

  “Something that cost me twice as much as what I sold it for,” he replied casually, plopping onto the leather sofa again and stretching himself far across it like a rubber band.

  Alma peered beyond the loft’s balcony, realizing exactly what was stored there.

  “You bought it back?”

  He nodded.

  “But why?”

  He shrugged. “Because I changed my mind.”

  “About what?”

  “About selling it.”

  “You mean you didn’t sell it?”

  “Oh no, I sold it.” He swung one bare foot off the edge of the sofa, wondering why he felt the need to confess everything to her. “But then I bought it back. I bought everything back.”

  “But why?” she whispered.

  “Because you were right. I was being a greedy asshole and I didn’t feel like being a greedy asshole anymore.”

  She stared at him, as if he was turning green and growing horns. Or maybe it was just because his sock puppet was raised again.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He crossed his hands and rested them over his bare chest. “Because you hate my guts, remember? And I figured…it was too late. I’ve always been too late when it comes to us. Too stupid and too late.” He smirked, hiding the pain, and wagged his foot again. It was finally something he was comfortable admitting. Some people used professional therapy to gain enlightenment. He preferred booze and sleepless contemplation.

  “So you’re not going to Shanghai in two days?”

  “Shanghai in two days?” he repeated.

  “Yes.” She nodded, glancing down at his sock puppet. “To build your penis towers.”

  “Ah…no. I’ve decided my penis prowess is just fine.”

  “But my sister said you were leaving in two days,” she pressed him.

  “Yeah, motoring off downstream for a while. I figured no one would miss me and it would get me out of the house, which I really haven’t done in weeks, and it isn’t doing me any favors these days.”

  She eyed his tower of pizza boxes. “That’s true. It’s definitely not.”

  “So…” He thumped his own chest like a melon, waiting for the big announcement. “What’s the big important thing you’ve come to tell me?”

  “I don’t think I can tell you anymore.”

  “Really?” He furrowed his brow. “That’s confusing.”

  “Somehow when I knew you were a greedy asshole, it seemed easier. I was just going to count to three, blurt it out, and leave. But now…”

  “Now?” he encouraged her with an overzealous inflection in his voice.

  “Now, you’ve just gone and complicated everything.”

  Harvey rubbed his forehead, like she was speaking a different language. “I guess I could go back to being a greedy asshole if you’d prefer?”

  “It certainly would be a lot more dependable.”

  “So you would prefer me to be a more dependable asshole.” He said it like a statement, not a question, just to make sure he was catching all of this.

  “Yes, exactly. I think so,” she nodded, lowering her quivering lip. “This on-again, off-again asshole routine is far worse than just counting on the fact that you’re going to be an asshole.” She turned away from him and bolted toward the door, but he caught her arm, yearning to fix whatever was upsetting her.

  “Okay, so fine. I promise to be an asshole. Just don’t leave. Not yet.” He scrutinized her eyes, focusing on that same sad expression he knew he had the ability to correct, if she would only let him. “You came for a reason, so stay until you’ve said whatever you need to say to me. I can handle it.”

  She shook her head.

  “C’mon. The last time I saw you, you threw shoes at my head—twice. So now, we’ll make a pact.” He looked around the room for something to raise the stakes. Her ceramic vase from sculpture class. It was the perfect bargain. He lifted it from the fireplace mantel and deposited it into her hands. “Okay, here. Take this…”

  “You kept this?”

  “Of course. I love that lopsided, semi-deformed, overbaked ceramic vase. And that doesn’t even take into consideration the fact that it still has your engagement ring buried somewhere inside it.”

  She tested its weight and its awkward shape in her palms. “And what am I supposed to do with it?”

  “I give you permission to chuck it at me if you feel I deserve it. But I promise you…this time, I’m ready and steady and feeling completely certain about my ability to—”

  “I’m pregnant,” she spat out.

  Harvey blinked, dumbfounded. She didn’t even count to three.

  “And…it’s mine?”

  He studied the complex expression that spread across her face, conveying one thing with certainty: he needed to work harder on his stupid filter—much, much harder.

  Without a word, she slapped the ceramic vase into his hand and headed for the door.

  “Ugh,” he groaned, chasing after her. “Alma, don’t. Don’t—”

  She jerked open the door, but he slammed it shut. She flinched, as if she felt threatened.

  He closed his eyes, cursing at himself. “Don’t—” he said, calmly.

  “Don’t what?” she challenged him. “Don’t leave regretting that I came?”

  “Don’t leave. Period,” he urged her. “And don’t regret it. Any of it.”

  He gazed into her eyes, desperate to touch her cheek. But her smoldering black eyes warned him that she would likely slap him if he tried.

  “I only came here to prove that you were right,” she answered in a cold even tone. “You’re too late when it comes to fixing things between us. And I don’t even need to throw anything at you this time to make it obvious.”

  She tried to open the door again, but he braced it shut with the force of his forearm.

  “Well, it looks like I get nine more months to figure out how to fix it.”

  “I don’t want you to fix it anymore. I just want you to leave it alone—untouched and unbroken.”

  “Easier said than done. I’m a man-child, remember? I don’t learn my lesson until I hold something in my hands, toss it up for fun and then drop it, shattering it into a thousand pieces.”

  He dramatically dropped the ceramic vase, breaking it apart into irregular shards of clay across the tiled floor.

  She covered her ears and rolled her eyes. “Was that really necessary?”

  “Yep.” He bent forward, picking through the debris. “Because now I’ve got this.” He popped up from the floor and presented her with a dusty ring. “And the last thing I’m going to let you do is let you leave here, knowing you’re going to be the mother of my child, without offering you a reason to stay.”

  She wiped the grime off the raised stone, revealing the iridescent opal, pastel shades glimmering within its pearly white surface. She hesitated for what felt like an eternity before handing the ring back to him. “I’ll probably just lose it again.” It was her way of rejecting him—again.

  Ballbuster.

  “Then I promise to be the one who fishes it out of the baby’s diapers,” he wise-cracked, deciding he wasn’t going to be busted so easily.

  “I’m not certain a baby and a ring change anything, Harvey.”

  “They absolutely don’t change anything,” he agreed. “Because you’re still the only woman I want in my bed every night and I’m still the only man you love to hate.”

  Edging closer, he felt a wisp of her hair grazing his collarbone and smelled the ginger on her breath.

  “I don’t hate you, Harvey. I just hate how hard it is to count on you and what you’re going to do next.”

  “Well, then…I guess that means you’re really going to hate this—” He cupped her cheek and kissed her, knowing she wasn’t just the same woman he had loved and failed for years. She was now a completely different woman—the mother of his child—who he vowed never to fail again. When she sighed and surrendered herself to the flowing strokes of
his tongue, he enveloped her in his arms and kissed her harder and deeper than ever before until there was zero ambiguity about how much he wanted to be back in her life.

  When he finally allowed it, she pulled away, brushing her cheeks dry. “You’re right, Harvey. I do hate you.”

  “See?” he said with a cocky smile. “I’m more dependable than you think.”

  Drawing her back into his arms, he kissed her with long, full strokes of his tongue and sought out the clasps of the bib on her overalls. Those damn overalls. Unfastening them as if he was freeing her from chains, he tore them down past her thighs, determined to strip her bare of the routine of animosity that marked their professional lives. Fuck their professional lives, he thought, fingering the soft cotton crotch of her exposed pink panties, indulging in her sigh of acceptance, before sweeping his hand to the tender curve of her belly below her T-shirt. She was pregnant with his baby and the only thing he wanted to prove more than his loyalty to her was his desire to impregnate her again, and again, and again…

  Sweeping her into his arms, he carried her up the stairs into his bedroom, determined to take total control of her body, and make up for the year they had lost and all the ways he had disappointed her.

  But he suddenly stopped and floundered in the darkness when he realized the most important piece of furniture in his bedroom was missing. She noticed it, too.

  “Harvey? Where’s our bed?”

  He exhaled, regretting the distraction. “I got rid of it.”

  “You got rid of it?” She slowly slid herself out of his arms and circled the room, searching for the plush billowy mattress, certain he must be joking. “But why on earth would you do that?”

  “Because it drove me crazy, sleeping in it without you.”

  “And you replaced it with…this?” She gestured to the rigid piece of furniture in the middle of the room.

  “It’s a bamboo acupuncture platform bed. Custom made in Japan.”

  “It looks like a medieval torture device.”

  “It cost me ten thousand dollars. It’s supposed to help with insomnia.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Not at all.” He grabbed her hand and whisked her back into his arms. “Why do you think I was up almost every night, sexting with you instead?”

  “So, what are we going to do now?” she asked, as if she couldn’t think of any other alternatives. But Harvey could. If nothing else, he was completely dependable on that front.

  As if he was rescuing them from the prospect of a sexless reunion, he rushed her into the next best place where he knew he could fuck her brains out—the bathroom.

  Shoving open the door with his bare foot, he hauled her into the master bathroom suite, its whirlpool tub dominating the center of the sanctuary like a throne.

  Flicking on the faucet, the water spewed out like a jolt of adrenaline, mirroring his surging desire to skip the bath and make love to her against the heated floor, spreading her open against the glossy glass tiles and filling her to the brim with his aching need.

  But she was pregnant now. The mother of his child. Un-fucking-believable…How did that even happen?

  He remembered every single detail of how it happened. And except the part where he had been a selfish greedy billionaire asshole, he wanted to repeat it all over again.

  She nibbled on his earlobe in that familiar way that made him hard and impatient. But when the water rose past the jets of the tub, he stripped off her T-shirt and tongued her luscious mouth before dunking them both inside it.

  Warm, wet, soothing…just like being inside her. The jets blazed on, churning the water into a gourmet soup of imminent sex. Not too hot, not too cold. Just right, he thought, like everything about that moment until his cock sock puppet floated up to the frothy surface.

  She lifted it from the water. “It wasn’t a very good look for you.”

  “It got you naked in the tub with me, didn’t it?”

  “Half-naked,” she corrected him. “Which isn’t a very good batting average.”

  He submerged his hand in the water and fished for the elastic band of her panties before depantsing her like a pro.

  “Homerun,” he called out like an umpire, slapping the sodden pink trophy over his shoulder and lifting her bare ass into his lap to claim his real prize.

  She narrowed her dark eyes, as if she wanted to slug him in the face. He laughed. God, he loved how sexy she looked—with wet eyelashes and matted wet hair—completely infuriated with him. Winding her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, he nudged her for a conciliatory kiss. It was a little too late for hate. Next time, she would have to work harder at not letting him get her half-naked…much less letting him rub his cock against her slit. He backed her ass against the pulsing jets, knowing it would slacken her pouty frown into a reluctant inaudible moan for more...

  He would give her more. He would give her everything he had to offer her for the rest of his life, if she would only say yes.

  He drew his lips down her throat, recognizing the nostalgic flavor of bubblegum soap on her skin. It spurred him to reach over the tub’s ledge and stretch himself to the counter, grabbing a handful of her pearly pink soap beads from its dish.

  She watched as he scattered them across the surface of the simmering water like a chef adding spices to his sex stew.

  “You’ve never used those before…have you?” she said.

  “Nope, but clearly you still do,” he answered, flicking the last one into the water before nipping at her hard budding tits. “And the taste of it is making me want to eat up every pink part of you.” He enveloped each plump, buoyant breast into his hand and guided them to his mouth, sucking on each areola, attempting to gratify his insatiable thirst for every bit of her sweetness.

  She sighed, stroking his wet hair and letting her nails softly scrape against the nape of his neck. “I think when we were married, I was the only one who ever used this bathtub.”

  He skated his mouth up her throat. “I think we’ve safely established that I was an idiot when we were married.”

  She lifted her chin, relinquishing herself to his caressing lips. “Which is the reason you don’t know that you’re only supposed to use one or two bath beads at a time. You just dumped in a month’s supply.” She nodded to the foamy layer of pink bubbles rising over their shoulders, threatening to smother them beneath a sudsy bubblegum-scented blob.

  He grinned. “I’m certain this can only be a good thing.” Ensnaring her in his arms, he scooped up a handful of bubbles and lathered her shoulders and lower back—slippery and smooth—to ensure his chest could ride against them the moment he thrust past the barrier of friction he loved to conquer whenever they had underwater sex.

  She clutched the stainless steel hand rail and exhaled as he fingered her, using her breathy moan to guide the depth of his teasing strokes. There, he exhaled, cradling her in his lap, earning every inch inside her without the aid of her natural lubrication. Oh, so very raw and tight. When she spread herself wider, freeing all her inhibitions, he replaced his fingers with the tip of his dick, controlling his instinct to dominate her. Slowly, deliberately, he broke through her initial resistance and murmured his dirtiest desires to explore every sacred part of her. The rhythmic whirl of the sudsy water and the sight of her supple, naked body at his mercy intensified his swelling arousal. He pressed his forehead against her shoulder blades, barely able to contain his climax as her lushness enveloped him like a familiar lover. Her groan increased in pitch as he sought to build and rebuild her to her own summit. Every persistent grind. Every strum of her clit. Every grip of her curvy ass. God, how he loved ravishing her from behind, but he loved looking into her eyes even more, especially the moment she surrendered herself completely to him with the love and trust that he needed to bring her beyond the brink.

  At the last possible moment, he lifted them out of the water. He loved surprising her with his strength, supporting her fully in his arms and steadying her backsi
de against the midnight blue tiled wall. Thrusting upwards into her core, he threatened to break her in half if she didn’t unleash an indecent scream. He accelerated into a savage pace—harder, faster, deeper than anything he could achieve while lying down, making love to her in their old plushy bed. Her shaky voice soared higher, an admission of ultimate gratification, as she pressed her palms against the lacquered tiles that reflected all those damn luscious curves. He relished the view of her perky tits and bare pussy, dripping in sensuous pink spume, seeping into every indecent crevice and lubricating his ascent toward something unchartered between them. He could feel every part of her psyche, shaking and quaking like a torrent, as if she was relinquishing every fear about their relationship to the rushing, aching, pulsating climax, fueled by unconditional trust. He could hear himself panting and huffing like a deep closing stallion breaking out at an unsustainable pace. But it wasn’t just about the sex or the climax for him. It was about her acceptance of his flaws and all the stupid selfish mistakes he had made in the past, and her willingness to give him another chance—a second chance to finally make things right between them.

  I promise, he mouthed into her ear, embracing her as his sacred lover, and driving her to the final heights of her fulfillment where he followed with his own, releasing every drop of his promise inside her. But one climax wasn’t enough. It was never enough for him, and as he slid them back down into the sloshing waters, he fingered her intimately, extending her pleasure, until she quivered and trembled and moaned against his chest and she finally shuddered with a succession of harmonious heaves that convinced him she had achieved exactly what she had deserved.

  God, how he would promise to love and cherish her forever again—if she would only let him.

  As her back rested against his chest, he spooned her like her protector, vowing never to let go. As the pink frothy waters scented his relaxation and the rising and falling of her respiration regulated his own, he tilted his head against the tub’s rounded edge, and made another resolute pledge that he knew he could fulfill—if that didn’t count as make-up sex, then watch out, woman…because he swore he’d keep trying until it finally did the trick.