her lips as their heat warms mine. “I swear to you, Sweetheart. No one can love you as hard as I can. No one can feel like he’s fucking dying every day without you, like I do. You are everything to me. The most important thing in my life. I will sell The Songbird to prove it to you. You and me, we can sail the world on my boat. Be together always.”
“No,” she whispers against my lips.
Pain lances through my chest. I thought my heart was shredded. Shredded and then mashed to a bloody pulp by now. Unable to feel any more pain. But I was wrong.
That one word tears my world apart.
No.
No?
“I swear to you, I’ll make it up to you, I’ll—”
‘You can’t sell The Songbird. I won’t let you. You love that place. I love that place. It’s in your blood. It’s who you are.”
She lifts her delicate hands to my shirt and balls it in her fists, pulling me up against her so our chests press together.
“Who I am is nothing without you.” I flex my fingers on the back of her neck, looking down at her. Her eyes drift closed, and her pulse flutters beneath her skin. “Sweetheart?” I brush my thumb around the front of her neck, pressing it gently over the vein, her life pumping beneath my skin, grounding me in a way nothing else can.
She parts her lips and looks up at me. I hold my breath. Hold my breath while I stare at the woman I love.
Helpless.
At her total fucking mercy.
I have never been at anyone’s mercy in my life.
I only know winning.
Being the best.
It’s what I craved, what I worked so hard to maintain. Everything had an order, a place. Everything had to be perfect.
Until I met her and realized just how empty I really am.
How fucking imperfect my entire existence was.
Because standing here, looking at her, I know.
Nothing will ever matter to me as much as her.
“Griffin.” Her lips graze mine as she rises on her toes. “I want it to be you. I want it to be you more than anything.”
“Just say it, Sweetheart. Say the word and it’s done. I swear on my life, I won’t give you any reason to regret it.”
“Griff?”
I pull her closer, resting my forehead against hers. “Say it.”
“Yes—”
I don’t wait for her to finish. Smashing my lips against hers, I curl my free hand into her hair and tease her mouth open. Tasting her, remembering her.
Three long fucking months.
I’m so stupid. I could have lost her forever.
“Thank you,” I whisper as I kiss her with everything I have, and she sinks into me. “Thank you.”
I push forward, trapping her against the wall as I deepen our kiss. A small moan falls from her lips, and I relish it, swallowing it down so it’s mine forever. I press into her harder, deeper, unable to get close enough.
If I could pull her inside me, I would.
Merge us together forever.
“I love you,” I pant, our kisses growing more urgent. “Fuck, Sweetheart. I love you more than anything.”
Her hands tighten on my shirt, and she pulls me closer, our faces squashing together as we kiss away months of separation.
“I love you, too,” she pants, and I freeze, pulling back to look into her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Her eyes dart between mine, her lips red and swollen. She tries to pull me back to her and frowns as I stand firm.
“Say it again.”
“I love you,” she whispers.
“Louder.”
She moves her hands, placing her palms on my cheeks, instantly transporting me back to the mornings where I would bury myself deep inside her body and lose all sense of time whilst staring into her eyes.
God, I miss those mornings.
“Louder, Sweetheart,” I growl, needing to hear her say it, needing to know that she still feels it. That we still have that.
Everything else will be okay if we still have that.
If I haven’t fucked up so badly that we’ve lost it.
She looks at me, her eyes searching mine. “I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you, Griffin Parker!” Her lips lift into a small smile, and it’s the best fucking sight in the world.
“I love you, fuck, do I love you,” I groan against her lips as I grab her behind the knees and lift her into my arms. “I can’t say it enough. Even if I said it in every breath for the rest of my life, it’ll never be enough. I love you with all I have. You are mine. You were destined to be mine. I know it.”
I carry her to the bedroom, enjoying the sensation of her fingers snaking through my hair and the softness of her lips floating kisses along my jaw as she whispers about missing me, loving me, wanting me.
Forgiving me.
Every touch from her is like a firework in my chest. Bright, dazzling colors, erupting into something that makes me feel invincible.
She thinks I have the power.
But I don’t.
It’s her. It was always her.
I place her on her feet in front of the bed, my hands going straight to the zipper at the back of her dress and pulling it all the way down.
“I need you, Sweetheart. I need to be inside you. I need to feel you on me everywhere.”
I need to erase the emptiness from the last three months. Fill it with her. Her scent, her moans, her wetness.
I pull my tie off and she pushes my jacket off my shoulders, her fingers going to the buttons of my shirt.
“Griff,” she moans as I swoop onto her neck, gathering her hair and pulling it to the side, exposing her soft skin. I suck on her pulse. It flutters against my tongue.
“You’re stunning. Everything about you is fucking stunning,” I growl in her ear.
She quivers in my arms as I push her dress down so it drops to the floor.
I love this about her. She’s strong. She’s determined and driven, and so fucking capable. But when it’s just us, just me and her, she knows what I need.
She knows I have to be in control.
That it turns me on to be the one in the lead.
She gives it to me willingly, handing over her body and her pleasure to me.
But she’s the one who can bring me to my knees with the power she holds over me.
And she doesn’t even realize.
Her love is what powers me.
Without her…
“God.” I steal a breath as I pull back and look at her curves in her lace bra and panties. The swell of her breasts strain against the sheer fabric, and all it takes is one gentle flick of the clasp on her back to release them into my palms and guide her nipple into my waiting mouth.
“Griff,” she moans, sending blood rushing to my throbbing dick.
Every sound she makes is like waving a red flag to a bull. Every breath, moan, sigh, whimper—especially the whimpers—feed straight into my overwhelming desire to claim her, own her.
Make her mine.
Over and over again.
Her hands continue to fight with my shirt as I lift my mouth from her nipple and dive back into her mouth, seeking out her tongue with mine.
“I need to feel my skin on yours.”
“I know,” she pants against my lips, undoing another button. “I need it too.”
“Now!” I pull away and grab my shirt, ripping it open and tearing the fabric, yanking it from my arms and launching it across the room.
Maria looks at me, her eyes sparkling as I unfasten my belt and pull my pants off, pull everything off until I’m naked in front of her. My body presses into hers as I drive my tongue inside her mouth again, my hands holding her face in the perfect angle. Exactly where I want it.
Only the lace of her tiny panties stands between us.
“Lie on the bed, Sweetheart.”
She moves back, panting, her neck flushed. Then lies back as I climb over the top of her.
“Do you remember our first time together?”
I hook my thumb inside the crotch of her panties, hissing as it grazes her wetness. She whimpers, tilting up toward me, her nipples drawing into tight peaks as her chest trembles.
“Do you remember the way I ate you? You have the most delicious cunt. I would die if you told me I could never taste it again.”
I ball the fabric inside my fist and drag her panties down her legs as she writhes against the cool sheets.
“This…” I bring them to my nose and inhale deeply. Her pupils dilate as she sees what I’m doing. “… This is what I fucking live for. For you. Every drop of you.”
“Griffin.”
I throw her legs over my shoulders and angle my face down, spitting on her already glistening skin. I rub it in, pushing it inside her with a finger as she arches her back off the bed.
“You’re mine, Sweetheart. I’m inside you. I’m all over you. Just like you’re all over me.”
I grab her hips and dip my head so I can lick all the way from her sweet, pink, puckered asshole to her clit. I smile as she cries out and threads her fingers into my hair, pulling it hard and grinding herself against my face.
“Yessss, put me where you want me.” I press my face into her, sucking, kissing, licking. “You’re so fucking wet. I’ve missed your cunt… your body. I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” Her voice is breathy as she gyrates against me, her skin growing hotter.
I recognize her sounds, the way her breath hitches each time my tongue presses down on her clit, the way the muscles of her inner thighs clench when I suck it into my mouth.
She’s close.
“No.” I stop and move up the bed so I’m lying over her. I stroke the side of her face, staring into her hazel eyes. “Your first orgasm back with me is going to be on my cock.”
I lift her leg, spreading it wide, and we lock eyes, groaning in joint ecstasy as I push inside her.
Fuck.
My groan deepens, vibrating low in my chest as her tight wet heat stretches around me. “It’s going to be on my cock while I watch you take it.”
She moans as I pump in and out slowly, my eyes never leaving hers as she cradles my face between her hands.
“You are everything to me, Sweetheart.”
Her lips part as I thrust deeper, driving into her, forcing her down into the mattress.
“Tell me you love me again. I need to hear it. I need to know I didn’t lose that. That I didn’t fuck up everything.”
“You could never fuck that up, Griff.” Her fingers stroke my cheeks. “I could never stop loving you. My heart wouldn’t know how.”
“Tell me.” I plead with my eyes as I thrust into her, her hot wetness pulling me in, embracing me with all that she has.
Giving me everything.
“I…” Her mouth drops open, and she moans as I circle deep inside her, rubbing my cock over her sweet spot as I pull back out.
“You…?”
“I… Oh, God, that’s intense.”
She clenches around me as her thighs shake.
“Sweetheart?” I growl, quickening my pace as my loaded balls draw up to my body.
“I do,” she murmurs as I slide in deep again, my body pressing tightly against hers as I fill her up to the hilt. “I love you. Every part of me loves you.”
My chest swells along with my cock as I soak in her words, bask in them as I push into her.
“I can’t believe I almost lost you.” My voice sticks in my throat, thick with regret as I hold her gaze. “I don’t deserve something so beautiful.”
She gasps as I circle my hips again, her eyes rolling back in her head before coming back to rest on mine again.
“That’s what I said after the gala when I thought I lost the necklace.”
“I know. I remember.”
I remember everything about that night. How I saw beneath her armor, her strength. I glimpsed the vulnerable side of her. And it only made me want her more. Made me need her more. I ached to hold her in my arms and never let her go. I knew then that we were both the same. We both thought we didn’t need anyone else.
And we didn’t.
Not anyone.
Just each other.
Only each other.
“I love you,” she whimpers against my lips as I pump into her faster.
“I love you too, Sweetheart.”
I catch her lips in mine as she cries into my mouth, coming hard around me, squirting her wet orgasm all over my cock, her cum pouring out of her, down the sides of me as I thrust.
“Fuck, it’s incredible when you do that. I love it, I fucking love it!” I thrust harder. “The next one’s going in my mouth. I want to drink you up all night. I want your cum all over me. I want to fucking bathe in it,” I hiss as my cock throbs deep inside her.
“Yes.” She widens her legs further so I can fuck harder, a deep blush spreading over her neck. “Please, Griff… fill me up,” she breathes against my lips as she pulls me closer. “I love you. I need you to fill me. Give me you.”
I look into her eyes, the woman who knows me better than I know myself. Who, despite my fucking stupidity, is willing to give me another chance.
“You have me, Sweetheart. You’ve had me since the first second I saw you.”
I hold her eyes as my jaw tenses and the first hot spurt fires from my body into hers. I rise above her, growling like a sex-starved lunatic as my balls explode and I drive myself deep inside her, coming with a force that leaves my lungs wrung out and gasping for air.
Every searing drop leaves my body, and she sucks it in. Accepting it, welcoming it.
Just like her heart has with the rest of me.
“I love you,” she pants. Her eyes are bright, and the flush has spread to her cheeks.
She looks fucked.
She’s every incredible dream I’ve ever had.
She pulls my lips to hers and kisses me, sighing as I wrap my arms around her.
And I swear in this moment, my heart grows fucking wings.
