SEVENTY-SEVEN “This Love”
SEVENTY-SEVEN
“This Love”
Taylor Swift
Natalie
“I ’m never letting you go,” Easton murmurs against my mouth as he carries me through the bar, past Jerry, who flashes us a smile along with the lift of his chin. Easton bypasses the lobby, heading straight toward the elevator.
Raw and emotional, his heart pounds against mine from the way I’m wrapped around him—we wait for what seems like an eternity as the floors slowly tick off.
“This is the slowest elevator ever,” I groan. “You can let me down,” I press a kiss to his neck.
“Fuck that, you’re not leaving my arms,” he growls when the doors finally open. My back meets the side of the elevator as he uses his keycard to access his floor before crushing me against him, cradling my face, his eyes intent as he gazes at me. “I need inside you, Beauty, right fucking now.”
My body instantly responds, tightening with urgency as we begin to ascend. I clutch him as he makes more declarations, his hand gripping my bare thigh beneath my dress. “From now until fucking forever,” he whispers vehemently, “we pay attention to our story, not theirs.”
Getting lost in sensation, in his touch, in him, I flick my tongue against his neck with my reply. “ Bet .”
Relief sweeps his features as I press kisses along his jaw, repeating the word between each. As if my sentiments break the last of his control, he plunges into my mouth with a possessive tongue, feeding it to me first before I latch onto it and suck as he hoists me up further against the elevator wall. All at once, we burst into motion, his kiss sending me straight into orbit. The time and space between us continually diminish as the elevator doors open, and I remain wrapped around him, pulling my phone out of my pocket in an attempt to type out quick texts with my lips still latched to his neck.
With Easton. Presidential Suite. Never leaving. Go home without me.
Holly: All good. Eggplant emoji
Confused by her reply and easy permission, I frown at my phone.
“Huh? That’s weird.”
“What?”
“Holly just let me off the hook without demanding an explanation, no sign of mama bear in sight.”
“I can’t believe you’re fucking texting right now,” he growls, walking us down the corridor.
I lick along his neck before sweeping up the wet trail with the brush of my lips. “I’m clearing my schedule for my number one priority.” I pull his lobe into my mouth and bite.
“Well, when you put it that way, fine, but make it snappy,” he orders in heated demand.
“Snappy?” I laugh as he bursts through the door of his suite with me still firmly in his hold.
“That’s from my mom,” he admits with a smirk before setting me on my feet, his eyes pooling rapidly with desire before he pins me with his hips to the wall. He begins his wicked assault as I attempt to compose one last short text.
“I just have to,” Kiss. “Text.” Kiss. “My dad,” I finish as he pushes the jacket off my shoulders before he trails a tongue-filled kiss from the hollow of my throat to my lips. I adjust my arms to accommodate him as I try to type behind his back.
Groaning in frustration, he further nails me to the wall, fisting my dress at my thigh and gathering the material into his hand while using the other to dip in the back of my panties. Gripping my bare ass, he jerks my lower half forward, grinding the swollen length of his jean-covered cock against the thin material of my panties.
“Ah,” I gasp out, shooting off the only text I’m able to manage before releasing my phone. It clatters somewhere on the floor beneath us. I lick along his Adam’s apple just as he pushes my panties to the side and thrusts thick fingers into me. Shuddering around him, I cry out in pleasure.
“Maybe I should punish you,” he utters in a lust-filled threat.
“Absolutely . . . not ,” I protest while he runs a featherlight fingertip along my clit, leaving me needy.
“You looked so fucking beautiful last night it hurt,” he pants, “but you meant to hurt me in that fucking bikini today. I almost had a goddamned heart attack when I saw that chain around your waist. It took every bit of my willpower not to get hard. That was cruel, baby.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think you are,” he taunts, pumping his fingers faster. I hear my own arousal as his touch brings me straight to the brink. “Jesus . . . Easton, I’m going to come.”
“Not without me inside you.” He withdraws his fingers as I grip his wrist with one hand, bringing it back to where it was, and use the other to clutch his jaw firmly. “Easton, I love you, and if you want to punish me later, I’m all for it, but it’s been way too long, so I’m going to need you to skip the preliminaries and punch the hell in to get to work .”
A short pause before a burst of laughter follows, and I glare at him. “Please, Easton,” I whimper, “I need you.”
“I’ve got you, Beauty,” he murmurs before kneeling and untying my sandals. Standing, he brings the hem of my dress up and over my head, leaving me in nothing but a white thong.
Raking his lip with his teeth, he steps back and scans me as I grip the back of his neck. “ Buttons , I need you to concentrate on my buttons. Easton, focus,” I grit out, clit thrumming, body blazing with need.
“Okay, Beauty, okay,” he murmurs in amusement, sweeping me into his arms and gently depositing me on my feet next to the bed. As he discards his boots, I glance back at the oversized king to see it’s freshly made. I swallow down the jealous sting the sight of it brings while biting the question away. Standing, Easton begins to unbutton his shirt and pauses when he reads my hesitation. “No, baby, fuck no. I couldn’t,” he admits earnestly. “Especially after I saw you last night. I couldn’t, Natalie. You’re safe with me.”
Relieved, I nod, “We hurt her, Easton.”
“We hurt a lot of people, but the only two we need to be worrying about right now are in this room .”
“Right,” I agree, temporarily letting that guilt go and clasping my hands around his neck. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Beauty,” his eyes glitter down on me, “so fucking much. Now,” he says, sliding a palm down my stomach and into my panties, slipping a few fingers inside me, just as his thumb begins to slowly massage my clit, “about these buttons.”
He kisses me, and all outside thoughts melt away, as do the rest of our clothes. The second Easton has me ready, he turns me to lay on my stomach and drags me to the edge of the bed. One hand gripping the back of my neck, he lifts my leg, propping my bent knee on the mattress. His breath hits my ear as his words set my body alight. “Just so you know, I missed this pussy so much. I plan on working a lot of overtime.” With that, he buries himself to the hilt. Stretched in a mix of pain and pleasure, I call out to him as a groan bursts from his own lips. Wasting no time, he angles his hips, pushing in impossibly further. He drives his point home as he squeezes the back of my neck, claiming words pouring from his lips, “For me .”
“Forever,” I pant out as he leaves us locked. Tilting his pelvis, he grinds into me with expert precision, hitting me just so . Not long after, I’m convulsing around him, ecstasy-laced words and praises pouring from me. He milks my orgasm until I go boneless, whispering my love. Withholding his own release, he slowly turns me over, lust taking up his expression as he rears his hips back and slowly pushes in, eyes hooding as he watches the stretch he’s creating. Rapt, his focus remains on where we connect before his eyes light a trail of fire up my body, seeking and holding mine. We get lost in our stare, and it’s there we hurdle over the rest of our separation in the last year, our struggle to get to this point, so painful, so heart-wrenching but so incredibly—
“Worth it,” he finishes because he’s thinking the same thing.
My best friend.
My lover.
My forever.
Covered in a sheen of sweat, Easton keeps my leg hooked on his hip with his palm as he thrusts into me with abandon, shifting his angle to hit me exactly where I need him to. Within seconds, I’m coiled and ready.
“Give it up, Beauty,” he pants, just before my body obeys, heart thundering in my ears as pleasure pulses through me. Groaning through his own release, he pulses inside while kissing me breathless.
Collapsing onto his back, he pulls me to cover his upper half and turns to catch the light filtering in behind the curtain. His lips lift in a grin.
“What?” I ask.
“Is it sunrise or sunset?”
“Morning . . . definitely morning.”
The truth is, neither of us has any clue at this point. We haven’t left our room or opened the thick curtains to gauge time, but instead spent it all making up for what we lost before losing track of it altogether.
What I am sure of is that I don’t want to return to the world yet, nor do I want to share the man I’m holding hostage just as much as he is me.
The difference now is that I’m not dreading the return, not at all—just prolonging it. Easton traces my skin before running a finger over the faint pink scar along my breast.
“What happened here?”
Lifting, I gaze down at him apprehensively, not wanting to alter the calm in his expression. Sitting, I pull a pillow onto my naked lap. “If I tell you, you can’t freak out and get all . . . well, you— or use it against me in the future to fuel your paranoia.”
“That’s a lot of demands,” his grin disappears, and his stare hardens slightly. “Did someone hurt you? If so, all fucking bets are off.”
I shake my head. “There he is, the paleolithic man I married.”
“And will be marrying again in the very near future.”
“Just give me the date and time.”
He again runs the pad of his finger across my scar. “Answer me. Did someone hurt you?”
“Just the opposite, someone saved me .” I caress his jaw as he draws his brows. “Actually, it was the damn ding, ding, ding from my Prince Phillip.”
“Baby, you good?” He scrutinizes me, “Did I fuck you too hard? Did you hit your head on the board?”
Hello, Easton’s sexy as fuck half-grin. God, how I’ve missed you.
“And who the hell is Prince Phillip?” He bites out. “The English Queen’s deceased husband is haunting you?”
“No, you dope. Prince Phillip is the Disney prince who kissed Sleeping Beauty awake.” Unable to help myself, I bend down and kiss his twisted lips. “It was you , Easton. It was you who saved me with your constant reminders to buckle up. Your droning eventually led me to a state where every time it went off, all I heard was you bickering with me to put on my seatbelt.” I grab his hand and turn it over on the pillow on my lap, running my fingers along his palm. “That day, you won the argument that saved my life.”
All traces of his smile disappear. “You were in a wreck?”
I nod. “My Prius didn’t make it, but the State Trooper said I wouldn’t have either, if I didn’t have my seatbelt on. It was raining pretty hard, and I was in a hurry.”
“To get to where?”
“That’s the worst part.”
“Out with it, Natalie.”
“Well, I was rushing toward the airport because I had just maxed out my AmEx again. I was on my way to Stockholm.”
He gapes at me. “To my last concert?”
I nod.
“Baby,” he hangs his head, his tone both mournful and irritated. “Why, why, fucking why didn’t you call me?”
“Because it was my turn for a grand gesture. Jesus, Easton. After all we’d been through, I wanted to do what you’d done for me every single time. You deserved it. I had no idea what the reception would be, but when I finally convinced myself to just fucking do it, to show up and go for broke, I decided I didn’t want to wait for your tour to end. On the way, I got in the wreck, and it stalled me from getting to you. And then you were home and—”
“And dating Misty,” he adds. “Fuck.”
“I hate that part of it,” I whisper as I trace his lips. “I’d already wasted too much time, and I knew it, but I was always, always coming to you. You should know by now, even when we were apart, you’ve always been with me.” His eyes shine with emotion. “You’re so much a part of me—it’s unreal.”
He grips my hand and presses a delicate kiss to the back of it. “I know exactly what you mean. You asked me once when I knew I loved you.” He takes my finger and runs it along the loop in his Chihuly tattoo. “Well, this loop represents you , literally, figuratively, and poetically, but crazier than that, predictively— because fuck, reckless and na?ve — we’re the definition of insanity. But I’ll take insanity any day. I’ll relive it with you on loop.”
“You’re turning me on with that witty word usage, Crowne.”
“Do you want your answer or not?”
“Of course.”
He smirks, “I still don’t know.”
“Seriously?” I grumble. “That’s not an answer.”
“But I can tell you it was somewhere between you stalking into that bar dressed in your entire suitcase and my decision to alter the tattoo. So, when did I know I loved you? Somewhere in the first few days. But I can tell you for certain when I knew I wanted to marry you . . . and it was when your plane taxied away from me in Dallas.” He lifts my empty left hand, his expression darkening. “We never should have gotten divorced.”
Expression turning thoughtful, he stands in naked glory and stalks over to a dresser pulling out the ring he proposed to me with on stage before slipping back in bed.
“Beauty . . .” he says softly.
“It’s not even a question you need to ask again, Easton,” I say as he lifts his jade gaze and slides the ring back on my finger. Eyes watering, I gaze down at it with reverence. “Easton, I swear—”
“No, baby, no more promises,” he says, gripping the back of my neck.
I frown. “You don’t think we’re capable of keeping them?”
“I think we wasted too much time worrying about them to just be,” he murmurs. “We’ll make more on our next wedding day.”
I can’t help my smile. “So, we’re doing it again?”
“Hell yes, we are. This time, you’re planning it.”
“Our first one was perfect,” I sigh.
“It was. You have your work cut out for you,” he boasts as he dips to kiss me and jerks back suddenly. “Oh, and just so you fucking know, the second we leave Mexico, our life starts together. I don’t care if all four of our parents show up with the fucking cartel behind them for backup. We’re leaving on a plane—together.”
“Fine by me, Mr. Crowne, but I sincerely hope you’re okay with the destination and being covered in sweat three steps outside your front door while inhaling a good whiff of steamed-up cow shit.”
“Really?” He curls his lip at the idea, and I giggle at his reaction before he shrugs. Kissing my ring first, he begins to wordlessly express his love for me with his lips. Just as we start to lose ourselves, my phone vibrates on the nightstand, drawing our attention to it as we both turn our heads. I glance down at Easton, who’s kept us both unplugged since we entered the suite.
“Let me check it, Easton.”
“Just . . . wait,” he says, running the pad of his finger along my scar.
“We have to eventually acknowledge them,” I say, reaching over to grab my phone. “The last text I sent my dad was a heart eyes emoji and a thumbs up. It’s a pretty asshole move, considering the state I was in on the phone.”
“’K, baby,” he whispers, releasing me as I turn and lift my phone, seeing a missed text notification from my father.
“Is it Nate?” He asks from where he lays, his focus trained on the ceiling, voice laced with a tinge of apprehension.
“Yeah, it is. But I told you what he said.”
He nods, that reminder doing little to ease his mind as he turns on his side, propping his head in his hand while I open the message and scan the text. “What is he saying?”
Beaming, I turn to him, lowering the cell to his line of sight so he can read it for himself.
Daddy: All your mother and I ask is that you please not marry him again before leaving Mexico. We’d like to attend at least ONE of your weddings.
It’s the first time my dad makes Easton laugh.