Chapter Twenty-Three
Ethan woke in the morning to the heat of Hannah’s mouth as she took his already hard cock between her lips. He swam up through the remnants of sleep towards the pleasure already gathering at the base of his spine.
“Good morning,”
she said, when she noticed he was awake, before dragging her tongue from his base to his tip. “Happy birthday.”
In all the excitement and emotion of the night before, he’d nearly forgotten it was his birthday, but clearly Hannah had not. She lowered her mouth over him again and he slid a hand into her hair, groaning as he hit the back of her throat.
“Good morning,”
he said, his voice hoarse with disuse and an impending orgasm.
“How did you sleep?”
she asked innocently.
He chuckled at the absurdity of the question, the sound breaking off on a hiss when she flicked her tongue over the ridge at his crown, pressing her tongue into the slit at the top before taking him between her lips again.
“I always sleep well when I fall asleep inside you.”
He strained to hold back the wave of his climax. “You’re gonna make me come,”
he groaned.
Her eyes sparkled and she moved faster, hollowing her cheeks and urging him closer to the edge.
“You want me to come in your mouth, sweetheart?”
he asked, his thumb tracing the corner of her lips where they stretched around him. “What if I want to come in your pussy instead?”
She slowed her movements, considering, and he bit back a grin.
“What if we stay in bed all day and I fill all your pretty holes with my cum? What if the thing I want for my birthday is to taste myself on your lips while you come on my cock, over and over and over?”
She replaced her mouth with her hand, stroking him slow and tight, his tip pressed to her cheek. “What about seeing the City?”
“The City’s overrated,”
he said. “I want to spend the day with you, inside you.”
He ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “But if you want to spend the day outside this bed, we can do that too. Just know, if you make me come in your mouth right now, we’re not leaving this room until you come for me at least three times. We’re not going anywhere until I’m dripping down your thighs.”
She smiled and her tongue darted out, lapping up the precum beading at his tip. “Is it your birthday or mine?”
she teased before taking him all the way to the back of her throat again.
He was a man of his word. No sooner had he thrown his head back, roaring his release as she swallowed him down, than he flipped her over on her back and buried his face between her legs. He licked her to orgasm over and over, until she was shivering and gasping each time his tongue approached her clit, until he was so hard he thought he might pass out from lack of blood flow to his brain. She welcomed him inside her with a soft moan and a smile, her limbs loose with pleasure.
It felt like coming home, like knitting together the pieces of himself he hadn’t realized had been fractured for so many years. He twined his hands with hers, pressing them into the mattress above her head as he worked himself into her, slow and deep, and peppered her face with kisses.
“One more, sweetheart,”
he whispered against the underside of her jaw.
“I can’t,” she said.
“One more.”
He took both of her wrists in one hand and dropped the other between them, pressing gently low on her belly. She shuddered beneath him, her thighs shaking. “See, sweetheart? You have one more in you. Your body knows what to do. You just have to let go for me.”
He could see her debating with herself as her orgasm gathered with each stroke, could see the tinge of fear as her body barreled towards yet another climax.
“I’ve got you, Han. I’ll never give you more than you can take,”
he promised, maintaining his slow rhythm, building the inexorable tide of pleasure within her. His thumb slid lower, skating over her swollen clit and she inhaled sharply, her upper body arching off the bed. “One more, and then I promise, I’ll fill you up, sweet girl, just the way you like.”
Her hips lifted off the bed, angling into his touch. “I’m so close. Don’t stop,”
she moaned.
“No danger of that,”
he said. Beneath his thumb, her clit throbbed, so he pressed harder, his palm against her belly.
She shattered beneath him with a strangled sob, her body going taut before shaking wildly as she soaked his hand, his cock. He emptied himself inside her, chanting her name over and over until he fell forward against her, hoarse and exhausted. Her inner muscles clenched around him again and again, each one sending an aftershock through him.
“That was more than three,”
she whispered when he slid from inside her and gathered her against his chest.
He hummed in agreement.
She snuggled against him, burying her face against his chest as he ran his fingers through her hair. “Give me a minute to get feeling back in my legs and then we can go out.”
“There’s no rush, sweetheart. We have time.”
Within minutes, Hannah’s breath slowed to the deep, rhythmic cadence of sleep. Ethan brushed the hair back from her face, and studied the upturned end of her nose, her kiss-swollen lips, the line of her throat, and he knew he would happily spend the rest of his life watching her sleep.
On the bedside table, his phone buzzed to life and he lunged to answer it before it woke Hannah. “Hello?”
he whispered without checking the caller ID first.
“Ethan Henry Hart, are you avoiding your own mother on your birthday?”
“Hi, Mom. I was going to call,”
he whispered.
“When? On your next go round the sun? I labored for sixteen hours for you, Ethan, the least you can do is return your mother’s calls.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why are you whispering? Oh! Does this have anything to do with the young woman staying with you?”
Ethan glanced over to where Hannah had snuggled into the pillows, the sheet barely covering her round backside. “I take it my daughter ratted me out.”
His mother tsked. “No, she kept your secret. Dot Blumenthal, however…”
He should have known the grandma gang couldn’t be trusted.
“So, who is she?”
“She’s…”
He skated his free hand over the dip of Hannah’s waist, settling it on the curve of her hip. “…someone very special.”
His mother squealed so loudly he had to pull the phone away from his ear. “Well, happy birthday, indeed! What’s her name?”
“Hannah,”
he said, and even he could hear the way his voice softened.
His mother prattled on about answered prayers and birthday miracles as Hannah stirred beside him. Her eyes were hooded and liquid when she opened them, her lips curved into the most kissable smile. He tilted the phone away and mouthed, “Sorry. It’s my mom.”
“Is she with you now?”
his mother demanded, her voice trumpeting through the phone.
Hannah smirked and held her hand out for the phone. He shook his head, but she arched an eyebrow at him and dammit, he couldn’t say no to her.
“Hi, Mrs. Hart,”
she said, flopping onto her back. The movement exposed her breasts and, though Ethan was certain he shouldn’t be staring at her breasts while she was on the phone with his mother, he couldn’t help it.
As his mother chattered through the phone, Hannah’s smile grew. “Don’t be too hard on him. It is his birthday, after all,”
she said. Then a laugh, followed by, “I’m looking forward to meeting you too.”
Ethan hardly heard the rest of Hannah’s conversation with his mother. He was too busy picturing the rest of their lives—they’d get married at St. Anthony’s with Caleb officiating and Julie as their flower girl. They’d go for milkshakes at the Dockside Diner on Saturdays and play trivia on Mondays with their friends. They could get a dog, have a baby, build that picket fence he’d heard so much about. The point was, they’d figure it out together.
When Hannah handed the phone back to him, grinning from ear to ear, his insides had gone all buzzy and tight, like a coiled spring vibrating with the restrained need to make his vision a reality.
“Now we’ve both met each other’s mom,” she said.
“Then I guess we’re official now,”
he teased as he crawled on top of her, bracing himself on his hands planted on either side of her head.
“Oh, is that what makes us official? The multiple orgasms weren’t enough?”
she asked, wiggling beneath him.
“There are never enough orgasms.”
He kissed her, slow and lingering, his tongue sliding against hers.
When they pulled apart, she ran her nails down his chest, lightly scraping at his skin. “I’m glad I got to talk to her.”
“Me too, sweetheart. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was booking a plane ticket to come meet you in person as we speak.”
“Better watch out. If my mom catches wind of that, she’ll get the same idea.”
“I want to meet your parents,”
he said, gathering her close and sweeping her hair behind her ear.
“My mom will probably grill you about whether or not you want kids,”
she said with a nervous half laugh.
He hummed to himself as he studied her eyes, the hint of anxiety creeping in, dimming her sparkle. “Do you want kids?”
She shrugged one shoulder, focusing her eyes on his chest like she did when she was afraid of letting him see too much. “It’s hard to have kids when you work in the theater. Taking time off to be pregnant and have a child is enough to stall most careers, and then even if you do manage to get work again, you miss so much. I don’t know how Liv and Daemon do it.”
He slipped a knuckle beneath her chin, tilting her face up to him. “But do you want kids?”
She bit her lip, eyes wide and vulnerable. “I do. Do you…do you want more kids?”
He smiled, kissing the tip of her nose as that overfull balloon feeling took over again. “I do. I missed so much when Tessa was young, and for so long I’ve thought maybe it wasn’t in the cards for me. Maybe I had my shot at fatherhood and I blew it.”
“You didn’t blow it. Tessa adores you.”
His heart wrenched at the words, and how much he hoped they were true. “She didn’t always.”
“I think you’ll be an amazing father.”
He studied her eyes as the image of Hannah round with his child flashed behind his eyes. Christ, he wanted that. He wanted her and the family they could have together. When she kissed him again, soft and sweet, he filled the kiss with all his hopes, all the deepest desires of his heart. It was too soon for these huge feelings bubbling out of him, too soon to be getting hard at the mere thought of Hannah pregnant with his child—but was it? They’d been dancing around each other for years.
Hannah broke the kiss with a smile that made her glow from within. “I was thinking, why don’t we head back to Aster Bay?”
“Now?”
he asked. “I thought you wanted to spend some time in the City.”
“I want to spend time with you. If you want to see the City, then I’m happy to show you around, but it’s your birthday. We should spend it where you’re happiest.”
He nipped at her ear. “I thought we already established we weren’t spending the day in bed?”
She laughed. “I’m serious.”
She took his face in her hands and looked deep in his eyes, inviting him into the liquid blue of her own. “Let’s go home.”
Home.
He felt tingly all over, like a bottle of champagne bursting from the cork, like she’d lit every one of his nerves on fire. He kissed her again—would he ever get tired of kissing her?—then pressed his forehead to hers. “I love you.”
The words tumbled out of him on that tingly popped-champagne filling. He was helpless to stop it and, even if he could, he wasn’t sure he would have. He loved her. He was in love with her and he wanted her to know it, to feel it.
“I love you too.”
His heart cracked open, organs rearranging to make room for her inside his chest in the little nest he’d build for her. He met her eyes, so full of hope and tenderness, and he’d never felt like this before, like all the mistakes, all the wrong paths, had somehow untangled themselves and led him here, exactly where he was always supposed to be.
“Let’s go home.”