Chapter 29
The air between us vibrates, our bodies hum, desire and adoration silently flooding the space between us. Though all we’ve done is get into my car, and I’m currently driving us back to the house, I know tonight is going to be intense.
Juliette finishes the bottle of water Elle handed to her on the way out.
She’s mostly sober now, she says, and I think the to-go coffee Noah ordered for both of us quite helped.
Cade has texted me, and extended his well-wishes for Juliette and myself tonight, though I know he’s probably in turmoil over what I may have seen tonight.
Right now, the woman who will be the next Mrs. Mercer is my only focus. I owe it to her. And something tells me Cade isn’t quite ready to have that talk just yet.
“I overreacted,” she says, splitting the silence in half. I flick my blinker on, and relish the taste of her on my tongue for a moment. “No you didn’t. I created the situation and I’m sorry.” I throw her a wink in the burgeoning moonlight. “Surprises are stupid.”
She giggles, wiping beneath her eyes, her hair tucked beneath the overfilled jacket. “I’m sorry, though. And I probably owe Elle an apology, too.”
I wave her off, on Elle’s behalf. “If anyone deserves an apology, wouldn’t it be Harry?”
She wrinkles her nose as we pass over a pothole, and her thighs and tits jiggle, reminding me that I’m still sporting a hard-on. “Why?”
I roll my neck and adjust the air to cooler. “Because I fingered his girlfriend in public where anyone could see.” I can’t help but feel proud of it, because we both know she’s right where she needs to be. “And then I made his girlfriend my girlfriend.”
She cups her hand to her mouth, eyebrows lifting to her hair line. A streetlight flickers in the distance as I come to the final stop before my house. The streets are quiet, so I stay there, stopped, just staring at my beautiful, playful girl. She laughs. “Oh shit. I forgot. I’m a cheater.”
My smile fades, and the playfulness evaporates. “I should have asked you out years ago,” I admit. “I just… I was afraid of Kat losing you, or changing Kat’s life.”
The blinker ticks, calming my nerves. I love Juliette, and maybe that’s why these admissions feel so weighty, so gripping and powerful.
“I was afraid that I’d fall in love with you, and that if I did, I’d forget Katherine, and the love I felt for her.
” I force my focus on the burgeoning driveway, and blink through the pain that stings my eyes.
“I know that sounds silly. But it’s the truth.
And our life together was just so… beautiful,” I measure my words, making sure to use the right ones to honor what I had with Katherine without usurping the moment I’m sharing with Juliette.
Arriving in the usual place, I shift the car into park and face her.
Eyes shining, hair mussed, I explain what she may not understand just yet.
“Our love was organic and pure, but then we made Cade and Kat and…” I mime an explosion with my hands.
“Everything just got better, and I thought I was the happiest I could be. We just worked. It was all so perfect, the four of us.”
She reaches across the console and weaves our hands together. “I think I understand. It was beautiful and meaningful, and you didn’t want a new life to erase the old.”
I nod, and squeeze her hand. “Only, I realize now that everything I had with Katherine will always live inside me, and the kids for that matter. And I’m ready to have a new life, new experiences, new memories, more children, more vacations, more dinners–I want it all with you, Juliette, and I’m sorry I didn’t realize that sooner. ”
She nods, but hesitation lingers, lining her eyes, bringing her lips into a flat line. We’re home, and could easily have the rest of this conversation inside, but as long as she doesn’t move, I don’t either. “What’s on your mind, sweetheart?”
Finally, her blue eyes come to mine. “You’re just… so good to me. San Francisco Fashion Week? I mean, I’ll just never be able to repay you.”
“Juliette, you repay me by being mine. Showing up on my arm, lying with me in the dark, falling to your knees in the kitchen if I need it, letting me shower you in gifts if you need it, meals, family discussions, ribbon cuttings and galas–it’s you and me, forever, baby. That’s my repayment. Having you.”
Her bottom lip wobbles. “Take me inside, Ford.”
“Alright,” I say, smirking as I work the line of buttons on my shirt, before getting out of my pants.
I kicked off my shoes downstairs, and carried her up so she could keep those tiny heels on.
I scrub a hand over my face after tearing off my shirt and casting it aside.
“Take that fucking coat off and give it to me, baby.”
Juliette smirks as she teases the zipper, going so slowly that I reach down and start stroking.
She gasps when I do, but I don’t stop, and I talk her through it.
“I can’t wait any longer. I thought I was going to come in my pants again,” I admit, “so please, sweetheart, lose the jacket and let me at that gorgeous body of yours.”
She stops with the zipper only halfway down the length of the coat. “Again?” She looks puzzled, as if she didn’t know. “When did you come in your pants before?”
Crossing my feet at the ankle after lying down on the mattress, in the center, I put one arm behind my head to prop me up. The other hand still strokes. “On the balcony. When I fingered you.”
“I came,” she corrects, looking puzzled.
I smile, remembering the way her moans and shivers tasted that night. “I know. So did I.”
She swallows, but thankfully bends to finish unzipping the coat.
“Take it off.”
She does, still blinking at me as if I’m crazy. “You… you came that night?”
Slowly, I make a twisting motion around the crown of my cock, milking out a few solid drops of precum. They roll down the pink slope of my cockhead. I take my hand away long enough for the drops to spill down my shaft, following the delicate curve of my veins. Gripping again, I pump hard.
“I came before I ever made you come. I couldn’t help it.
Finally touching you for the first time…
” I trail off, and pat my thigh as I take in the sight of her curves beneath the delicate lace.
My hands ache to touch her everywhere, to grab and squeeze, to plunge inside of her and get lost in her warmth and perfection.
“You look fucking incredible. I can hardly think, Juliette.” I pat my thigh again.
“Ride me so I don’t have to think. Ride me so I can be inside you. ”
She takes a few steps, but falls hesitant right before the edge of the bed.
“Are you sure you want me on top?” She busies herself by tucking long strands of golden hair behind her ear, then adjusting the strap of her bra.
I take her wrist and drag her onto the bed over me.
She rocks on her knees, and the head of my cock sweeps her folds.
Her eyelids flutter and I clench my stomach, trying to reroute blood to anywhere but my already swollen, aching dick.
“I want you on top. I want to look up at you riding me and taking me. No one fucks me like you do, Juliette, you hear me? I love you and I love your beautiful body.” I place my hands on her hips and sink her down, impaling her on my aching cock.
“Ford, ohmygod,” she pants, her head tipping back as she acclimates to the feel of being completely full. I blink down, staring at the way her lips grip my cock, stretched and tested. She’s pink and her clit is blooming, and I can’t wait to leave her full of my cum.
She starts to ride, and I guide her hips, rocking her when she feels insecure, praising her when she’s confident. After just a minute, our bodies prove to be too connected, too in sync, because she tightens, and my balls throb.
“Juliette, sweetheart, I love watching you ride me, but baby, stop, stop for a second.”
Chest heaving, Juliette stills over me, a bead of sweat dripping from the hardened tip of her breast onto my belly. “Sink down on it, Juliette,” I rasp, my voice unusually raw and thin. “Now hold it there, don’t move, don’t flex, don’t do anything but feel me inside of you.”
She closes her eyes, and steals a breath through her nose. My cock throbs, every part of me ready to come, and come violently. My balls are tight and hot, and I feel like I haven’t popped in years. But this moment is so fucking intense.
“Hold yourself on me and focus,” I command softly.
Slowly, I collect one of her hands from my chest, and bring her fingertips to my lips.
I dust soft kisses there slowly as her eyes flutter open.
“Look,” I tell her, taking the tips of her fingers, pressing them into my heated flesh, then moving them sightlessly, like a Ouija board, to the spot on my ribs. The spot that just healed two days ago.
Her eyes move down my body where I stop moving her fingers, and she looks down, blinking a few times as she tries to understand.
I don’t need to look down at the lens tattoo with her initial in it.
I’ve seen it. Instead, I take in her reaction, the soft lift of her brows and the wetness that clings to her lower lashes, the silent tremble in her chin and the rush of pink to the apples of her cheeks.
Finally, in breathless beauty, she looks back at me.
“I can’t believe you did that. That’s… forever. Tattoos are forever,” she says, her voice light and faraway, in shock.
I laugh, because my entire body is covered in ink. “I know they are, baby.”
She shakes her head. “When did you?”
I tell her when and she grows cherry red. “I can’t believe I’m only noticing now.”
“Plain sight,” I tell her, because that was the plan and I never sweated it. “But I didn't want you to notice, either. Because I wanted to show you, like this.” She tightens around my cock, and her eyes slam shut. She pulls her bottom lip behind her upper teeth before whining my name. “Forddd.”