Chapter 15 Avery
AVERY
He carries me like I weigh nothing at all, down the hallway and into our bedroom. The urgency from the living room has shifted into something slower, more deliberate. This won't be frantic. This will be savored.
He slowly sets my feet down on the rug near the bed, and the way he's looking at me makes my breath go shallow. As though I'm the only woman in the world. As though he's already planning exactly what he's going to do to me and wants me to see it written in his eyes.
Awareness spreads heat across my skin, my body responding to that dark promise before he's even touched me. I can feel arousal coiling low and deep just from his gaze, just from the hunger I see in every line of his face.
He kisses me deeply, his tongue sweeping into my mouth.
I groan when he pulls back, missing the contact already.
He holds my gaze as his hands move to the buttons of his shirt.
He undresses with aching slowness, and I don't try to help.
I just watch, letting myself want him the way I've wanted him since the very first night he touched me.
The shirt parts to reveal his chest, all hard planes and defined muscle that I know by touch, by taste. The dusting of dark hair I've traced with my fingers in the dark. He shrugs the fabric from his shoulders and lets it fall to the floor.
My eyes track down the ridges of his abdomen to the sharp cut of his hips, following that hint of dark hair as it disappears beneath the waistband of his suit pants.
My mouth goes dry. My pulse kicks harder.
His hands move to his belt, and the clink of the buckle sends a pulse of want straight between my thighs.
Raw, aching anticipation courses through me, stoking a hunger only he can fill in me.
He's not rushing. He knows exactly what this slow revelation does to me, and he wants me to feel every second of it. There's something devastating about his confidence, the way he stands there utterly sure of himself, utterly sure of us.
He finishes undressing and stands before me naked and unashamed, his cock thick and hard. The sight of him makes my core clench with want, makes me desperate to touch, to taste, to have him inside me so deep I’ll feel him for days.
My fingers find the hem of my shirt and start to lift, but his hand catches my wrist and stops me.
"Let me."
Moving closer, his hands replace mine. He undresses me with the same deliberate slowness, each piece of clothing removed like he's unwrapping something precious.
My shirt first, lifted over my head and tossed aside.
His eyes move over me and I feel it, actually feel his gaze like heat trailing across my skin as he takes in my breasts, my stomach, the way my chest rises and falls with quickening breath.
His jaw tightens with barely leashed hunger.
He unclasps my bra and draws the straps down with aching care before letting it fall. His thumb brushes the underside of my breast and the sensation radiates outward, warmth spreading through my chest and tightening my nipples into aching points.
Then his mouth is on me, pressing hungry kisses to my shoulder, my collarbone, the swell of my breast. I feel the edge of his teeth against my nipple and I gasp, arching into him without deciding to. My body is already answering his, already aching for more.
He sinks to his knees before me.
This powerful man. On his knees. For me.
My breath catches at the sight of him there.
He commands boardrooms and terrifies rivals, yet here he is, kneeling before me like I'm something sacred.
His fingers work the button and zipper of my jeans, drawing them down along with my panties.
Then he helps me step free until there's nothing between us, no more barriers to what we both need.
He stays there on his knees, looking up at me. Looking at all of me.
"Beautiful." The word comes out rough, reverent. "So fucking beautiful, Avery."
Before he can move, I reach down and take his right hand. The scarred one.
He goes still.
I lift it to my mouth and turn it so the damaged flesh faces me.
The ridged scar tissue running across his knuckles, his palm, his wrist. The marks his father left when he threw an eighteen-year-old boy through plate glass.
The ones that ended his painting. The map of everything he survived to become this man kneeling before me.
I press my lips to each scar, slow and reverent. This is my ritual, my way of saying what words can't carry. I see you. All of you. The damage and the survival and everything between. I love you because of who you became, because these scars made you, and you are magnificent.
A breath shudders out of him and his eyes fall closed. The hard line of his jaw softens. His lips part. The vulnerability he shows no one else surfaces in the way his whole body seems to exhale, the steel giving way to something tender that belongs only to me.
"I love these hands," I whisper against his skin. "I love everything they do to me."
A sound escapes him, rough and wrecked and undone by tenderness, and his hand turns in my grip.
He rises in one fluid motion, and before I can draw breath he's guiding me backward until the edge of the mattress hits the backs of my knees.
His palm cradles the back of my head as he eases me down against the pillows, and then he's following me, his body covering mine as I sink into the sheets.
His mouth traces down my body with deliberate care. My collarbone. The space between my breasts. The curve of my ribs. Every kiss draws warmth to the surface of my skin until I'm flushed and wanting everywhere he touches.
He pauses at my belly, his palm spreading across the soft skin there.
Warm, broad, impossibly gentle. His expression shifts as he looks at me, the hunger giving way to something quieter.
The lines around his eyes soften. His lips part with something like wonder.
He looks at my stomach like he's seeing something holy, something miraculous, and the tenderness in his face makes my throat tight.
"My wife," he breathes against my skin. "Mother of my child."
The words move through me and settle somewhere deep in my chest. To hear him claim me like this, to feel his reverence in the warmth of his breath, the gentleness of his palm where our child grows. I want to hold this moment in my hands forever.
He lowers his mouth and presses a single soft kiss to my belly.
Then he's moving lower and the tenderness gives way to something darker, hungrier.
His hands grip my hips with fingers pressing into flesh.
His breath comes hot against my inner thigh and I shiver with anticipation, my whole body pulling toward the place his mouth is about to be.
He looks up at me from between my thighs, his dark eyes full of intent.
"I've been thinking about this all day." His voice is low and rough in a way that makes heat pool between my legs. "About how you taste. About how you sound when you come on my tongue."
Everything in me pulls tight. I can feel how wet I am, how ready.
"Then stop talking," I manage.
That wicked smile curves his lips, those devastating dimples appearing as he spreads my thighs wider and lowers his mouth to me.
His tongue drags through my folds in one slow, deliberate stroke, and thought dissolves into pure sensation.
He doesn't tease, not at first. He's hungry and he takes what he wants, his tongue circling my clit with a skill that still undoes me even after all this time.
My thoughts white out into nothing but the pleasure flooding through my thighs, every muscle in my body pulling tight toward that single point of contact where his mouth meets my flesh.
A sound escapes me that doesn't have a name.
My hips arch off the bed and his hands press me back down, pinning me, holding me exactly where he wants me. At his mercy. And God, his mercy is thorough.
"You taste so fucking good," he growls against me. "I could feast on this pussy forever."
Then he slows, easing back to soft teasing strokes that make me whimper with need.
"I love how you respond to me." He breathes the words against my pussy, each syllable sending sparks through my nerve endings. "So wet and silky. You have any idea what that does to me?"
He slides two fingers inside me while his tongue returns to my clit, and I nearly come off the bed at the stretch and fullness of him. His fingers curl to find that spot deep inside while his mouth works me relentlessly, and the dual sensation is almost too much to bear.
My hands fist in the sheets, then find his hair and grip hard.
"This pussy is mine forever." The words sound almost desperate, a dark claim that vibrates against my clit as he speaks them. "Say it."
"Yours,” I promise him. "I'm yours, Nick."
He rewards me by sucking my clit while his fingers thrust deep, building me higher and higher.
Right to the edge, that coiling tension spiraling tighter until it's almost unbearable.
Then he eases back and leaves me gasping, desperate, only to start again.
Over and over until I'm nothing but nerve endings and need.
"Nick—" His name tears out of me, jagged with the building force of my release.
"I've got you," he murmurs against me. "Let go, angel."
I couldn’t hold back if my life depended on it.
Pleasure crests so hard I can't breathe, can't think, can't do anything but come apart under his mouth.
My back bows off the bed as my body clenches around his fingers, the orgasm ripping through me in wave after wave of release.
His name tears from my throat, raw and wrecked, and I don't know if I'm crying out or sobbing or both.
He works me through every aftershock with patient, relentless attention until I'm boneless and trembling, pulling weakly at his hair to bring him up before I shatter completely.
He rises over me and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, looking thoroughly wrecked and entirely satisfied with himself.
"God," I manage, still shaking, still trying to remember how breathing works.
He kisses me before I can say more, and I taste myself on his lips. It makes me want him even more, want him inside me, want everything he has to give.
He settles between my thighs and I feel the head of his cock nudge against my entrance. My hips tilt instinctively, trying to take him in.
"Look at me," he says. “Feel how fucking good we are together.”
I nod, barely capable of forming words right now. His eyes hold mine as he pushes inside me with aching slowness, letting me feel every inch of his cock as it stretches me open and fills me completely. My body opens to take him deeper, welcoming him home to the place where he belongs.
"There." His voice is strained, barely controlled. "Right there, baby. Where I belong."
He starts to move with unhurried strokes, deep and rolling, each thrust sending pleasure spiraling outward from everywhere we're joined. His forearms brace beside my head, his forehead drops to mine, and we breathe each other's air as he moves inside me.
I wrap myself around him, legs circling his hips, arms pulling him closer, needing more of him. All of him.
He groans against my throat. "You feel incredible. So tight, so fucking perfect. Your pussy was made for my cock."
God, yes. "It was, Nick. Only for you.”
His rhythm falters at my words and a rough sound escapes him, something between a groan and a curse.
"Mine." He thrusts deeper, punctuating the word with his body. "Every inch of you. Mine."
The pace builds as his control begins to fray, that iron discipline giving way to something raw and more desperate. His thrusts grow deeper, harder, his cock hitting that spot inside me that makes pleasure spike white-hot through my entire body.
I match his rhythm, moving with him, our bodies finding that perfect synchronicity that's always existed between us.
I can feel his pleasure building alongside my own, his cock swelling inside me, his breathing turning ragged against my throat.
The tension coiling tighter in his arms, his jaw, his whole body.
"Come with me." The words are rough and desperate against my ear. "I need to feel you."
I'm right there with him, hovering on the edge of something vast and overwhelming.
"Nick." His name is the only word left in me before I break once more.
Everything in me pulls tight and releases at once, pleasure so sharp it's almost pain.
My body clenches around him, drawing him deeper, needing him closer even though there's no closer to get.
His name tears from my lips as I feel him groan against my throat, his cock pulsing inside me as he comes, filling me with his release while we fall apart together.
For a long moment there's only sensation, his body and mine and the pulse of release between us.
Then he collapses against me, not crushing but present, his weight grounding me to the bed and to this moment and to everything real.
His face buries in the curve of my neck.
My hands trace the sweat-damp skin of his back, feeling his muscles slowly release beneath my palms as our breathing evens together.
After a while he shifts, pulling out of me carefully. I make a soft sound at the loss of him, but he doesn't go far. He just rolls to his side and gathers me against him, my back pressed to his chest, his arm heavy and warm across my waist.
"You okay?" His voice is rough and tender against my shoulder.
"More than okay."
His lips press a kiss to the curve of my neck. "I've got you."
We lie there in the quiet as our breathing syncs and the sweat cools on our skin. The city moves on somewhere beyond these walls, but in this room, time has slowed to the rhythm of his heartbeat against my spine.
His hand slides from my waist to my belly and settles there with a tenderness that makes my throat ache.
My hand covers his.
I find myself thinking about last night, about the bedroom door he stood at but didn't open.
The space between us that felt like miles even though we were only rooms apart.
And now there's no space at all. His body curled around mine.
His palm pressed warm against the place where our child grows.
His breath soft and steady against my neck.
This is what we almost let fear take from us.
I turn my head and press a kiss to the hard line of his jaw, tasting salt and warmth and everything I love about this man.
His arm tightens around me in response, pulling me closer. His hand stays on my belly, warm and steady, cradling our future.
Finally, there is only this. His heart beating against my back. His hand protecting what we've made together.
And the quiet certainty settling into my bones that whatever comes next, we'll face it together.