Chapter 31
Bianca
J ansen goes very still. His eyes meet mine. His eyes have a tired look about them, but he’s still so rugged and handsome. His striped button-down shirt is open at the throat, giving me a glimpse of that place I love to kiss. I admire his big hands and his strong forearms where he’s rolled the sleeves up.
And he’s on his knees in front of me, apologizing. Am I a fool to believe him? He seems sincere. He seems wrecked that he messed things up. I don’t love that he went to see his ex-wife, but it seems like he needed to hear what she had to say.
And he says he loves me.
Hope is a fluttery feeling in my belly. A floating sensation.
“I’m staying,” I say again.
“Yeah?”
I nod, smiling. “Yeah.”
He lowers his head, resting it on my knees, his big body vibrating with emotion. I slide one hand free of his and thread them through his hair, my heart thrashing wildly. His chest and back expand on his deep inhalations. Then he lifts his head, his eyes blazing, and reaches for me. He stands, taking me with him, and I move into his arms without hesitation because I need to touch him, to feel him, to have his solid strength against me. His heart thuds against me and his hand slides down my spine.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “I don’t want you to give up something that’s important to you.”
“You’re important to me. I love you,” I say quietly. “And I want to be with you. And make wine with you. And go on dirty picnics with you.”
His lips quirk.
“But I’m not staying just for you. I’m staying for me, really. I’d already decided to stay before I came here.” I tell him about my conversations with Millie, Ana, and Rosa, and the things I’ve learned about myself. “And even though I thought you didn’t love me, I had to be brave enough to leave my past in the past and truly commit to my family.”
He nods, and the admiration on his face calms my fears and doubts, “I’m glad. Because I love you, too.”
Emotion swells in my throat, strangling me. I quickly nod. “Good. Because you are my favorite person and I like you a lot, on top of wanting to ride you like a Harley on a bad stretch of road.”
He chokes on a laugh, shaking his head. “Jesus.”
I grin. “Seriously. I’ve told you before how much I admire you. I love how you love Moose. I love how you look out for the people who work for you. I love how you try to answer my crazy questions. I love how you’ve made friends with Nolan and Miles, and I love how everyone who works for you respects you even though you’re totally new at this. I love how you admit what you don’t know. You’re my favorite person.”
For a moment we sit and gaze at each other, my chest feeling light and fizzy, my mouth pulling into a smile that I can’t stop. Jansen smiles too, and I was right the first time he almost smiled—when he smiles a genuine, happy smile it makes me feel like I could float away.
“Let’s go home,” he says, voice husky.
My throat pinches. Home. With him. “Yes.”
At his place, Jansen gets wine glasses and pours us each another glass, but then he leads me into the bedroom.
“I thought we learned our lesson. No wine in bed.”
“Okay, which is it? Wine or bed?”
I press my finger to my lip and look skyward. “Hmmm.” Then I set my wine glass on the dresser and run at him. He catches me, grabbing my ass and I wrap my arms and legs around him and kiss him.
Our mouths join in long, hungry kisses, lush licks, tiny nibbles. I want him so much my bones are melting.
“Yeah,” he whispers against my mouth. “This. You.”
“Mmm.”
He makes a rough sound in his throat and changes the angle, coming at my mouth with even deeper greed. Then he carries me over to his bed. I expect both of us to end up on top of it, but he lowers my feet to the floor.
“Can I put on the slip?”
“Please.” It comes out like a groan.
“I didn’t plan for this, obviously,” I say as I remove my ripped jeans and old T-shirt.
“You’re beautiful, Bianca.” His heated gaze slides over me like melting chocolate as he opens my bra and tugs it off, and it makes me feel so beautiful and cherished.
The silk slides over my skin in a sensuous glide, the straps settling on my shoulders. The embroidered bra cups barely cover my breasts.
“Look at you. Perfect.” He traces my cleavage with a fingertip. “Gorgeous. Sexy.”
He cups my cheek in that way of his that tells me I’m everything to him and kisses me again, his firm lips moving on mine, with gentle sucks and smooth licks.
My fingers start working open the buttons of his shirt and he backs away to shrug it off, both of us staring at each other longingly. I’ll never get over the sight of Jansen naked. He is beautiful. So much strength and grace. My gaze roves over his muscle-packed torso, rounded biceps, and firm stomach as he undoes his jeans and steps out of them, along with his briefs. His thick thighs flex as he stands on one leg, then the other, and my attention drops to his heavy cock. Hot sparks sizzle over my skin, the ache inside me deepening.
He kisses me again, nudging me toward the bed and then we’re on it, me on my back, him coming down on top of me. His substantial weight on me is erotic, also gratifying. I need it. His kisses are so tender, so thorough, I feel them in the ache in my pussy. I push my heels into the mattress and arch against him, holding on to his shoulders, kissing him back. I want to open wider, drink him in, lick inside him, devour him. “I love you.”
“I love you. I need to taste you.” He shifts me under him, then kneels between my legs.
I’m shaking with need, my fingers in his hair, pulling him closer, and he complies, pressing his mouth to my center. I make a strangled noise at the contact and tighten, nerve endings lit up, inner muscles twisting. He groans, a broken, needy sound, his mouth searching and hot, devoted to eating me like he’s starving, his fingers digging into my thighs. I come apart, a trembling, brilliant burst of sensation that ripples through me, over and over, and Jansen coaxes me through it with soft sucks and licks,
I’m wrecked. Gasping. Quaking.
He stays there, nuzzling my swollen, sensitive clit, his breath alone enough to make me shiver, gliding his hands up and down my legs. Then he lifts his head and his eyes blaze directly into mine. “Okay, baby?”
“Unhhhh.”
He has a condom and rolls it on, moves closer and finds my entrance. He’s burning hot, solid, pushing inside me, filling me with that luxurious length and breadth, sliding over tender nerve endings still pulsing. He tugs down one embroidered cups of the slip. “Look at this beauty. Just begging to be sucked.” Bending, he kisses one, then the other, then sucks my flesh into his mouth in a greedy pull, making more noises of hunger and longing.
I moan too at the exquisite sensation that streaks through me. “I’m coming again already.”
“Fuuuuck.” His jaw clenches, and he stares down at me with an intensity that has my heart exploding into a frantic rhythm. “Yeah. Come on my cock. I fucking love that.”
He slides out, back in. I squeeze him, and another orgasm tears through me, blinding me, burning me, spiking tears in the corners of my eyes. I cry out and hold onto him and then he comes, too, shuddering, gasping, coming down over me and clinging to me so tightly more tears gather.
“I’ll try to do better,” Jansen mumbles later. “To communicate better. No, I will do better. Kick my ass if I don’t.”
I smile against his chest, wrapped up in his strong arms. “Okay.”
“I practiced with Moose.”
I go still, then tip my head back to look at him. His lips tug up into a half-smile. “You practiced what with Moose?”
“Communicating.”
“What did he say?”
He grins. “He didn’t say much. He’s mostly a good listener.”
“Ah. Yes.”
“I told him I love him.”
I smile. “I knew you did.”
“I thought he should know.”
“I think he did know. But it’s good that you told him.”
“And I talked to him about you and how I felt about you and what a dumb fuck I was. It felt good.”
I relax back down against him. “That’s good.” I trace my fingers over the tendons of his neck. “I thought I could do this. I thought I could have a fling with a hot hockey player and then leave. I failed.”
“What is failure?” he asks. “What is success?”
I lift my head and stare at him, then burst into giggles. “Excellent questions. And why is success sometimes scarier than failure? Also, I think this is actually success, not failure.”
“Sometimes failure is better for you than success.”
Happiness bubbles up in me. “Yes.” I pause. “When I was at Ana’s place the other night, she reminded me of this quote from Horace.”
“Who?”
“Horace. A Roman poet from…well, way back.”
He snorts softly.
I recite it for him. “And that line ‘and teaches new means for the accomplishment of our wishes’ really made me think.”
“Oh. Yeah. Totally. I’d say we’re both doing that. Finding new ways to get what we want.”
“And figuring out what it is we really want.”
“I want you.”
“Same. I want you. And I want family. And friends. And a community, even if rumors here spread faster than a lizard on hot asphalt.”
He laughs.
“The people here are good people. There’s just Uncle Geno to deal with.”
“I’ve got your back with him.”
“Thank you. I’ve got your back with everyone.”
I adore him. He’s comfort and strength and pleasure. He’s everything I didn’t know I wanted, everything I need—the hidden secret of my soul.