Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Molly
G abe hesitates, then looks almost sheepish as he slides back to lean against the tree, lifting his hips to push his joggers down. He pauses before he gets them all the way over his hips, looking up at me, expression so hesitant that I laugh.
“Uh, you know I’ve already seen you naked right? Just a couple of hours ago, in fact. And, like, wow. So there’s no need to play shy now.”
I expect Gabe to smile, but he doesn’t. Instead, he blows out a breath and looks…nervous, I think? Gabe never looks nervous, so I’m instantly curious.
“Okay, so here’s the thing. You know I missed you, right? Like, I really missed you. I missed you like I would miss my heart if it suddenly stopped beating. I pined away for you like I was a Revolutionary War wife waiting at the window for her husband to come back from battle while holding a handkerchief and clutching the last letter you sent me to my chest. It was the kind of missing that made me do weird things, like name a phone after you, and make questionable decisions like…”
He trails off and I know instantly where this is going. My smile spreads. Never has there ever been a more perfect man. We were made for each other. “Gabriel Sullivan did you get a tattoo to remind yourself of me?”
“Tattoos,” he mutters. Even in the dim glow of the twinkle lights, I can see his cheeks heat, and I want to cover them with a thousand kisses. Feel all that warmth against my lips. I love him more than words.
“And how many tattoos are we talking about?” I ask gleefully.
Gabe groans. “Might as well just see for yourself.”
He tugs down his pants the rest of the way and rolls up the hem of his boxer briefs. I lean over, and the second I see his thigh, my breath catches.
“Gabe, Jesus,” I breathe, reaching out and gliding my hand over the ink. It’s a scattering of smaller tattoos. A perfect image of the tree we’re sitting against right now, complete with the heart and our carved initials. The northern lights done in swoops and swirls of blue and green so intricate they look like they’re moving. A tiny pair of toe shoes hanging from a barre and a Lego. A Redwood phone and the scales of justice. A replica of the diner we loved near campus and a Captain America shield and Captain Marvel’s logo.
I stare at it, trying to take in the enormity of what I’m looking at. Separately, each tattoo is ordinary. Random, even. But taken together, they tell our story. The whole thing. Even the time we spent apart. Without knowing if he would ever see me again, Gabe made me a part of him for eternity.
I run my fingers over a string of numbers and look up at Gabe. “Coordinates?” I ask.
He nods.
“To where?”
He reaches out and takes my free hand, running his thumb over my knuckles. “To right here. To?—”
“Our most sacred place,” I finish for him.
“Yes. I wanted coordinates to home. For me, home isn’t a place. It’s you. And when I couldn’t be with you, here is the only place I could still feel close to you after I let you go.”
I squeeze Gabe’s hand, my eyes fixed on his thigh.
“When did you get the scales of justice?”
“Two years ago.”
My head snaps up to meet his gaze. “I started my firm two years ago. Publicly, at least. The planning started way before that.”
He swallows roughly and I can see the emotion in his eyes. “I know. I kind of…followed your career. I’m sorry; I know it’s creepy. I swear I wasn’t tracking you or anything. I just searched for you every now and then. I was so proud of you, Rory. I am so proud of you. Of everything you’ve done and everything you’ve accomplished. I wish I could have been here to see it.”
I sit up on my knees and straddle his hips, taking his face in my hands. “We’re not doing that anymore. It happened, Gabe. That’s part of our story too, just like everything you have inked on your thigh. Like I said before, regret is for suckers. I’m one of the smart girls, and as a smart girl, I’ve decided to be grateful that we’re sitting here in our favorite place in the middle of the night, and you just showed me a million tattoos you got of all the things that remind you of me. Of us. I’ve never been tattooed on someone before. Turns out, I really like it. Oh, and Emma was so right about the thigh tattoo thing.”
Gabe narrows his eyes at me. “What thigh tattoo thing?”
“Jeremy has a thigh tattoo from his hockey playing days. Emma is convinced it’s the sexiest location for a tattoo. Looking at all these, I have to agree with her.” I reach down and run my finger over the ink again, chuckling when Gabe sucks in a breath, and his cock jerks in his boxer briefs. I trace a finger over his growing erection, considering all the dirty naked games we could play in these dark, dark woods.
“Ten,” he says, his voice strained.
“Ten what?” I ask, rubbing his tip with my thumb, feeling the dampness spread over his briefs and the answering rush of arousal between my legs.
He reaches up and rubs his thumb over my bottom lip, then pushes his hand into my hair, tilting my face up to look at him.
“Ten tattoos. Not a million. Ten. One for each year we were apart.”
Gabriel Sullivan is too good for this world. Except right now, I don’t want him to be good. I need him to be very, very bad.
With my hand still on his cock, running slowly up and down the length of him, I lean forward and crush my mouth to his. I wrap my free hand around his neck and take the kiss as deep as I can, tongue sliding along his and teeth nipping at his lip. He answers with a growl, wrapping my hair around his fist and using it to yank my head to the side, breaking the kiss to lick and suck a path down my throat. When he closes his mouth over my pulse, my own groan shatters the midnight silence.
“Fuck me, Gabe. Right here. Right now.”
“Right here, Rory? Where anyone could see?” His voice is amused as he continues his assault on my neck, grazing his teeth over my pulse and making me whimper. He slides his mouth down and pulls my sweatshirt to the side to give my collarbone the same treatment. When he sinks his teeth into a particularly sensitive spot, I moan.
“Right the fuck here. Now.”
Gabe’s eyes go black. He reaches down and grabs the hem of my dress, pulling it up and over my head, taking the sweatshirt with it. He’s definitely in a lingerie is just in the way mood, and god bless him. He unhooks my bra and tosses it aside, immediately dipping his head and sucking one of my nipples into his mouth, flicking the other one with his fingers.
“Fuck,” I cry out, grabbing his shoulders and pressing my chest deeper into his mouth.
“Definitely,” Gabe says, voice laced with amusement and arousal. “Take my cock out, Rory, and sit on it. Fuck me until I shoot so deep into your gorgeous pussy I leak out of you for days.”
He reaches behind him and tugs off his T-shirt bearing the Batman logo in one motion. My core goes molten. I lift my hips to take off my thong, but Gabe beats me to it, grabbing it and tearing it off, tossing it onto the blanket.
“That’s the second pair you’ve ruined, you know. Those are expensive.”
Gabe smirks at me. “Like I said on the plane, I’ll buy you your own goddamn lingerie store if you want. Now sit your perfect cunt on my fat fucking cock, right the fuck now.”
I reach down and pull him out of his briefs, rubbing my thumb along the sensitive spot below the head. “You’re mouthy tonight.”
Gabe drops his head back, eyes closed, breathing deeply through his nose as I jack him slowly. “You want me to be polite? Please, Rory. Please put my dick inside you and ride it until I blow. I need you, Rory. I love you so much and I need you so damn badly.”
I grin at him, gripping the base of his dick and rising up on my knees. “Please be anything except for polite.” Then I sink down, taking all of him in one thrust of my hips.
“Goddamn,” he groans. Gabe cups the back of my neck with one hand and grips my hip with the other, holding me steady as I adjust to his size. I have never felt so full. It’s perfect. We’re perfect.
“You feel so good,” I breathe out, rolling my hips over him, gasping as he hits the perfect spot inside me that has stars blinking into my vision.
“You’re perfect, Rory. Every inch of you is exquisite. Now, I need you to move, baby. Fuck me hard and fuck me fast. I’ll make it so good for you.”
I roll my hips again and smirk at him even as pleasure shoots up my spine. “I think I’ll be the one making it good for you.”
“Wanna bet?”
Gabe grips my hips and rocks me over him while he thrusts his hips up to meet mine. My moan is low and desperate.
“Shit. Again,” I gasp out, digging my nails into his shoulders. He fucks up into me again and again, guiding my hips to meet his thrusts until I am a needy, panting mess over him.
“You look so good up there, baby, riding my dick, taking everything I give you. Can you take more?” Gabe asks, leaning forward to suck one of my nipples into his mouth, flicking his tongue over it to the rhythm of his thrusts.
“What more?” I grit out. “This is everything.”
Gabe gives me a wicked look. “It’s not and you know it.”
I’m still moving over him, dragging my clit against him. I’m so lost to pleasure and the way we feel moving together that I don’t even notice Gabe moving his hands around to cup my ass until he pulls my cheeks apart, ghosting a finger over my asshole.
“Fuck,” I moan, grinding down even harder on his cock. “More.”
“Told you there was more, Rory baby.” Gabe thrusts his hips up and crashes his mouth to mine, swallowing my answering moan. “You will always get more with me. Now suck.”
Gabe takes one of his hands from my ass and brings it to my mouth, offering me two of his fingers. I suck them into my mouth, swirling my tongue and closing my teeth over the tips. Then it’s his turn to moan. “That’s right, baby. Get them nice and wet for me.”
Every word he speaks goes straight to my clit, which is swollen and throbbing and begging for release. But now that I know what he has planned, there will be no coming without it. My hips are jerky, my heart hammers against my chest, and Gabe catalogs it all with his searching, all-seeing, blue-eyed gaze.
“Look at you,” He grits out, pulling his fingers from my mouth and sliding his hand back around to my ass. “So desperate for me. So needy. You are my everything—I swear to god, Rory. I’ll never stop giving you everything you need. Now lean forward and ride me, baby, and I’ll make you see stars.”
I do exactly as he asks, rocking over him, griding down until my clit ruts against his pelvis and his cock hits the perfect spot. Gabe strokes both hands over my ass, then pulls my cheeks apart again. He runs a finger over me, with more pressure this time, circling over and over again before pressing just the tip of his finger inside of me.
I gasp and push back against the delicious intrusion. “More,” is all I can manage. It sounds like a plea.
“Anything,” Gabe murmurs before leaning forward, wrapping his free arm around my waist, and sealing his mouth to mine. His tongue presses into my mouth, stroking mine at the same time his finger presses deeper, circling, exploring, stretching, reaching the deepest, most intimate parts of me.
It’s been so long since anyone touched me like this that I forgot what it feels like. The mysterious, aching pleasure. The way it builds from deep inside of me, coiling, pulsing, throbbing, unfurling.
The sensations come from everywhere, and my brain can’t tease them apart. It’s everything, everywhere, all at once. I’m grinding forward then pushing back, and we’re not even kissing anymore. We’re just panting into each other’s mouths, lips grazing, sharing breath, whispering words like more and fuck and so good and right there and don’t stop .
Don’t .
Ever .
Stop .
“Does my fiancée like when I finger this tight asshole?” Gabe grits out, pulling his finger out of me, collecting my arousal from where we’re joined, and pressing back in with two.
I laugh but it sounds desperate. Pleading. “You want to call me something, you call me something real. Like girlfriend.”
“Is that what you are?” Gabe thrusts up into me and pushes his fingers deeper, and I almost come apart from the pleasure of it.
“Is that what you want me to be?” I manage, tightening my grip on his shoulders, digging my nails into him until he hisses out a breath. I grind down on his cock harder, my orgasm hanging just in the distance.
“It is until I can call you wife.”
I don’t even have time to process that startling word before Gabe locks his arm tighter around my back, fucking up into me in earnest, moving his fingers in the same rhythm.
Pleasure slams into me like a fist. “Oh, my god, Gabe,” I moan out. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop. I need to come. Fuck.”
Gabe licks a hot stripe up my neck, never slowing his movements. “You’re taking me so well, baby. Be a good girl and come for me. Let go, Rory. I’ll catch you. I’ll always be here to catch you.”
He sinks his teeth into the spot where my shoulder meets my neck and twists his fingers just right, and I detonate like a bomb. My vision blacks out and I can’t catch my breath as I hear Gabe groan my name. He unleashes, rope after rope of his cum filling me up and both of our hips jerking wildly. We come for what feels like forever, our hips finally slowing, and as the pleasure ebbs away, so do the last tenuous tethers to the lives we lived apart.
We are bound together now. Unbreakable. Inevitable.
Gabe pulls his fingers out and wraps both of his arms around me as I collapse against his chest, his cock still inside me. He strokes a hand up and down my back, whispering words of praise and a love so deep that tears spring to my eyes.
“Give me a second and I’ll take care of you,” Gabe whispers, words soaked in worship, his lips ghosting over my temple, my forehead, everywhere he can reach, as his hand keeps up a soothing rhythm over my back. “That was a lot. You need water and a snack. And a hot bath as soon as we get back to the hotel.”
“Later,” I answer, more content than I have ever been in my life. “Can we stay here for a while? I want to be with you, just like this, for a little longer. And then you can join me in the bath.”
Gabe lets out a happy sigh and pulls me more deeply into his chest, tightening his arms around me. “For as long as you want, Rory baby. We can stay here for as long as you want. And absolutely yes to the bath.”
I smile against his chest, pressing a kiss right over the heart I know has always beaten for me, as mine beats for him.
And in the dark of night, in the shadow of the tree that holds our names, in our most sacred place, we hold onto each other, tangled together as closely as we can be, absolutely certain that nothing has ever been more perfect than this.