Chapter 45
It’s the Friday of a long weekend, and Abby is staying two nights with Amelia.
I begged Lisa to take Jay and Smudge for the night, which she happily agreed to.
She and Greg treat my kids like family, and their dogs are obsessed with Smudge.
The bell has just rung and I already have my bag packed to spend the night with Tyler at our new home.
Tyler and I need a night together after all that’s happened over the last couple weeks. A night full of complete and total debauchery, I hope. But also a night to be with him, just us.
He’s waiting on the porch when I arrive, and I practically sprint across the lawn and up the steps into his arms. I collide with him, and he encircles my waist, lifting me off the ground.
Yes, sir. Let’s not waste any more of our precious time. Enough has been lost already. On our way, my mind briefly clocks when he slides his shoes off at the door, and with one hand tugs mine off letting them fall beside his own.
Two pairs of shoes, together.
Tyler carries me up the stairs to his bedroom, but he doesn’t set me down right away. His mouth captures mine in a kiss that starts slow but quickly escalates until I’m a panting wanton mess.
“I think I hate the person who invented clothes.”
That is not what I expected him to say, and a laugh bursts from me, like uncorked champagne.
“I can stay naked the whole time I’m here. We’ll join a nudist colony and stay naked forever,” I tease.
“No, Jo. I only wanna see you.”
Wiggling free from his arms, I lift my shirt over my head and fling it to the floor.
Tyler’s expression goes hungry when I unclasp my bra, and slide down my pants and underwear.
Next, I drag his shirt up and over his head, dropping it next to my own clothes.
He’s already working his belt buckle and I help him, shoving his pants to the floor before he steps out of them, setting his glasses on his nightstand.
Wetness gathers between my legs when I see his already hard cock, and I need him moving inside of me as quickly as possible. Rising to my toes, I bring my mouth right up to his ear. “Fuck me, Tyler. Please.”
The brazenness of my words seems to ignite a fire inside of him because his mouth is back on mine, moving from my lips, my chin, my neck, all the way to my peaked nipples. I stroke his hardness and he shudders, groaning against my flesh.
We fall onto his bed in a heap, our hands never leaving one another, making up for lost time. I am breathless with my desire, my need for him. His hand goes to my center, and I am certain I have never drawn a more aroused breath.
“Tyler, I need you,” I gasp.
“You have me, love. I’m here.”
I let out a strangled moan and push up so I’m straddling him.
Tyler pulls himself so he’s leaning against his headboard, and I position him at my entrance and lower onto him.
I cry out and he curses under his breath and everything feels so right, so perfect.
I still, adjusting to the sheer size of him before sinking down all the way.
With a hand on each of his shoulders, I rock back and forth while Tyler watches me, worships me with his striking eyes.
Tyler allows me to set the pace, but I see in his eyes the minute his control snaps. He flips me to my back, but then he’s…gone. All his heat and warmth is gone and I sit up, finding him holding two of his neck ties. Looking from him, to the tie he’s holding, I quirk a brow.
“What are you doing?” I ask, heart pounding.
“Do you trust me?”
“Why?”
“Do you trust me, love?”
I swallow hard and nod. “I trust you, Tyler.”
At my confirmation, he takes my arms, raising them above my head and, with nimble fingers, he ties them together. Not tight, but enough that there’s no way I’ll wriggle free.
“Do you trust me?” he asks again.
“I trust you.”
He nods and fastens the other neck tie around my head, obscuring my vision.
I feel the bed shift as he moves, lifting my hips to slide a pillow beneath me.
Every remaining sense sharpens. His fingers ghost up my inner thighs, featherlight.
My skin prickles in anticipation. My chest rises and falls with shallow, stuttered breaths.
I am completely and wholly at his mercy.
Whatever he wants, I’ll willingly give. This man who gives of himself tirelessly; tonight, I’ll let him take.
A shiver races through me when I feel Tyler trace circles up my inner thigh.
The senses I still possess are on overdrive and I hear each breath he takes.
I hear the way his breath hitches before he licks hot perfect pressure up my center.
Then I feel him running the tip of his cock through my wetness before pushing into me, punishingly slow.
Setting his own stubborn pace. Everything is too much, and I’m overcome with it; the way he feels inside me, the way I’m willingly helpless to him.
“Please make me come. Please.”
But my plea does little to speed Tyler up. He keeps a maddening rhythm, rocking into me slow and steady, circling my clit with the pad of his thumb. My body is strung tight, sweat beading along my forehead with my need for release. But Tyler refuses to let me tip over that edge.
“Please,” I gasp again.
His voice comes low, as wrecked as I feel. “Not yet.”
I swallow down a whimper, straining against the tie binding my wrists.
The pressure building inside me is unbearable, too big to contain.
Even without my vision, I feel the weight of his gaze on my body.
He’s everywhere and nowhere all at once, his thumb still relentless against my clit. I arch into him with a strangled cry.
“Josephine,” he growls, rough with restraint.
“You don’t even know what you do to me. I wish you could see yourself how I see you.
Everything about you is pretty. Pretty pink nipples…
” He leans down to roll one hard nipple between his finger and thumb, and I arch my back up.
“Body that I’ll never get enough of. And the prettiest pussy, squeezing me so goddamn tight. ”
Then, he picks up the pace, thrusting deep and all-consuming. My legs wrap around his waist instinctively, pulling him closer. I try to move, to meet his rhythm, but he tsks.
“I’m in charge here, sweetheart.”
The low timbre of his voice can be felt all the way to my toes, and god, I love it. I love him.
I’ve never let go like this. Never let someone see me like this. Laid bare and complying, for him to use me however he sees fit.
His thrusts grow frenetic, and I feel him hover over me, one hand cupping my cheek, his thumb brushing across my jaw.
“You’re mine,” he whispers. “Say it.”
“I’m yours,” I gasp, breath catching.
“Again,” he commands with a ragged breath.
“I’m yours, Tyler. I love you and I’ll always be yours.
” And it’s the truest thing I’ve ever said.
I’ve been his for longer than I realized, and he is mine.
A tear leaks from the corner of my eye right as my release slams into me like a tidal wave, raw and violent.
I cry his name, utterly wrecked and unashamed.
Tyler’s release comes quickly moments later as he chants my name over and over like a prayer.
Still buried deep inside me, he rolls his forehead against mine, the only sound our ragged breathing.
I feel his fingers untie the knot at my wrists, then the blindfold. I have to blink several times to adjust my vision, and then Tyler comes into view.
I blink up at him, dazed and he brushes sweaty strands of hair from my forehead. “You okay, love?”
I nod, or at least I think I do. I’m merely a heap of nothingness right now, my body utterly spent.
“You’re mine and I’m yours,” he says, voice rough-hewn with emotion. “You can keep me, love.”
It’s dark out, and after shower sex, we’ve migrated to his kitchen.
I’m perched on a stool, dressed in nothing but one of his button-downs.
He’s shirtless, hair still adorably mussed from earlier, wearing sweatpants hung low on his hips.
I’m mesmerized, or perhaps still sex drunk, watching the muscles of his back flex as he pulls take-out containers from a paper bag.
Peering around, a smile pulls at my lips.
“Tyler?”
“Yes, love?”
“Do I see Chili’s?”
A rumbling laugh rolls from him, and my smile widens.
“But Chili’s is, like, thirty minutes away. We aren’t in their delivery area.”
He looks over his shoulder at me, a wildly handsome smile lighting up his face. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to looking at him.
“I paid the delivery guy more than you wanna know to get this here.” Tyler shrugs like this is no big deal, but I see the way his jaw works. “I wanted to make you happy.”
Something warm and golden flares to life inside me, like a cozy fire on a winter night.
There’s nothing extravagant about the take-out containers spread out on the counter, but my heart swells until I know it shows on my face, that effervescent happiness when you’re cared for in the small, quiet ways.
“Consider me the happiest,” I say, smiling up at him.
We eat and laugh, giving each other play-by-plays of our day.
I giggle like a teenager when he feeds me bites, and every few minutes, for no reason at all, he leans down and kisses me.
When he’s not feeding me or kissing me, he’s tapping his thumb on the counter, and after studying the rhythm of his thumb for a beat, I realize Tyler is nervous.
“You’re being weird,” I say, while casually dipping a chip in the salsa.
“I’m not being weird.” His response comes a little too fast, and the drumming on the countertop says otherwise.
“No, you are one hundred percent being weird. What’s going on?”
He rakes a hand through his already messy hair, takes a step back and looks at me with aching tenderness.
“I love you, Jo.”
“And I love you. We’ve said this a lot, remember?”
He nods swiftly, then hurriedly disappears from the room.
I jump up to follow him, but he calls out, “No. Just. Hold on. I’ll be right back.”
Footsteps can be heard as he climbs the stairs, so I hop back onto the stool, patiently waiting.
Tyler returns probably thirty seconds later with one hand behind his back.
He knows how much I love when he gives me flowers, so my mind immediately goes to another beautiful bouquet.
But when he produces a velvet box and drops to one knee in front of me, trembling hands go to cover my mouth.
No fanfare, no one present but the love of my life and myself.
“I don’t know how to make this perfect.”
Through tears I choke out, “This is perfect.”
“There are few things I know to be true in life, Jo. And the one truth that’s glaringly obvious is that I need”—his voice breaks, and I place a hand on his cheek—“I need you as my wife. I love you, I love our kids. I want a boring life with you, full of dinners at home, reading quietly beside you, basketball games, and small-town life. We’ll have happy times and hard times.
You’ll get mad at me a hundred times and I’ll be right there at your side. I want them all to be with you.”
He opens the box to reveal an enormous diamond ring. On either side of the diamond are smaller stones in various colors. Birthstone colors. Four, to be exact. My hands move to snatch it, and he snaps the box shut.
We both start laughing and he opens it again. “Patience, love. Will you marry me?”
I slide off the stool and fall into his arms curled up together on the kitchen floor.
“Yes, a thousand yesses.”
Tyler slides the ring onto my finger and his lips capture mine like we’ve got forever. And it looks like we finally do.