Chapter 24
24
JADE
We leave tomorrow morning.
It’s been an eventful month.
And an even more eventful week.
It’s not been a terrible week; however, it hasn’t been a pleasant week either.
Everything between Owen and me is good; no, great, although between his parents showing up, the Cobra debacle, and the pressure to perform the premier of our display earlier today, I’m exhausted and feel like I could sleep for a month.
The team smashed it today, and I smiled so wide I thought I might split my face with glee when we landed and I kissed my lucky poppy stone so hard. It can only mean one thing: the rest of the year is going to be a success.
Contentment rests easily in my bones, and I let out a blissful sigh.
With a white towel wrapped around his waist, Owen ambles through into the bedroom, and I watch as he rubs his longer sun-bleached hair with a towel to dry it .
“You’ll damage your hair drying it like that and make it frizzy.”
He smiles leisurely. “Oh yeah, how should I dry it?”
“Blot and squeeze it, don’t rub it, or you’ll get split ends.” I love his long hair.
“I was thinking of going short again.” He runs his fingers through his locks. “I only grew it because of, you know, she who shall not be named .” His goosebumped flesh makes him shiver, and he pulls a grimacing face, making me laugh.
He really doesn’t like that girl, Evangeline. And she was a girl, not a woman. She was far too young to get married at twenty-one.
I rub the back of my head against the pillow, shaking it in disapproval. “Keep it. I like it long.”
“What else do you like?” He throws the small towel into the laundry basket then whips off the one from around his waist, holds it out to the side, and drops it on the floor theatrically. My eyes automatically move to his thick length hanging between his legs. Words get stuck in the back of my throat.
He winks cheekily. “Noted, you like that too.” He crawls up the bed, prowling toward me like an agile cougar, all the while smirking menacingly at me.
“I like that very much.” I suck on my bottom lip and cradle his scruff covered face with my hands. “I could look at you for a lifetime.” Marriage is something I drew a line through after I had Poppy, but since Owen entered my life like his very own unique version of Prince Charming, I could see myself spending the rest of my life with him.
Becoming serious, his eyes gleaming and full of love, he says, “I’ve loved no one the way I love you, Jade.” He leans forward and kisses my forehead then plants more down the length of my nose, his lips finally landing on mine. “I have nothing to offer you. Yet. But I will. I will do everything in my power to provide for you and Poppy.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I say between kisses as he drags the thin bedsheet down between us.
The simmering heat between us burns red hot.
He nips at my lips. “I want to, and I decided I don’t want to work in finance again. I want to retrain to become an outdoor activity instructor.”
Even though I don’t want to, I pull back from our kiss. “You do?” I wrap my legs around his waist and hook my ankles together behind him.
He bobs his head. “Yeah. I’ve been looking into it for the past few days. I love fitness and doing those muddy obstacle courses you love, too. I’m sporty and healthy and love rock climbing, surfing, canoeing, skiing, all of it. I’ve always been naturally good at sports. I’m a good leader, patient, resilient, and I reckon I’d like to do a coaching qualification too. Hit it from both sides; mentally and physically. I could even be a youth leader.” He astonishes me. “I’m far from an Olympian, but I am great at BMXing, mountain biking, and skateboarding, and would love to run stunt classes for kids; oh, and paddleboarding, maybe surfing, too.” His chatter is full of life and excitement.
“You’ve really thought about this,” I state, grinning at him proudly for seriously considering his future.
“I would be the world’s best outdoor activities trainer.”
“The next Bear Grylls.”
“I’d need to invent a wicked nickname like that.” He chuckles.
“No stage names necessary. I like you just the way you are.”
Frown lines deepen his brow as his hand cups my jaw. “You are one in a million, Hotshot. Thank you for accepting me for all that I am, even though I am not the man I used to be. I could have given you the world.”
If his father hadn’t lost it all or stolen it from him.
His money and status mean nothing to me though. I meant it when I told him I only want his heart.
Tilting my head upward, I reach his mouth to kiss him again but pause with my lips dusting his. “I like this man in front of me now. I don’t want the old you. I want this version. I love him.”
“Owen 2.0.” His smile almost splits his face.
“Then we could make thousands of robots just like you. Every woman on planet earth needs an Owen Brodie.” I tighten my legs around him.
“They won’t function properly without a Jade Sommers. Every one of them needs the love of a brilliant woman.”
He’s making me giggle, and I wiggle beneath him, pushing my hips into his.
“You make me want to be a better man.” He groans when I rub my pussy lips against his cock.
“You already are.” I gasp as the head of his cock brushes my clit.
“I wasn’t before.”
“It’s all in the past, Owen. Time to move forward.” Pressing my lips against his, I feel his cock grow hard against my center. I’m desperate for him to make love to me.
“But first I want to be there for you. Until Poppy starts school, I will be the best lover, partner, chef, cleaner, caregiver, and nanny.” He pushes his tongue into my mouth.
Naked flesh pressing against naked flesh; this is how we should always be.
“Not the nanny, her stepdad.” Overwhelmed by his commitment to me, I’ve said what I’ve been thinking about but didn’t mean to say. Letting my secrets spill out between searing kisses. I panic for a second, but I needn’t have worried because the next words out of his mouth settle me.
“If that’s a proposal, I will fucking marry you, Jade Sommers.”
I smile against his lips. “You will?”
“Never been so sure of anything in my life. Just give me a chance to get my life in order, and then I am making you my wife.”
My doubts begin to creep in almost instantly. “Once my time is up with the display team, you’ll have to move with me to my permanent station, and sometimes they can move me at a moment’s notice. My life is in their hands. They call the shots.” It’s yet another reason I have been reconsidering the time I have left in the Air Force. Just as Owen is doing with his life, I want to make my own decisions.
Owen rubs himself against me, distracting me from my concerns. “I don’t care.” He buries his face into my neck, kissing then biting my earlobe.
My neck arches into his touch.
“I will go wherever you are,” he whispers against the shell of my ear as he pushes his cock into my wet heat, causing me to cry out in pleasure. “And whenever you go away on deployment, I will be at home waiting for you. I’ll always be waiting.”
He slides his cock back and forth, fucking me lazily, the palm of his giant hand skimming my hot skin, moving down my outer thigh to my calf, where he wraps his fingers around it and then coaxes me to bend my knee, pushing my thigh against my body and my shin into his shoulder, allowing him to go deeper.
We rock together, slowly, dreamily, as we make love.
His steel-colored eyes bore a hole in my soul. “Nothing will ever change how I feel about you, Jade.” His admission causes a rush of wetness in my core as he drives into me, every muscle of his body glistening. He’s like a work of art, carved from the finest of iridescent opal; rock solid, alive with color, and too beautiful for words.
Picking up the pace, he thrusts into me as the cool air from the ceiling fan pebbles my hotter than the sand of the Sahara skin, hardening my nipples against his chest.
“Come for me, Jade.” The thick head of his cock teases my sweet spot, his balls slapping off my ass when his thrusts become faster.
I’m not prepared when he sucks his finger into his mouth to wet it, tells me to hold my knee back in place, and then moves his hand between our bodies. His fingertip finds my asshole, where he rubs it in gentle circles, round and round, giving me a pleasure I’ve never felt before.
Igniting the fuse, he pushes his finger in slightly. I’m surprised by how much I enjoy the pressure and how it adds to the sensation of his thick cock inside me.
He pummels into me, making me gasp when he tells me, “Touch yourself.”
Moving my hand between our bodies, my fingertips find my clit, and we light the blue touch paper as his hard body meets my soft one.
He moves back onto his haunches, widening his knees on the mattress. He shakes his head from side to side, his hair falling in waves around his face as his hooded eyes take in the show. He gently pushes his finger further into my back entrance, working it in and out until I’m desperate with need.
“Come, come with me,” he bellows.
And I do.
Hard.
Skyrocketing into the unknown .
It strikes me like a bolt of lightning, intense heat tearing through me, spreading from my inner walls through my pussy and down into my spine, thighs, and back entrance. I have no control over my body, and my eyes roll into the back of my head as I call out his name.
I clench around him, milking him as he comes inside of me, and he jerks and I twitch, our bodies so perfectly in sync with one another, going limp with exhaustion and pleasure.
My heart is buzzing like a happy bee in my chest.
This is us.
He’s mine.
He didn’t cave under his father’s demands.
He chose me.
And Poppy.
Us.