CHAPTER 25 Ainsley Bradley
Falling
I’m nervous.
The last time we were alone, he kissed me on an elevator. We haven’t been truly alone since that moment with the threat of an extra houseguest looming around the corner at any given moment.
Ivy’s on her way home now, though, and my husband will be back any minute.
We still have a few hours before Jack goes to bed, and I have no idea what might happen between us after that.
Will he kiss me again? Will it lead to more? Will we have sex? Will I wake up in the morning and no longer be a virgin?
It’s weird that I still am one. So many of my friends started having sex in high school, but maybe it was their horror stories that made me want to wait it out.
I never had a real boyfriend in high school, and the few guys I dated in college weren’t worth it.
And now it’s built up into this huge thing that it really doesn’t need to be.
So I’ve never had sex. Is it really that big of a deal?
And maybe I’m worried about all this for nothing. In my previous relationships, we experimented with hand jobs and fingering. I’ve given blow jobs, but I’ve never actually been on the receiving end of oral sex. See what I mean about the guys not being worth it?
Maybe we’ll start there.
Or maybe I’m delusional.
Either way, he’s leaving tomorrow, and he’s going to be gone for two weeks.
And then what?
We haven’t talked about it. We haven’t talked about much of anything in the last few days since Ivy’s been around.
When he finally walks through the front door, he closes it and leans on it for a few beats as he eyes me in the kitchen, where I’m creating my signature dish for him.
It’s not as romantic as his steak and lobster dinner the night of our wedding, but I’m putting in an extreme amount of effort to make chicken tortilla soup.
It’s an old family recipe that requires a lot of chopping, and I’ve had Jack in his highchair next to me watching my every move as we have Bluey blaring from the family room television across from us.
“It smells fantastic in here,” Dex says, and he kicks off from his spot by the door as he walks through the penthouse toward me.
“I decided to surprise you with dinner,” I say. And fingers crossed I cook everything properly so he doesn’t wind up sick for his first day of training camp.
“That was really nice of you,” he says, and he moves in behind me sort of like that second dude at the club who got punched did. But this time, it’s welcome despite the fact that I never actually invited it.
He sets his hands on my hips, and he presses his lips to my neck. “Finally alone,” he murmurs.
“Ba ba ba!” Jack babbles, reminding us that we are not, in fact, alone after all.
Dex chuckles. “Little cockblock,” he mutters for just me to hear, and I turn to swat his arm with a giggle. He doesn’t move out of the way, instead rocking the front of his body against the back of mine.
I think the idea that blossomed on the elevator last Tuesday night is still very much alive between the two of us.
I set down the knife I’m chopping tomatoes with and turn around, and he lets his hands skim my hips as I move, never moving them until I’m firmly in place with my chest against his. He takes the moment to wrap his arms around me then, and his lips drop down to mine.
“Ba da ba da ba!” Jack says.
Dex pulls back with a sigh, and he looks up at the ceiling, his neck corded as he clenches his jaw. He clears his throat, and his eyes are hot on mine when he says, “I’ve been waiting four and a half days to get you alone. I guess I can wait another hour or two.”
I lean up and press my lips to his for a quick kiss. “We can try to get him down early tonight.”
He chuckles. “I’ll start packing now for camp so I don’t need to do it later. Then I can give you all my focus.”
“I can’t wait,” I say softly.
“Are you sure about this?” he asks. He nips another kiss to my lips.
I nod probably a little too enthusiastically. “I’m sure. Are you?”
“I’ve been counting the seconds, Ains. I’m sure.”
My heart skips a beat at that, and he lets me go and moves out of my orbit.
“Can I help in here at all?” he asks. He swipes a tomato off my cutting board.
“If you want to keep all your fingers, you’ll stay away from my knife,” I warn.
He laughs and holds both hands up. “Okay, okay,” he says, and he heads off toward his bedroom to pack.
The soup is a hit. In fact, Dex’s exact words are, “Can you add this to the weekly menu and make a double batch so there’s extra next time?”
The words are enough to make me giddy that he liked something I created for him.
I do manage to get Jack down about fifteen minutes earlier than usual, and when I emerge from his bedroom, there’s a vodka Sprite with three cherries in it sitting on the counter for me.
Dex is by the window, as usual, and I grab the drink from the counter and take a sip before I set it back down.
I wander over and step into place beside him.
“Have you ever thought about putting a couch over here?” I ask.
“I do my best thinking when I’m on my feet,” he admits. “I do it on purpose since I can’t sit and make split-second decisions when I’m on the field.”
“Are you excited to go to camp?” I ask.
“Yes and no.”
“Why no?”
He glances over at me, and he shrugs. I get the sense that this is harder for him to talk about than he wants to admit.
But then, to my complete and utter shock, he starts talking anyway.
“That poor kid was left here with strangers, and he’s always just so…I don’t know. Happy, I guess. Despite everything. And now his only other biological parent is leaving him for two weeks, and I didn’t realize I never told you I’m leaving, and now you’re forced into this situation—”
“Hey,” I interrupt, reaching out to touch his shoulder. I leave my hand there to rest. “Hey. It’s okay. You’re not forcing me into anything I don’t want to do.”
He seems torn, and I watch as he tips his glass to his lips, chugs what’s left in there, and turns to slam his glass on the end table not far from where he stands. He moves back toward me.
“You needed a job, and you had no clue what you were getting into,” he says, and he grits his teeth together as if he’s ashamed of that fact.
“Sometimes I think the best parts of life are going in blind. Not knowing what the outcome is going to be. Remember that first charity event we attended together and how I followed you all the way to the roller coaster? I think about that night all the time.”
His head whips toward me. “So do I, Birdie. It’s the night I started to fall—” This time he cuts himself off.
“The night you started…what?” I ask softly. Carefully.
Nervously.
He glances at me, and then he moves his gaze back out the window. Eventually, he blows out a heavy breath. “Fuck it. The night I started to fall for you.” He closes his eyes as he braces for the impact of those words.
I don’t know what to say. He started to fall for me?
I knew I was starting to feel a certain way about him, but I had no clue he was feeling a certain way about me, too. I figured it was just that sexual connection. All the kissing. The admission that I’m a virgin. He wants the forbidden, the untouched, the innocent.
But he’s falling.
And I’m falling.
“You’re the first person I’ve spent time with in a long time who didn’t care about the fame or the money or the status,” he says, averting his gaze back out the window.
“You jumped in headfirst to help me with a situation you knew nothing about, and you’ve been so fucking important in helping me navigate all this.
” He clenches his jaw, and I study his profile as I watch his jaw move back and forth.
He’s clearly struggling with what to say. How to handle this. How to handle me. How to move forward. If he should move forward.
“You helped me, too, Dex,” I say softly. “It’s not like I’m not benefitting from being here.”
He finally glances over at me. “You could’ve walked away at any time over the last few weeks, and you didn’t.
Instead, you went all in. You fucking married me.
And now you’re going to stay here with my son while I head off to training camp for two weeks.
” He shakes his head in wonder. “It takes a special person to put up with me. I know I’m not easy.
But I want to be better. For him. For you.
” He says the last two words on a whisper, and then he moves in toward me, closing the space as I turn toward him, too.
He walks toward me, and I walk backward until I bump into the window.
I’m out of room, and he cages me in against the window.
“What if I want a little of the bad boy, too?” I ask softly.
He moves so one arm rests above my head and the other hand rests lazily on my hip. “You’re about to get all of him. If you still want him.” His face is inches from mine, and he waits for my consent before he moves a muscle.
“I’m falling for you, too, Dex. Of course I still want you. All of you.” The words are barely out when his lips crash to mine. His fingers flex on my hip, and his tongue moves around my mouth in a skilled, practiced way that leads me to wonder how it would feel on other parts of my body.
I arch into him, in part because I’m up against the window and in part because my body seems to be moving reflexively, seeking the hardness his body has to offer.
The ache that has pulsed between my legs for weeks is throbbing now, waiting for this man to do something about it, something no one else has ever done.
But first, he kisses me. We’ve built slowly to this point, taking our time with each other, getting to know one another in small bursts of conversation here or charity events there, and while it feels very slow in some ways, in other ways it feels like record speed as we race toward some invisible line that we’re about to cross.
We’re both in jeans, and in a perfect world I’d be in a dress waiting for him to slip his fingers under it.
Instead, his hand gripping my hip moves up toward my breast as his lips break from mine and trail down my neck.
I lean back, my head bumping against the glass as I arch my chest out and give him more room along my neck.
The scruff lining his jaw burns and tickles at the same time, and it’s an addictive sensation I want to keep feeling over and over—here on my neck, across my nipples, down my abdomen, between my thighs.
We’ll get there. Maybe. Probably. Likely not tonight since our time is limited. Literally. He has to leave in nine hours, and he should probably get some rest tonight so he’s focused tomorrow.
But that doesn’t seem to be a thought in his mind as he takes his time kissing my neck and massaging my breast. His lips trail down to dip into the V-neck of my shirt, but it’s not deep enough for him to get a taste of my cleavage.
Instead, he lets go of me and reaches for the bottom of my shirt.
He pulls it off and tosses it to the ground, and his fingertips come up to my tits as his mouth crashes back to mine again.
He finds each of my nipples and teases them through the cotton fabric of my rather plain bra, but he doesn’t seem to care that I’m not wearing lacy, silky lingerie for this occasion.
Instead, he seems totally focused on my body, on my mouth, on us in this moment.
I buck my hips toward him, suddenly needing some relief down low, and he thrusts his hips toward me in response. I moan when I feel his hard cock hit me right where I need it to, just with far too many clothes separating us.
He seems to lose some of his control at my moan, and he bucks his hips toward me again. I reach for his shirt and lift it over his head, and as I toss it to the floor, he uses one hand to somehow unhook the back of my bra.
It’s impressive work, really.
I shimmy out of it and toss it to the floor, and his hands are immediately back on my breasts, his fingers pinching my nipples as he tests how much pressure he can exert to get a moan out of me.
I want a moment of silence for his abs, but his body is pressed to mine, so I dig my nails into his shoulders instead—more intensely the harder he pinches my nipple, and less so when he goes lighter.
His mouth moves from mine and trails down to take one of my nipples in his mouth, and it sends a shot of need straight through to my pussy.
I let out a loud grunt, and he increases the pressure from his mouth. My God, that feels good, and I feel like I could fall apart just from a little nipple play.
But not yet.
Not before I feel him inside me.
Not before I give him my virginity.
I let out a shaky breath as I realize what’s about to happen, and excitement seems to course through my veins.
I’m about to lose my virginity to Dex Bradley.
This is the stuff dreams are made of.