Chapter 35
Odette
Murphy’s hand never left my thigh as he put the car back into drive and got back on the road. I quickly realized based on the direction he was going that he was likely thinking I meant the cottage, and I said, “No, not the cottage, Murphy. Take me home.”
It took him a split second to register what I was saying, and I could have sworn he put his foot on the pedal a bit harder this time.
I quickly took out my phone to shoot a text to Wynn, saying I was going to need to reschedule, but that I was fine and I’d call her later.
Then I picked up my phone to call the office, saying I’d come in tomorrow instead.
By the time I had finished with my calls, we were pulling into the house, and Murphy had the car in park and was out, opening my door to help me down before I could even blink. He started to lead me toward the backyard.
“Can…can we go into the main house?” I asked.
He looked unsure, but nodded, pulling out the keys from where he had placed them in his back pocket.
Walking over to the front door, I felt such a sense of rightness that it was a little disorienting, but before he stuck the keys and turned the lock, he turned to face me. “Odette...the house... It’s...”
“Just let me see.”
He nodded, then unlocked the door and held it open for me so I could walk in first.
Shock overtook me, it was…completely the same .
It even smelled the same—the same scent I always ordered off this one website because it was my favorite. The kitchen had the washed dishes, still sitting there from the morning I left.
Nothing had been moved, nothing had been changed.
I looked at him with no words, just questions.
“The smell…” I stammered, and he ran his hand through his hair, clearly embarrassed.
“I looked through the credit card statements to find the charges.”
“Everything is the same…”
While I knew he didn’t live here, I had expected something, anything, to have changed, but he left the house exactly as it was.
“I…I couldn’t change a thing, Odette. I couldn’t bring myself to be here, but I couldn’t… It felt like I was erasing you, erasing us, and it made me sick, so I left it here.”
“Even after all these years?”
“Always.”
Always. I grabbed his hand as I walked through the rest of the house, just taking all of it in. I thought I would feel a sense of loss or unease, maybe even hatred, but I didn’t. It felt like I was coming home.
I saved the upstairs for last, and audibly gasped at Lux’s room, it was basically still a nursery.
“Where did you stay while you redid the backyard?”
“My parents’.”
I closed the door to her room, saving our bedroom for last.
“We don’t have to go in there, Odette. We can go outside.”
“I want to.”
Opening the door to our old bedroom, a rush of emotions filled me—some I couldn’t identify, some I didn’t want to, but the main one was love.
I wasn’t going to spend a single fucking second feeling guilty that I was still in love with Murphy.
I did what I needed to do. I needed to heal; I needed to become a person without him.
I needed to know that I could, and I did, and I still wanted him.
I still loved him with every beat of my heart.
“Murphy…” I looked behind me and saw that he had dropped to his knees.
“I haven’t been in here since…” Since you left. He didn’t have to say it, but I caught the meaning all the same.
“It’s pretty clean.”
“Mom comes in to clean it once a month. I didn’t trust a cleaning crew to clean the house; I tried once and almost lost it when I saw that they were moving stuff around, so Mom offered, saying she didn’t want to have to bail me out of jail for murder,” he said, almost shamefully, but I loved that he felt so deeply about it all.
Every part of his actions and his decisions were so clearly based around me and our baby girl, even knowing that he did all this without the confirmation that I would come back to him.
He loved me silently and from afar, and he gave me everything I needed without recognition.
“I need you to kiss me, Murphy.”
“Odette…”
“Now, please.”
There was a hunger in his gaze that made me feel like I was being stripped bare, and my whole body shuddered under his gaze. Instead of doing what I asked, he kneeled in a submissive pose.
“Odette…” I heard the need in his voice, and I didn’t have to check to know that I was wet, especially at the vision of him on his knees in front of me.
“Murphy…what are you doing?”
“I want nothing more than to give you everything you need, but I need you to know this is all on your terms. Every part of me wants you, mind, body, soul, but I need you to show me that it’s okay, how to touch you.”
I almost let out a sob at his vulnerability. He was giving me something I knew he’d never given anyone else before—his complete and utter surrender.
I sank to the floor, and I used my finger to trace over his face, taking the time to memorize every new wrinkle, every change.
Everything new and old. I felt his body shiver beneath my barely-there touch.
I knew he needed me to take control, and in doing so, let me know everything was at my own pace.
“I’m going to kiss you, Murphy, and I give you permission to kiss me back.”
“Odette… I need you to know, there’s been no one. There will never be anyone else for me. Ever. Again.”
I tried to hide my shock. No one? In three years? Not even when he could do whatever he wanted?
“No one?” I asked, my voice a little unsteady.
“No one,” he said, and in his voice and eyes, I saw that it was the truth.
“Murphy, kiss me. Now.”
He let out a growl and grabbed my face, and instead of consuming me with a kiss like I thought he was going to do, he started at the base of my neck with barely-there kisses, whispering between each one everything he had been holding in.
“Every part of me has missed you.”
“You’re everything.”
“There isn’t five seconds that goes by I don’t think of you.”
“Your laughter...”
“Your skin...”
“The daughter you gave me...”
“I need you.”
“Can you feel my love for you?”
I couldn’t help the tears that were falling at his words of affirmation, and we had barely even started.
When he finally made it to my mouth, I was vibrating with need and want at the feeling of being so utterly adored by this man.
“Please kiss me, please…” I begged him.
His mouth found mine, and it was so tender, so soft, as his tongue slipped out and glided over my bottom lip. I gasped as he nibbled my lip, giving him all the access he needed to move the kiss from sweet to wild.
In that change, we became a mess of emotions and raw love. I clawed at his shirt, demanding it be removed, and he took the hem of my shirt and shredded it down the middle.
“If I think you’re even remotely in pain, this stops,” he said when he briefly pulled away to pick me up and place me on our bed.
I whimpered at his overwhelming need to make sure I was okay through this all.
“Fuck, those sounds you make... They live in my dreams and my mind; you consume every part of me.”
“Please…” I begged.
He descended on me, kissing his way from my neck to my stomach, and I couldn’t help but flinch a little at the stretch marks that still marred my body and the extra weight I’d gained since the accident and being pampered.
“Don’t you dare. Every single inch of you is perfect. Perfect.”
He ran his tongue along my stretch marks, causing unholy sounds to fly from my lips.
“These are the marks of a warrior, of motherhood, and it means everything to me. You mean everything to me.”
He finally made his way to where I was pulsing, and I spread my legs apart.
“You’re perfect, do you understand me?”
I nodded, unable to form words once my eyes connected with his and I saw the absolute devotion in them.
“Can I taste you, sweet girl?”
Him asking for permission was new and so delicious.
“Yes, please, please.”
I knew I was a begging, needy mess for him, but I didn’t care. With one swipe of his tongue on my clit, I was lost to the euphoria, lost to the feeling of love, lost to Murphy, and everything he brought out in me.
“I love you. Fuck, I love you,” he whispered against my pussy and kept feasting on me like his life depended on it, like he might never get this chance again. I felt my thighs start to shake, and I knew I was close, so close , and he added a finger inside me.
“You’re so tight, Odette. So tight, so pink...so fucking perfect. ”
He added his finger so slowly, inch by inch, and I could feel the start of my orgasm.
“Not yet, pretty girl. Can I?”
I looked over at him in a lust-filled gaze and saw he was stroking his cock.
I'd forgotten what a sight it was—large, with the perfect mushroom top, veiny in all the right places that made me want to lick them. It was red at the top, and pre-cum had leaked out. I couldn’t help but lick my lips, and I heard Murphy groan,
“Please…” I spread my thighs even further, giving him all the permission he needed.
He grabbed a hold of my thighs and rubbed his cock over my pussy lips so damn slowly that I thought I was about to lose my mind at the sensations he was dragging out of me.
“Murphy…”
“I know, my love I know.”
I shivered at his term of endearment, and it was in that moment I felt his tip at my entrance.
He slid in so painfully slow, letting me feel every inch of him, that I was a withering, pleading mess before he’d even gotten all the way in.
I exploded around him, unable to stop my orgasm from happening.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck. ”
My orgasm spurred Murphy’s, and I felt his dick pulse after his release, but he still didn’t move from inside of me.
He lifted me up while still inside and then laid down on the bed with me on his chest. He was holding me so tightly that I knew he was convincing himself that this was real and not a dream.
Suddenly, I was exhausted, and a part of me kept waiting for the regret to seep in, but there was none, not a single trace of it. I let his fingers running through my hair lull me into sleep, feeling the most content that I have in years.
“I’ll love you in every lifetime.” I heard him whisper before I drifted off to sleep.