Episode 68
Episode 68
Symbol of Love
MAIA
“You’re delusional if you think we live in a world where I would ever consider taking you back. Not in a million fucking years. Jesus!”
I winced as Rhode’s angry words rolled through my mind like a tidal wave. Closing my eyes didn’t help. Not when I was able to clearly remember Emily’s sweet face going pale at hearing her father’s outburst directed at her mother. That phone call earlier this evening had been brutal, and all of us felt the effects. Sure, we went back in and had birthday cake, gave hugs and said our goodbyes, then Rhodes and I took a taxi to our new hotel for the weekend. But that didn’t erase the ugliness Portia slung at Rhodes or Emily.
Letting out a long breath, I braced my hands on the bathroom vanity and breathed deeply for a few seconds, trying to let it all go so I could focus on the here and now.
“I feel more love toward you in two weeks than I have for my ex-wife in a decade.”
Rhodes words after the call took center stage in my mind, running around and around until I’d replayed them to death. I couldn’t forget it, nor could I push it into the back of my mind where everything else I doubted festered.
Did he just say he loved me in comparison to his ex? I mean, I definitely had strong feelings for him, but I’d never been in love before. I wouldn’t even know how to describe it, let alone understand if I was in fact in love with him. I knew I felt familial love for Sam, Emily, Alana, and even Christophe, and Rhodes was certainly at the top of that list. But I was intelligent enough and old enough to understand that being in love was something else entirely.
It was a lot to take in.
My life had changed more in two weeks than it had in the last five years. Before, it was just me doing my best to survive and Sam giving me what he could to help. Now I had several people that not only claimed to care about me, they showed it. I hadn’t realized how much I missed having a family to count on after so many years without mine. The closest thing I had to that was a rowdy motorcycle club whose clubhouse I cleaned for money more often than I visited as a guest.
A light knock on the bathroom door broke through my thoughts.
“You okay in there?” Rhodes asked.
“Uh, yeah. I’ll be out in a minute.” I said as I stared at my reflection in the mirror.
The short cream-colored satin nightie I found in the bag Alana had apparently packed on my behalf molded to my shape perfectly. It had spaghetti straps and delicate lace covering the bodice. The hem fell in scalloped lace to mid-thigh showing off my legs and leaving just enough to the imagination to entice the man waiting for me.
I was about to have sex with my fiancé.
Even though my relationship with sexual pleasure had been a rocky one, given my upbringing, I wasn’t uncertain about being physical with Rhodes. We’d already had fun together and proven we had chemistry in spades when our clothes were off. It was my fear of being intimate with him that made me nervous. Intimacy was new. Sex to me had always been like scratching an itch that could be satisfied by picking up an attractive guy in a bar, or by using my battery-operated boyfriend.
This was different.
Rhodes was different.
He felt love for me. And I needed to know what that meant. At the same time, I was terrified of not being able to reciprocate those feelings in the way he deserved. Frankly, I didn’t know how.
I heard classical music coming from the bedroom.
It was showtime, and I couldn’t hide in the bathroom and freak out any longer. With one last fluff to my hair that was now falling around my shoulders, I took a deep breath, let it out, and opened the door.
On feet that felt weighted in cement, I slowly exited the bathroom. The room was sparkling with flickering candles dotting many of the flat surfaces, giving it a pretty glow. There were rose petals on the bed, making the room smell lush and inviting.
Rhodes stood, holding two glasses of bubbling champagne. His gaze was all over me, starting at my face, working down to my toes and back up.
“Do you have any idea how breathtakingly beautiful you are?” His words were filled with awe.
I smiled shyly and slowly turned around.
“ Jesus! ” He gasped when he saw that the back of the nightie was completely open. The satin barely covered the top of my ass let alone the bottom.
I chuckled nervously and turned back around, feeling more confident after his positive response. He looked amazing, stunning even. Low-slung black satin lounge pants, bare feet, and the flickering candlelight highlighted every dip, swell, and curve of his pecs and abs as he moved toward me.
He handed me a glass. Our fingers barely touched, and it was as if I’d been zapped by an electrical current. My breath caught and his gaze heated as he cocked a brow and smirked.
“Sensitive to touch this evening,” he murmured, then reached out and caressed the ball of my shoulder and down my arm with two fingers. I shivered at the contact. “Mmm, I like that,” he rumbled in a low, heady purr.
I swallowed and gasped as he stepped so close to me that our chests touched. He held his glass aloft. “I’d like to make a toast.”
On autopilot, I mirrored him, raising the glass even though I could barely breathe with him standing so close. I wanted to flatten my body to his, but also step away from the intensity surrounding us.
“To never letting anything or anyone get in the way of what we’re building.”
“Rhodes,” I breathed and looked down.
“Look at me, Maia.” His voice was stern and had me snapping my gaze to his instantly. “This is happening. You and me, regardless of the way we met, the hurdles we have yet to jump through, and anything else that gets tossed in our path. It’s happening. And I, for one, am not going to let anything ruin it.”
“But Portia…”
“Is history. It’s not as though we just broke up. We’ve been over for years. There has been no person in my life that has hurt me more than her. And she continues to break my daughter’s heart. I wish the best for her, I do. I want her to have a good life, but more than that, I want her to be a good mother. Those two things have fuck-all to do with me and what I want in my life and in my bed. That position is solely dedicated to you, Maia. The woman I can’t wait to marry. Do not let Portia’s antics prevent you from being all in with me because, baby, I am all fucking in with you. You’re everything I could ever want. I’m in love with you, Maia.”
I gasped and reached out, holding on to him so that I didn’t fall. My heart beat so fast I thought it might break free from my very chest and flutter away. His words sank deep, burrowing into the dark place inside me where every single person I’d believed in from the past had let me down, and obliterated it. He replaced it with him.
His light.
His family.
His love.
“I don’t know how to love you back,” I confided, tears filling my eyes.
“Don’t worry baby, I’ll teach you.” He cupped my nape and pressed his forehead to mine.
“Rhodes…” I croaked, the emotions swallowing me whole.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing, Maia. Your actions show how much you care about me. The way you kiss me proves your desire matches my own. And when you look into my eyes…”
I eased back and looked into his eyes, trying to convey without words what I didn’t know how to say.
“There it is. Staring me in the face. I see how much you love me. You don’t have to say it. You don’t ever have to. I’ll know just by looking into your eyes.” He smiled and then he kissed me.
The kiss went on so long I forgot we were both holding champagne flutes. I spilled a little over his shoulder and watched the golden rivulets trickle down his chest. I handed him my glass, then I bent in half and caught one of the drips with my tongue, just as it was about to reach the waistband of his pants.
He sucked in a harsh breath as I ran my tongue the entire length up his long chest, swirling my tongue around the flat brown disc of his nipple as I made my way over his pec, then along his clavicle and to his neck where I placed several warm, teasing kisses.
Within seconds, he put the glasses on the dresser, and I was wrapped up in his arms, his mouth on mine. Our tongues tangled, each of us trying desperately to give more, take more. At some point, he lifted me up and carried me to the bed. He eased me down, his body covering mine. I opened my legs so he could rest between them. Bracing on one elbow, he cupped one cheek and stared into my eyes.
“Trust me to show you what real love is, and how it should feel.”
“I trust you.”
He smiled, kissed me briefly and then his lips traced over my chin, down my neck and between my breasts. I arched closer as his hand molded to my breast over the lace and satin. His thumb swirled around the sensitive peak as I sighed.
Rhodes pushed up to his knees so he could stroke up and down my hips, thighs, and chest, petting, rubbing, enticing me into a state where I was focused on nothing but his touch. The feel of his hands imprinted in my mind.
He pushed down the cup of my nightie and covered my nipple with his mouth, swirling his tongue around the tip teasingly.
“Oh God, yesssss!” I hummed into the intoxicating feeling.
Rhodes didn’t pinch or grab or grip my body this time as if he couldn’t get enough. He went slow, eased into each touch, every caress of my flesh was purposeful and held meaning.
The caresses were soft, each kiss warm, with long drags of his tongue along my skin, leaving raised goosebumps in his wake.
The man wasn’t getting ready to fuck me.
He was worshipping me.
And that’s when I realized, we weren’t going to have sex or fuck.
Rhodes Davenport was making love to me.
Closing my eyes, I did as he said and let go, reveling in every kiss, every featherlight caress of his fingertips. Every whispered praise he bestowed on me as we learned what one another liked.
For the first time, I laid back and let him show me what it felt like to be loved by a man.
By my man.
My nightie came off at some point but I was so fueled with lust and desire, I had no recollection of when it happened. As I breathed deeply, I watched him reach for a condom in the nightstand drawer, roll it on his cock and kick off his satin pants.
“You ready to be loved?” Rhodes asked.
I smiled so big my cheeks hurt as I raised my arms over my head and spread my knees wide in invitation. His gaze flicked down to my core, his eyes lit with the fire of a thousand suns.
“Mmm, I want to taste that cunt so bad my mouth is watering, but we have plenty of time for that,” he murmured. His large body hovered over mine as he notched the head of his cock at my center and, inch by inch, slid inside.
“Fucking hell,” he grunted when he bottomed out.
My internal muscles involuntarily clenched around his cock. I moaned as he eased out a few inches and then thrust back home.
“Oh God.” I clenched around him again, my body and mind hanging on by a single thread, ready to tumble into sweet, sweet oblivion, and he hadn’t even fucked me properly yet.
So many emotions spread like wildfire through my body as he slowly moved in and out of me.
“You good?” he breathed against my neck, his mouth and tongue working the tender skin there.
“Better than good.” I was about to wrap my arms around his back when one of his hands captured both my wrists. Then his hand slid palm to palm, our fingers interlacing over my head.
I held his hand with both of mine as though my very life depended on it, hoping it would tether me to this moment.
“Maia, you feel so fucking perfect,” he said before taking my mouth in a drugging, sensual kiss.
His hips moved with ease, back and forth taking me almost gently, no… reverently .
Bliss wove through my veins starting at my core and spreading out, lighting up every nerve ending until I was but a spark away from exploding. Then he shoved his free hand under my ass and ground himself against me, his pelvis crushing my clit, like striking a match.
I exploded from the inside out, a silent cry leaving my lungs as he picked up the pace, his hips thrusting with intent. I wrapped my legs and one arm around his body and clung to him, the orgasm going on and on, feeling like it would never stop. Something inside was being stroked over and over with each thrust and I was headed straight for another cliff.
“That’s right, baby. Get there again. Squeeze my cock hard. Feels so good. I’ll never get enough, Maia.” He ramped up the pace, going deeper, pushing harder. “Never get enough of you. Never get enough of this sweet fucking body. Not ever.” He growled, let go of my hand, and slid both under my back to cradle me closer, cupping my shoulders from underneath.
He used this new leverage and went to town, plunging his cock in and drawing it out almost to the tip, before slamming back inside. With each thrust, he ground his pelvis against my clit until I soared once more. He was right there with me.
His skin misted with sweat, and he looked like a golden god from thousands of years ago as his head came up, his face contorted into an expression of intense pleasure and his body stiffened. He came with a long, tortured moan, his entire body holding mine still as he found his release.
Seeing that look on his face, feeling the throbbing inside of me, and the delicate way he held onto me would be a memory I’d take with me forever. This moment took top position over anything good I’d ever had in my entire life.
I’d never forget his face the first time he made love to me.
After he removed the condom and came back to bed, we stayed there a long time simply cuddling. He traced my bare skin up and down everywhere he could reach in this position nestled at my side. For me, I was playing with the strands of his hair, twirling a strand around my finger. It was the most relaxed I could ever remember being.
“Happy birthday, Maia,” Rhodes rumbled against my chest, his breath making the nipple tighten erotically.
I couldn’t help bursting into ridiculous laughter.
“What? I mean it.” He chuckled. “Oh, I almost forgot your present.” He scrambled out of bed naked, and I watched him move around the room, his toned buns flexing enticingly.
He dug through his bag and pulled out a small square red box with the word Cartier embossed on the top. Instantly I started to shake as I sat up cross-legged and clutched the sheet to my naked body. He put a knee on the bed and handed the box to me.
I held the leather box, afraid to open it. I didn’t know a lot about luxury brands, but I knew Cartier was one of the big ones in the jewelry world.
“Open it.” He patted my knee.
I flicked the latch and opened it. Nestled on black velvet was a rose-gold bangle type bracelet without an opening. It was quite possibly the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Around the entire thing were evenly spaced diamonds, making it sparkle. The piece was edgy and elegant without being loud and in your face. There was a curious little matching flathead screwdriver with it. I hadn’t a clue what that was for.
“It’s…I can’t… When did you get this?”
He chuckled. “When we were shopping, and I took that call outside and left you with Emily to try on more clothes.”
“Sneaky. How…um, how do I put it on? I don’t see a latch.”
“Ah ha, that’s the coolest part. This is called a Forever Love bracelet. Once I put it on you, you’re not supposed to ever take it off.”
My eyes felt like they were going to bug out of my head. “Seriously?”
“It’s a symbol of my love for you. Never-ending.”
“Rhodes…” I croaked, emotion swelling all over again.
“Maia, I knew from the moment I saw you that you were special. And a special woman needs a unique and meaningful gift as we celebrate this night. Not only your birthday, but the first night we made love.”
I stretched out my left arm baring my wrist. “Put it on me.”
He cocked his head to the side and grinned. “Once I put it on, everyone will know you’re mine.”
“Like I said, put it on me.”
Rhodes unscrewed the special latch, looped it around my wrist, screwed it back on and kissed the bracelet over my rapidly beating pulse.
“It’s magnificent,” I whispered, full of awe at the gift and the meaning behind the piece.
“Now you’re all mine. And just think…” He rubbed the skin of my wrist where the symbol of his love sparkled. “We still have to pick out wedding rings.”