Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
OLIVER
Lexi yawns and rests her head on my shoulder as the elevator rises to my new loft.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have one of these guys take you home?” I gesture to Dane and Cole behind us. Cole is about to clock off for the night, and I could get him to travel in a cab with her because it’s on his way.
Not that I want her to leave. I’ve been desperate for the moment when she’s here to spend the night with me. Always at the back of my mind when I was viewing places was whether it was somewhere I’d be excited to walk into with Lexi, show her around, then take her to bed.
And now, finally, that moment is here.
“Of course not,” she says. “It’s been a long three weeks. I’m not letting you out of my sight tonight.”
I wrap my arm around her shoulder and kiss the top of her head. “I don’t ever want to be apart for that long again.”
She tips her face up toward me with a smile that breaks through her jet lag and champagne-induced sleepiness, and fills my chest with a surge of love.
“Absolutely not,” she says.
When the doors open, Dane gets out first, scans the main room, then walks down the hallway to check the others.
“Wow, look at this.” Lexi bends to undo her trainers, but her eyes are scanning the space, her mouth open.
I was confident she’d like it, but I still sigh out a breath of relief that she does.
She kicks off the shoes and unbuttons her coat as she steps toward the room, but I pull her back. “Gotta wait for the all clear.”
Lexi, Cole, and I stand in a slightly awkward silence for a minute or so before Dane reappears, gives the nod that indicates it’s safe for Lexi and me to join him, and for Cole to go home.
I put down the bag containing the heels that Lexi never put back on, and she pads barefoot ahead of me into the vast open-plan living space. “Wow, these brick walls are amazing. Oh my God, and look at this kitchen.”
She runs her hand along the shiny white counter of the island before turning her attention back to the living area.
“Did you pick all this stuff yourself?” she asks. “These gorgeous sofas and everything?”
“Kind of. I had a designer who narrowed down some choices, and I picked from her final list.” And everything I chose, I chose with a thought as to whether Lexi would love it.
“It’s gorgeous.” She moves toward the row of old factory windows that start just a couple of feet above the floor and reach almost to the ceiling. They’re surrounded by white-washed brick.
“Apparently, this was originally a pattern-cutting and sewing room for a company that made men’s ready-to-wear suits. Hence all the windows, because they needed natural light.”
She peers out of one of them to the street six floors below. “I’d thought you’d prefer to be somewhere higher. That’s maybe safer.”
Stepping up behind her, I circle my arms around her waist and rest my cheek against the side of her head, pausing to wallow in the slight floral scent of her hair.
“I wanted somewhere where I could see what was going on. Where I feel part of the neighborhood, not floating way above it.”
She turns in my arms. “And that is one of the things I love about you most.”
“If I started to list all the things I love about you”—I push my hands inside her coat and ease it off a little so I can drop my lips to one of the delicious bare shoulders I gazed at across the dinner table all evening—“we’d be here for a very long time.”
“That’s okay.” She sighs as her head falls to the side, giving me a long stretch of vulnerable skin to kiss all the way up to her ear. “Because I have the rest of my life for you to tell me all about them.”
Those are the most thrilling, and yet comforting, words I could ever hear her say. They are simultaneously a balm to my soul and a firecracker to my groin.
The idea that this incredible, smart, gorgeous woman would even consider that I am the person she wants to spend her life with is still shocking.
“I never thought I’d ever be this lucky.
” I drag my hands up her sides and stop level with her breasts, where my thumbs can stroke their gentle curves.
Just that slight touch makes my cock rock hard.
“Never thought I would ever feel as safe and loved as you make me feel. Never even thought I’d get to know anyone the way I’ve gotten to know you.
Or feel as close to anyone the way I feel close to you. ”
“It’s amazing what twenty-one days of video calls can do.” She rises to her toes to kiss me.
And it is exactly twenty-one. I know because I counted too. “I know you don’t want to move in straight away. But you will move in soon, right?”
“What would your parents think of that?”
“When I told them I’m going to be with you and there was no point to them arguing about it, Mum said, ‘If you do have to live together, couldn’t you at least get married?’”
Lexi’s body shakes with laughter at my impression of my mother’s voice.
“So now they do want us to be together?”
“Oh, I doubt it. But if we’re going to be, they want us to do it their way.” I curl my arms around her waist and pull her closer. “But that’s enough of talking about them.”
I capture her bottom lip in mine, sucking and teasing. But the moment our tongues touch, that’s it. Our mouths press together harder, her hands are in my hair, mine are on her arse, pulling her tight against my throbbing erection. She groans into my mouth and, holy fuck, do I want this woman now.
I break free for a second and brush her hair off her face. “I need to show you the most important room in the place.”
“And what room might that be?” she asks, her cheeks flushed.
I take her hand and stride back across the living room. It’s only when I see Dane standing by the lift that I remember he’s here.
“Wanna go downstairs for a bit?” I ask him.
“Certainly, sir.” He turns his back and presses the button to summon the elevator.
Around the corner, I slide open the huge barn door to my bedroom.
“Wow.” Lexi’s eyes roam the room that’s all soft creams and pale wood furniture against deep green walls.
I turn on a lamp on the nightstand and pick up the remote to close the blinds.
“This is even more like something from a magazine,” she says.
“Not sure I made the right choices with all these light colors in here. There’ll be no tea in bed for me anymore. I’m terrified of spilling it on anything.”
“What would you like here in the mornings instead?” She moves in front of me, between me and the bed, and drags her hands from my shoulders down my chest, then hooks her fingers in my waistband.
“How about this?” I push her just enough that she topples back onto the fluffy duvet.
Her dark hair and spotted black dress are in stark contrast to the rich cream of the bedding. Yet she couldn’t look more like she’s right where she belongs.
I move over her, resting a knee either side of her waist, a hand either side of her face. “I want this to last all night. But I also want to be inside you two seconds from now.”
“That is quite the dilemma.” She slides her hands up the outside of my thighs, under my sweater, then pulls the T-shirt underneath it out of my jeans.
My whole body shivers with excitement at the imminent touch of her fingers against my skin.
“Oh my God.” The second she makes contact, my eyes close and my back arches as warmth and tingles spread through me. “I’ve been desperate for you to touch me.”
I drop my mouth to hers, and the urgent kissing starts again. The stroke of her tongue against mine and the drag of her fingers around my waist and up my back make my cock strain, almost painfully.
“Turn over,” I breathe.
“Very bossy.” She raises her eyebrows, then does exactly as I ask.
“You look so fucking hot in this dress, but I need it off you right now.”
I slide the zipper pull down, kissing every inch of her spine as it’s revealed. Her skin shivers beneath my lips and her body wiggles with pleasure beneath me as she sighs into the duvet.
Hooking my fingers into the shoulders, I inch the dress off her arms, then down to her waist, where I catch the sides of her thong and pull them down too.
Then her perfect round bottom is right before my eyes, and I can’t help but drop my mouth to it for a quick nibble.
She giggles and squirms more. “That tickles.”
Then I finish the job, pulling everything off over her feet, before reaching back up to unhook her strapless bra.
“You can turn back over now,” I say. “If you want to.”
“Oh, I want to.”
And there she is, completely naked before me.
“Christ, I don’t want to ruin everything by popping my lid in my pants again because I’m so fucking desperate for you, but I swear to God, I could come from just looking at you.”
I pull off my sweater and T-shirt together and curve over her, sliding my hand up the silky soft skin of her outer thigh and dropping my mouth to her breast.
She dissolves under my touch, eyes closed, every muscle in her body relaxed, totally at home on my bed and totally trusting of my touch.
Her puckered nipple tightens further under my tongue, and she tenses for a second as she draws in a swift gasp of air. Giving her pleasure feels like it’s my life’s mission, what I was born to do.
When my hand reaches her arse, I slide it under and give her a hard squeeze. She arches away from the bed, thrusting her nipple harder into my mouth.
Each of her responses to my touch, even if it’s only the slightest quiver, spurs me on, wanting to give her more and more, make her soar past every high she thought she understood, show her just how far this can go.
Drawn by the scent of her, I kiss my way down her body, and when I reach that soft mound of dark hair, I can’t help but sigh in wonder.
“Good God, Lexi. I can’t believe I get to do this with you.”
“Please do it,” she breathes.
The second my tongue finds its way between her folds and brushes her clit, her fingers plow into my hair and the most beautiful groan heaves out of her.
The scrape of her nails on my scalp makes my balls tighten with need.