Chapter 38 Amara
AMARA
There are two things I love in the morning: coffee and… well. You know.
And right now, I am getting neither. Not quickly anyways.
I understand that French presses are fancy and therefore fancy people have them, but I’ll never understand why anyone actually wants one.
And since the regular coffee machine seems to be on the fritz (because what isn’t broken in my life?) I am at the mercy of a “coffee maker” that takes no less than thirty minutes to make me one damn cup of coffee.
I am in the middle of googling how to use a French press when I hear the keypad on the door making noises. A moment later, it rings green and opens.
Ransome walks inside. He’s dressed like he always is, all black and like he’s got some swanky place to be. But I assume, since it’s 8 A.M. on a Saturday, that he’s got no place to be.
“Good morning, Miss Parker,” he says as he rounds the counter.
That’s when I realize he has coffee in his hand from my favorite shop. He hands it to be and I just stare.
“Good morning,” I echo, and it almost comes out as a question. “This feels… backwards.”
Ransome doesn’t respond to that. But he does turn around and slap a stack of papers on the counter. Then he stands back, looks at me, and waits.
“What is that?” I ask, taking a sip of my coffee and relishing it. If he wasn’t standing here, I’d probably chuck that French press out the window. But I am curious about all the paper work sitting on the counter between us. “I don’t suppose it’s my schedule.”
I’m joking, but he’s not smiling. And after I walk over and see the bolded words on the top of the first page, I’m not smiling either.
I look up at Ransome. He just nods for me to keep reading. It’s about fifty pages of legal jargon, which doesn’t exactly make for a light read. Most people just flip through the morning paper.
I finger through it anyway.
Then I realize what it is and set it back down.
It can’t be.
What the hell?
My breath is gone from my lungs, but I force the question anyway. “Divorce papers?”
Surely I am seeing things. Maybe it’s the lack of coffee. Maybe there’s something in the coffee. Either way, it can’t be. Can it? “I don’t understand.”
Ransome steps closer. “I love you.”
My heart drops through a trap door in my chest.
I gasp.
Did he really just say that?
“But… you’re married,” I remind him.
Ransome steps even closer, closing the rest of the space between us. “I don’t care. I want to be with you. I’m getting a divorce.”
“Can you do that?” As my chin begins to quiver, I realize I am shaking.
Ransome smirks, a rare sight that sends my heart launching back up into my chest. “I can do anything I want.”
He wants to marry me. Ransome wants to marry me. He wants to be my husband, not just my baby daddy. He wants to come home to me, take me to business dinners on his arm, parade me in front of flashing cameras and show the world I’m his. He doesn’t want me to be his dirty little secret anymore.
He wants me to be his.
And he wants to be mine.
It’s more than I ever expected. After I found out he was married—to Jenica of all people—I’d quietly given up hope of ever having a life in the light with him.
Slowly, I started shaving off pieces of myself just so I’d fit into whatever space he was willing to make for me.
It was painful, but it was better than nothing.
Now he’s telling me I’ll never have to make myself smaller again.
Still, this is a lot. It’s also more complicated than just what Ransome wants. “What about the truce?”
Ransome puts his hands on my hips. His palms stretch over my belly. Big, strong, protective. “I don’t care about that either, dorogoya.”
His gravelly voice sends a breakout of goosebumps all over my body. “But your family—”
“I don’t care about family traditions either. They’re asinine anyways. It’s not like me being married to Jenica is actually going to stop people like Tristan from doing what they want. So.” He shrugs. “I’m getting divorced.”
It sounds too good to be true. Too beautiful.
But Ransome is looking at me, his eyes the color of the sky rather than ice, and I know he isn’t lying. Not this time.
When he kisses me, I melt into it. The firmness of his body, the possessive press of his lips on mine—it’s all perfect. It makes my knees go weak.
But I still have doubts. “Can you really do this, though?” I gasp, breaking apart. “Tristan is still out there.”
“He is,” Ransome confirms. “And nobody’s talking, which is definitely still a problem.”
“Then how…?”
His jaw works for a moment. Whatever he’s about to say, he doesn’t like it, and I get the sense that I won’t either. “To keep everyone safe, this is going to have to be a secret.”
A secret. I’m still his dirty little secret.
“No.” As if reading my mind, he puts a finger on my lips. “I know what you’re thinking. None of that, dorogoya. This is happening. I am pakhan and I want to be with you, so it’s happening.”
I search his expression. His eyes. But the evasiveness I’d felt back in Montana, when he was still keeping a world of secrets from me, is gone now. Nothing but warm and open sky.
And love.
“Ransome…” My voice is barely a whisper. I’m so happy I can hardly speak. “I love you too.”
Luckily, there are no more words after that.
Our mouths crash together. Ransome picks me up, his hands under my thighs as I do my best to wrap my legs around him, though it’s hard with the baby bump. The other thing that’s hard is pressing right against me, and I am hungry for it.
Ransome carries me over to the couch. He lays me on my back and rips my satin pajama shorts from my legs, taking my panties with them.
“I haven’t showered,” I tell him. “I just woke up.”
“Good,” he growls as he comes to his knees, snaking his arms around my thighs and jerking my pussy towards him. His mouth covers me and he sucks before groaning into me. “Fuck me, baby girl. I love the way you taste.”
I gasp, grabbing the edge of the couch in my fist.
“I could eat you out all day,” he goes on.
“I’d be fine with that,” I breathe, my muscles tense against the teasing of his tongue.
“Oh, yeah?” I can feel him smirking against my skin. It’s so hot, it’s unreal. “I don’t think you could handle it.”
Against my better judgment, I accept the challenge. “Try me.”
Ransome’s eyes slice up to mine before growing dark.
Then he starts to lick. Slowly at first, from my clit to just south of my opening.
He takes his time, tantalizing every nerve as he goes, swirling around every spot that he knows drives me wild.
Then the tip of his tongue finds my clit and dances, suckling and flicking until an orgasm I didn’t even see coming barrels towards me, ripping through my body.
“Fuck,” I whimper, knowing in that instant that I have lost the battle. I let it consume me, ride every inch of it until I have nothing left in me, before I run my hand through his hair, the silent sign that I am finished and can’t take any more.
But Ransome doesn’t stop. Instead, he bears down on me again, his arms locked my hips in place right against his mouth, with no room for escape.
“Ransome,” I gasp.
“You’re not done,” he growls. “Not until I say you are.”
Next thing I know, his tongue is lashing against me again, with more vengeance than before. I cry out, writhing on the couch as another orgasm comes into view, even though I was sure there was no way.
I’ve underestimated him, it seems. But what’s new?
I toss and turn and buck against him as his mouth does beautiful, terrible things against me, making me gush and quiver and moan. His tongue presses flat against my clit, textured and hot and rough and he begins to suck hard. Hard enough to leave a hickey on my pussy.
And I come undone.
Ransome comes to his feet and wipes his mouth with his hand before stripping down. I am a puddle, still fighting my way out of the white light of ecstasy as I watch him stroke his rock-hard cock in front of me.
Adrenaline rushes through me as I realize that he’s not finished. He’s just getting started.
Ransome crawls onto the L-shaped couch behind me and rolls me onto my side. It’s kind of the only way we can do it anymore, with how far along I am. But don’t be fooled. Sex from the side-slash-behind is no joke.
He slides one leg between mine and then thrusts himself up inside of me, deep enough to make us both gasp.
“Too much?”
He’s asking because I’m carrying his child. But right now, I don’t want him to stop.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Okay,” he whispers gruffly before moving my hair to the side and kissing my neck. Then his hips begin to grind against mine.
At first it’s a slow ebb and flow. I let out a breath as he grunts, his hand on my hip while he glides in and out of me. “You’re so beautiful,” he says, looking down at me. “Fucking gorgeous.”
I smile as I breathe in and out with each thrust, never wanting it to end and yet, needing so much more. Ransome buries his face in my neck with a groan. “Ya tebya lyublyu,” he whispers.
“Does that mean—” I ask.
“I love you.”
He says the words again and again. It takes my breath away.
He loves me. Ransome loves me. He loves me so much and he’s not going to leave me, not today, not tomorrow, not ever again.
Because he’s going to marry me.
His hips pick up the pace. He drives himself deeper and deeper inside of me, claiming a piece of me with every thrust. “Ransome…” I whisper.
He grabs my hand, lacing his fingers with mine. “I know,” he says. “I need you too.”
“Make me come,” I beg.
“Yes, Miss Parker.”
He speeds up the rhythm until we are both gasping and crying out. Until our orgasms wash over us.
Once we remember how to breathe, Ransome pulls out and relaxes on his side. I use what little energy I have left in me to roll onto my other side to face him.
Ransome’s softness is something I rarely get to see. Something I’d always hoped was there under that hard surface somewhere. And right now, it’s still there. As we lay naked together, exposed in every way, the sunlight pours through the windows and covers us like a blanket.
“What are you thinking?” he asks as he plays with a lock of my hair.
“I’m thinking…” I tease him with a pause before finishing. “I love you too.”
He treats me to another smirk and a kiss.