Chapter 40
I fucked up.
After sorting out my sister’s latest crisis with the caterer’s having forgotten the figs for the salad, I couldn’t find Elliott anywhere.
The flash of hurt in his eyes before I left lingered in the forefront of my mind. He thought that it was still fake for me. He thought that I didn’t love him the way he loved me.
He thought wrong.
I’d been joking around, trying to act cute, but fuck me, it blew up in my face big time.
If not for the rude interruption, I would have told Elliott that our four months of being fake were over, yes. But I wanted the real thing to start the second we got back home.
As cheesy or cliché as it sounded, I wanted to be his girlfriend for real.
I refused to let this entire thing crumble around us because of freaking miscommunication. So, I needed to find him.
Frantically searching the garden, I all but ran face-first into a rock-hard chest, sending a glass of champagne down the front of my dress.
“Shit, that’s going to stain for sure.” A napkin appeared under my nose. “You know if you wanted me to get you wet, there are less messy ways to go about it.”
Snapping my head up, I was met by a pair of pale grey eyes and a mop of black hair.
I blinked twice.
It was as if I was looking at Frederic Dade, except the man in front of me couldn’t have been any older than twenty-seven years old.
A cocky grin slid onto his face. “Don’t worry, chéri, most women are speechless when they meet me.”
“Dios, does your inflated ego make it hard to get through doors?”
“No, but the large package between my legs certainly makes it difficult.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Looking for my brother?” He tipped the droplets left in his glass back into his mouth.
Of-freaking-course.
Olivier—Olly Dade. The youngest of the Dade brothers, and basically Frederic’s double, except for their eye color.
“Have you seenhim?” I asked.
Olly’s attention flickered to those dancing nearby, a pained expression cracking through his cockiness as he watched a dark blonde woman dance intimately with what appeared to be her fiancé, given the size of the rock glistening on her finger.
He stood frozen, eyes tracking her every movement like a man starved.
“Earth to Olly.” I clicked my fingers in front of his face. “Where is your brother?!”
He waved toward the house. Before I got the chance to sprint away, Olly grabbed my arm and said, “Please don’t break his heart, he won’t survive it.”
“I won’t,” I promised and ran to the house.
Please don’t be gone.
Please don’t leave me.
It was a miracle I managed to run up the stairs in my high heels without breaking my neck, but I didn’t have time to take them off. Desperate times call for neck-risking measures.
If I fucked this up, if I’d driven him away, I’d never forgive myself.
Bursting through the bedroom door, I readied myself for the worst-case scenario. I prepared for my heart to break all over again, except I’d have no one to blame but myself.
Scanning the room, my heart seized as I let out a strangled half-sob, half-sigh of relief.
Sitting upright on the bed, tie askew and shoes still on, Elliott looked up from the book perched on his lap.
My eyes flicked down.
Was he really reading Pride and Prejudice?
My stomach swooped, the freaking butterflies coming back with a vengeance and screaming at me to stop being so scared.
I stood at the bottom of the bed. “I thought you left.”
“I won’t lie to you. I thought about it, after all, running away is my forte.”
I winced.
He thumbed the corner of the open page. “But something stopped me.”
I dared to ask, “What stopped you?”
“My damn heart. Because even though you don’t feel the same about me, I love you. I’m falling in love with you.”
Without hesitation, I climbed onto the bed and straddled him.
Behind his glasses, his eyes burst to life with pain. “Please, Livi, I know we aren’t on the same wavelength, and maybe we never will be. And I know it’s wrong to expect you to feel the same way about me, especially when I have so much shit I still need to work through—”
“Elliott, stop.” My voice came out rough. “I need you to stop talking for a second.”
His lips pressed together, jaw tight as if bracing himself.
“It’s about time you heard me say this.”
Anticipation of hurt sat heavily in his hazel hues.
“I love you.” I ran my fingers down the length of his twitching jaw. “Do you hear me? I freaking love you.”
Those three words, the same ones I promised myself to never say, to never feel again. And yet here I was, breaking my own rules and falling helplessly in love.
Except this time, it felt different.
Elliott loved me without condition. He made me feel safe. He made me feel seen. He glued back the shards of my heart that threatened to pierce anyone who got too close.
“I should have said it sooner. I wanted to say it days ago, but I let my own fear get the better of me, and for that I am sorry,” I exhaled slowly. “But I don’t want to let fear rule my life anymore.”
His entire body stilled beneath me.
Nervousness washed over me as his silence nipped at my exposed skin.
“You said that I changed you, that I woke you back up. But truthfully, Elliott? You made my life better.” I grabbed a handful of his shirt, using it to steady myself.
“I was prepared to live the rest of my life alone, buy a shit ton of cats, and become that crazy cat lady that the kids on the street talked about and avoided on Halloween.”
A low chuckle rumbled in his chest.
“Then you showed me patience, kindness, love that didn’t come with a price.”
Love that doesn’t ask me to bleed to earn it.
“So, fuck the cats,” I huffed a small laugh. “Because loving you, Elliott, is like breathing. The only reason it’s terrifying is that I spent so long holding my breath.”
Taking my hand from his jaw, peeling the fingers off one by one, he brought it to his lips and kissed my palm.
“I’m falling in love with you, mi amor.”
A smile slipped across his heartbreakingly handsome face. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.”
Leaning down, I took his mouth with mine and whispered, “Te amaré hasta el fin, mi amor.”
Exhaling between my lips, Elliott’s kiss turned demanding and unhinged, as if hearing those three words unlocked something within him.
A hand gripped the back of my neck, pulling me deeper into his mouth. While the other pushed the straps of my bridesmaids’ dress off my shoulders. His touch remained feather light, tracing my exposed collar bone and teasingly dusting the sensitive parts of my neck.
I pawed at his shirt and yanked the material from the buttons.
He looked downright fuckable in his sage green suit, but seeing him beneath me with his white shirt half-torn open—that was an image I wanted printed and hung above my bed.
One second, I was on top of him, the next, he lifted me like I weighed nothing and stood from the bed.
“As beautiful as you are wearing this,” he toyed with the skirts of my dress. “I think it’d look much better on the floor.”
Slipping out of the dress, taking my sweet ass time shimming the material from my hips, Elliott’s eyes darkened once he spotted my lack of underwear.
“Fucking hell,” he hissed and openly devoured every inch of my body with his eyes. “You’re going to be the death of me, Peaches.”
A deep ache gathered between my legs.
Pressing my thighs together, the dress pooled at my feet.
Elliott inhaled sharply and ran a hand down his chin. “The heavens weren’t playing fair when they made you.”
Tossing his shirt to the side, he undid his trousers and abandoned them along with his boxers.
I’d never get used to how magnificent he looked completely naked.
Thick biceps. A toned stomach. A chest that demanded to be bitten. Dark patch of hair that tapered down to his thick, mouthwatering cock. And boy oh boy, was he thick.
Before I got the chance to feel him once again, Elliott grabbed me and spun me, so my back came flat to his chest.
His hard, throbbing cock pushed between my ass cheeks and rested on my lower back. I bit back a moan as I ground my hips against him, relishing the way his fingers bit harder into my waist.
“Hold on, I need to grab a condom.”
I stopped him by grabbing his arm. “No, I want to feel you inside me. All of you. I want to feel you fill me. I need to feel you dripping out of me.”
“Are you sure?”
Biting my bottom lip, I nodded. “I’ve never been more sure in my life.”
Taking a few steps forward, Elliott guided us toward the mirror perched in the corner of the room.
“Do you see what I see?” he whispered in my ear, stroking the tips of his fingers along my side. “Do you see how fucking unreal you are?”
My cheeks beamed brighter than the sun.
In our reflection, his jaw muscles twitched and his attention remained firmly locked on me as he palmed my breasts, gently squeezing them and rolling his thumb along my pierced nipples until they hardened.
Normally, I’d be embarrassed, unable to look at my own body this way, but right now? I couldn’t look away.
Unable to stop myself from leaning back into Elliott, I whimpered pathetically as he dipped one hand down below my stomach while the other continued to massage my breasts.
“You have no idea how much I love it when you make that sound,” he growled. “Music to my goddamn ears.”
Not giving me a chance to ask what sound he meant, he dipped his thumb between my wet folds and brushed my swelling clit.
The sound of my arousal soaking his fingers made my cheeks flame brighter. The intimacy, the closeness, being unable to look away, the sound of my breath mixed with my own wetness—it was so fucking hot.
I feared I might combust.
And when Elliott’s thumb started to circle my clit, the moan that escaped me was not human.
“Merde, just like that, Peaches,” he praised. “My second favorite sound.”
“What’s your first?” I tried to say normally; however, it came out too breathy.
His teeth sank into my neck, his tongue quickly lapping along the marks he left behind. “When you scream my name.”
Without warning, Elliott spread my legs with his foot and slid his cock into me with utter ease.
“Holy fucking shit.” My legs trembled at the sheer intensity of him filling every inch of me. The sensation was almost too much.
My pussy clenched around him tightly, struggling to adjust to his sudden thickness.
“You’re doing so well.” Elliott ran his nose along the shell of my ear. “You’re taking me so damn well, it’s like your cunt was made for me.”
Chewing the soft inner of my cheek, I swiveled my hips, slowly adjusting to his size. Once I started to move along his cock, my discomfort melting into toe-curling pleasure, Elliott pulled out until only the tip remained and then proceeded to slam back into me.
My legs almost gave out. From this angle, he hit spots that I didn’t think existed in the human body. And if his hand hadn’t remained gripping my hip, I’d have been nothing but a pool of my own mess on the floor.
I lost myself to the pressure building in my core, every nerve ending igniting to life in my body and threatening to consume me.
He took my earlobe between his teeth and sucked. “Livi, keep your eyes forward.”
Blinking slowly, I tried to do what he asked.
“Look at us,” he breathed. “Look how perfect we are together.”
Sweat glistened along my breasts that bounced each time Elliott thrust into me. My thighs trembled. My skin flushed from my cheeks to my stomach. And his eyes were so filled to the brim with lust and love that I nearly lost myself in them.
Like I said, so unbelievably hot.
Swiping his thumb over my clit was all it took. My whole body jerked, the muscles in my legs locking, the very breath in my lungs vanished as my orgasm tore through me without mercy.
Not missing a beat, Elliott rocked himself deep inside me, letting me writhe and convulse along his cock, riding out every drop of pleasure.
A deep, burning pressure rushed from the bottom of my feet up into my pussy, and before I could stop it, moisture leaked between my legs and dripped onto the floor.
“Watch,” Elliott commanded thickly. “Watch yourself as you make a mess all over my cock.”
Oh, holy hell.
I trembled, crying out as the intense pleasure refused to let go of me. My whole body no longer felt like mine. The burning pressure reached new heights and as Elliott’s cock thrust back to the, a dam broke.
“Ohmygod. Ohmygodfuckme.”
“That’s my girl,” he praised. “That’s it, soak my fucking cock with your squirt. Don’t you dare stop. Fucking hell, Livi, it feels so damn good.”
I’d never been a squirter before. But I sure as hoped it wasn’t my last time, because damn.
Elliott followed me over the edge into oblivion. His thrusts grew sloppy, more frantic until his teeth found their way back into my neck and he spilled himself deep inside me.
Once both our bodies sagged in exhaustion, he gathered me in his arms and carried me back to the bed. “Let me get you a washcloth before you put your dress back on.”
“We’re not going back down to the wedding.”
His brows bunched together.
“Remember when you said if I wanted to leave, we’d go?” I smiled at him. “Well, wolf howl. Let’s go back to New York. I’m done with this part of my life now. All I want is to start a new one with you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Let’s go home, Elliott.”
He sighed softly. “Finally.”