9. Elsie
Elsie
I wake up safe, knowing I never have to run from Andrei again. I can visit Ros in LA, and my parents and grandparents in Michigan. All of it made possible by the man holding me, arm heavy and possessive even in sleep,
I turn carefully in his arms, propping myself up enough to look at him properly. There’s a softness to the strong features of his face I don’t get to see often, all the watchfulness stripped out of it.
Mischief gets the better of me before I’ve fully thought it through.
I trail my fingers down the ridge of his stomach, over muscle that jumps under my touch even in sleep, and wrap my hand around his cock.
He’s already hardening before I’ve done much and something fierce and pleased unfurls low in my belly at that.
It’s proof he wants me even when he’s not conscious enough to decide it.
“Careful.” His voice comes out rough than usual, eyes still closed. “Woman.”
“You’re awake.”
“I am now.” One eye cracks open, blue-green already darkening. “Keep going and see what happens.”
I keep going, stroking him full and thick in my grip, thumb dragging slow over the head where a bead of moisture has already gathered. He hisses through his teeth, hips flexing up to meet my hand.
I shift down the bed, pressing a kiss to his hip, then lower, and take him into my mouth.
“Christ, Elsie!”
I go slow at first, testing, learning the weight and shape of him on my tongue, and the way his breath catches tells me I’m doing something right. I take him deeper, hollowing my cheeks, and he groans, low and unguarded.
“Fuck, just like that.”
I hum around him, pleased with the way his whole body goes taut, one hand fisting gently in my hair. Having this much power over a man built the way he is, thrills me. I love the way his stomach muscles jump under my free hand and how I’m making him fall apart.
“Elsie.” My name sounds wrecked coming out of him. “Slow down or this ends before it starts.”
I don’t slow down. I take the long, thick length of him deeper instead, working him with my hand where I can’t fit him fully, and he swears low and filthy above me, hips twitching like he’s fighting the urge to thrust up into my mouth.
“Enough.” He pulls me up before I’m ready to stop, flips me gently onto my back instead. “Not like this. Not after yesterday. I want to be inside you when I finish, not your mouth.”
“Bossy,” I tease him to drive the painful memory away and anchor us both in this moment.
He kisses me, slow and thorough, tasting himself on my tongue, sending arrows of desire to my pussy.
He tugs my sleep shirt loose and tosses it somewhere off the bed, then just looks at me for a moment, gaze dragging slow over every inch gone fuller and rounder with our babies. Nothing in his expression but heat.
“Every single day you get more beautiful.” He drags his palm slow over my rounded belly. “I don’t know how that’s possible, but it is.”
“Jesse!”
“Let me look.” He presses his mouth to my collarbone, then lower, cupping one breast in his hand while his tongue circles the nipple, drawing it into his mouth with a thoroughness that has my back arching off the mattress.
He switches sides slow, deliberate, one hand splayed low on my belly the whole time like he can’t stand to stop touching it.
He keeps going, unhurried, dragging his mouth over the swell of my belly, the crease of my hip, the inside of my thigh, until I’m shaking and desperate before he’s gotten anywhere close to where I actually need him.
“Please.”
“Please what?” There’s a wicked edge under the tenderness now, something playful. “Say it.”
“Your mouth. I need your mouth on me.”
“Good girl.”
He settles between my thighs, pushes them wide, and groans. “Soaked already. All from having me in your mouth.”
I moan at the pleasure in his expression.
His tongue drags one long, slow stripe up my center, and I cry out, hips bucking against the flat of his hand holding me still.
He does it again, slower, focusing on my clit until my thighs start shaking around his head, then eases two fingers inside me, curling them exactly where I need it while his mouth never lets up.
“You’re clenching already. Come on my tongue, sweetheart. I want to taste it.”
The pressure snaps fast and hard, my whole body seizing around his fingers, his name breaking out of me.
He kisses his way back up my body before I’ve fully come down, weight braced on his arms. His mouth finds mine, and I taste myself on him, salt and heat.
I drag my nails down his back. “I need you inside me.”
“Turn over for me.” His voice is barely steady. “On your knees. Let me take care of you properly.”
I push up onto my knees and forearms. He settles behind me, one broad hand smoothing down my spine like he’s steadying us both. I feel him against me, hard and insistent.
“Easier on you and the twins, like this.” His voice comes low over my shoulder. “Want to feel you without hurting either of you.”
“How do you know?”
“Read it.”
The thoughtfulness of it undoes me almost as much as the want in his voice.
He drags the head of his cock through my wetness once, twice, groaning at the slickness he finds, before pushing into me slow, one hand splayed protective over my belly, the other gripping my hip. I gasp at the fullness of it, the angle hitting deep.
“Fuck, Elsie.” His forehead drops to my shoulder. “You feel incredible like this.”
I contract the muscles around his cock, urging him to move.
He breathes in. Then his hips roll, unhurried but deep, and I feel every inch of the drag. “I’ve got you.”
He drives into me with steady thrusts, and the hand on my belly presses just slightly firmer with every thrust, like he’s grounding all three of us at once.
“You’re carrying my kids. Every time I touch you here, I think about that. About you round with them. It does something to me.”
“Tell me.” I turn my head enough to catch his mouth.
“Makes me want to fill you up again the second they’re born.” He punctuates it with a deeper thrust, and I moan at the bluntness of it, at how much I want that too. “Keep you like this for years. Watch you carry a piece of me every time.”
“Jesse.”
“Too much?” His pace never falters.
“No.” I push back into him, meeting every roll of his hips. “More.”
He gives it to me. His pace picks up, hips snapping harder against mine, the sound of skin against skin filling the loft along with my own broken moans.
He shifts the angle again, dragging over a spot inside me that has my spine bowing and a sound tearing out of me I don’t recognize as my own voice.
He grinds deep, holds, and I feel every inch of him. “You’re strangling my cock, sweetheart. Don’t stop clenching like that.”
“Jesse, I can’t—”
“You can.” His hand slides down to circle my clit, relentless and unhurried at once even as his hips pick up speed behind me, and I feel the pressure coiling tight and fast, my whole body chasing it, every nerve lit up at once.
“That’s it, sweetheart.” The words are close to my ear now as he curls himself over my back. “Come apart for me. I’ve got you.”
I do, the orgasm cresting hard and sudden, my whole body seizing around him, his name torn out of me loud enough to echo off the loft rafters. He follows almost immediately, hips stuttering as he groans against my shoulder.
We lie on the bed, his hand on my belly, lips pressed lazy against my shoulder, and I let myself go boneless against him, listening to his breathing slow.
“I need to tell you something,” he says.
I turn to face him, something in his tone drawing my full attention.
“When I took you out of the apartment yesterday, I realized something.” He tucks a braid behind my ear, thumb lingering against my cheek. “My life revolved around duty. Then you walked into the diner two years ago and I started wanting things for myself for the first time in my adult life.”
I cup his cheek. He turns into my palm, kisses it.
“I want to live. For you and our babies. Will you marry me, Elsie? Not because it’s the right thing to do. Because I can’t picture a good life that doesn’t have you in it.”
My breath catches, tears coming fast and unashamed. “Yes.”
He slides the ring onto my finger, hands not quite steady, and kisses me like he’s sealing something neither of us will ever be able to take back.
I fall back into him, listening to his heartbeat beneath my ear, and think about how close I came to never getting this — a man who watches me the way my father’s watched my mom for over twenty years, like the miracle of her is still magical. I used to wonder if I’d ever get to have what they have.
Turns out I’m lucky enough to have it.