Chapter 29 #3
“I’m staying.”
His hand slides between my legs. I’m wet. Have been since he pulled me against his chest. He finds me with his fingers, circles, presses, and the sound I make would embarrass me if anyone but him could hear it.
I reach for him. His cock is hard against my thigh. I stroke him once, twice, my grip firm, and he groans into my neck.
“Condom,” he manages and pushes away from me long enough to find the packet in his jeans on the floor. He tears it open, rolls it on, and I guide him to me.
He pushes in slow. So slow it burns. My body opens around him.
His eyes lock on mine. There’s a question in his eyes—like he’s asking if I’m sure, if this is really what I want—but he doesn’t voice it.
He just waits, motionless, buried to the hilt inside me, his hands braced on either side of the pillow, giving me the power to move or stop, to say yes or no or everything in between.
I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him closer, and that’s answer enough.
The rest of the world disappears—no crowds, no angry phone calls from Malcolm, no craters in Shea’s garden or ghosts in my hotel room—just the two of us, the quilt creased beneath my back, the driftwood and brine in the air, and Dean moving inside me with a reverence that goes beyond sex.
I gasp as the angle changes, a hitch in his rhythm making my whole body shimmer.
He brings his mouth to my shoulder; the scruff of his jaw rasps heat over my skin.
I want to memorize the sound of his breathing, the little low noise he makes just before he loses control.
I want to bottle the taste of him, the smell of him, the absolute certainty of him moving inside me and on top of me and with me, like our bodies always belonged together.
Somewhere, absurdly, I wonder if Shea can hear us, and then I don’t care, because Dean’s hand finds the back of my thigh, and he scoops me against him with each thrust.
I come with his name in my mouth and his body pressed against mine so completely I can’t tell where I end and he begins. He follows, his release shuddering through him, his face buried in my neck, his breath hot against my skin.
We lie there afterward, tangled in the quilt, and each other, and the room is quiet except for our breathing and the distant sound of gulls beyond the window.
Dean’s head rests on my chest. His ear pressed above my heart, listening to the beat. He traces idle patterns on my stomach—circles, figure-eights.
“The treasure hunters are still out there,” I say.
“Yep.”
“Malcolm’s still lying.”
“Also yep.”
“Jasper threatened me in a town square full of witnesses.”
“I’m aware.” He lifts his head, and his eyes find mine. They are soft in a way I’ve never seen them, the gray gone almost silver in the afternoon light. “We’ll handle it.”
“We?”
“You and me.” He kisses my chin, my nose, and then finally my lips. “Two stubborn assholes, well matched.”
“Your family hates me,” I remind him.
“Shea doesn’t hate you. She’s hurt. There’s a difference.”
I think of her in the ruined garden, cradling a tulip bulb like a wounded bird. “She looked at me like I burned her house down.”
“She’s the most reasonable person in this family.” His thumb traces under my breast, over the ridge of my scar. “Give her time.”
“And Piper?”
“Piper already invited you to book club. That’s Piper-speak for I approve of you.”
“Bodhi?”
He snorts softly and opens his mouth over my breast. I don’t have as much feeling as I did before the surgery, but the warmth of his mouth still sends a shiver through me.
“Bodhi will come around,” he says against my skin. “He’s protective. That’s his job. He’ll grumble, and he’ll glare, and then he’ll accept it because he’s not actually an asshole, no matter how hard he tries to be.”
I laugh. The sound comes out watery, half-laugh, half-sob, and Dean lifts his head to look at me.
“Hey.” His thumb wipes under my eye. “None of that. You’re in, Hollywood. Whether you like it or not.”
“Sorry. I’m—” I gesture at my face, at the mess of tears and mascara and whatever else is happening between my nose and my chin. “I’m a disaster.”
“You’re beautiful.” He says it like he’s stating a fact about the tide. The water is eight fathoms deep. The channel runs east. You are beautiful. “You’ve always been beautiful. Even when you were being a pain in my ass on my ferry.”
I swipe at my eyes. “You hated me on that ferry.”
“God, I hated you.” His grin is crooked. “You were so put together. So polished. That smile. I wanted to push you overboard.”
“I wanted to push you overboard when you called me Hollywood.”
“Fair.” He kisses my forehead. My temple. The corner of my mouth. “Stay.”
“I said I would.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m staying, Dean.”
He exhales. The breath comes out of him like he’s been holding it for weeks.
Downstairs, a cupboard closes.
Shea’s still there.
I press my face into Dean’s chest one more time, then make myself sit up. “I have to go talk to her.”
His hand tightens. “You don’t have to do it now.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I do.”