Chapter 4 #2
“Because you said you didn’t want me tonight.”
“I never said that. I would never say that.” As he spoke, he leaned forward, forcing her onto her back. He followed her, never losing their tenuous connection. “I said I was afraid I might hurt you because I was wound up.”
“And I said you could never hurt me, because I believe that’s true.”
“I’d never hurt you on purpose.” He withdrew from her and leaned over to kiss the small baby bump. “Or our babies.”
Aching for him, Laura combed her fingers through his shaggy blond hair. “I heard something about pulling out all the stops to prepare me?” Despite the ache, she kept her tone lighthearted, hoping it would have the desired effect on him.
“I might’ve mentioned something about that.
” He never touched her with anything other than supreme tenderness, but tonight he took the tenderness to a whole new level, perhaps trying to compensate for his fear of losing control.
Settling between her legs, which were propped on his broad shoulders, he opened her to his tongue.
Laura arched into the heat of his mouth, grasping handfuls of the sheet to anchor her to the bed.
Encouraged by her moans of pleasure, he slid a finger into her as he sucked on her clit.
The combination detonated her release, forcing her to muffle her cries with her hands so she wouldn’t wake the baby.
As she came down from the incredible high, he moved over her but kept her legs propped open on his thighs.
“I think you might be more ready now,” he said, testing his theory with his fingers.
“I think you might be right,” she said between deep breaths.
“Let’s see, shall we?”
Laura reached for him, bringing him in for a kiss as he pressed his cock into her, his entry stretching and burning despite the preparation.
“So hot and so tight,” he whispered against her lips as he moved her legs from his thighs to wrap them around his hips. “It’s all I can do to hold on until you let me in. Every damned time.”
“I’m sorry it takes so long.”
“I’m not. It feels better than anything ever has.”
“For me, too.”
“I don’t know if I believe that. I get an awful lot of complaints.”
His teasing was a huge relief to her. Underneath all the worry and heartache he was dealing with, her Owen was still in there and hopefully still would be after the showdown with his father.
“They’re not complaints, per se, but rather commentary on the fact that you did, in fact, get more than your share.”
His laughter went a long way toward easing the knot she’d carried in her belly all day as she worried about the trial causing a rift between them.
She couldn’t let that happen. No matter how difficult it got, she had to be the one to keep them on an even keel.
He deserved nothing less after all he’d given her.
He kissed and touched and cajoled until he was fully embedded in her, which caused them both to tremble and cling to each other.
Owen was always careful not to put too much weight on her abdomen, and tonight was no exception.
He took her on an exquisitely erotic journey without causing her a moment of pain or uncertainty over how much he loved her.
He told her so every time he looked at her or touched her or spoke to her. As he made slow, sweet love to her, his gentle strokes igniting her all over again, Laura wished she could make him see that there wasn’t one bit of his father in the man he’d grown up to be.
“Owen.”
“What?”
“I love you so much. I love you more than I’ll ever love anyone.”
“You’re allowed to love our babies more than you love me.”
She shook her head. “I love them as much as I love you. Not more.”
His forehead landed on hers. His hands curled around her shoulders as he pressed deeper into her.
Laura tightened her legs around him and lifted her hips to meet him stroke for stroke until they both cried out from the incredible pleasure that overtook them.
Still buried deep inside her, he moved to his side, taking her with him.
He pulled her leg up and over his hip as he continued to throb and pulse with aftershocks.
Touching her lips to his chest, Laura closed her eyes and breathed in the familiar scent of him. “If you really don’t want me to go with you, I’ll stay home. If that’s what you need, I’ll do it.”
“I was down on the beach before, thinking about how badly I want to spare you the trip, the trial, all of it. If I had my way, you’d never lay eyes on Mark Lawry.
But since I made my stand about you not going, I’ve begun to worry that I won’t be able to handle it if you aren’t there.
And that makes me the most selfish bastard on earth, because I know you’d be so much better off if you stayed home. ”
“You’re not selfish, Owen. You’re the opposite of selfish.
If you asked me your biggest flaw, I’d say that you think of everyone else before yourself.
And that goes right back to your father and the way you were raised and how you looked out for everyone at your own expense.
You’re still doing it, and all I’m trying to tell you is you don’t have to anymore. ”
He tightened his arms around her and kissed her. “Keep reminding me, okay? It might take me a while to get the message.”
“We’ve got the rest of our lives to work on it.”
“The rest of our lives,” he said with a sigh. “That sounds so good to me.”
She kissed him and caressed the stubble on his jaw. “It sounds like paradise to me.”
“While I was at the beach, I tried to imagine what it would be like if this trial was happening before I had you and Holden in my life. I’d be going insane—much more so than I am now.”
“I’m glad that having us around helps you.”
“It does help me, Laura. I hear you tell people all the time about how much I do for you, but you’ve given me my first taste of normal. You can’t possibly know how much that means to me.”
“I want you to remember that over the next few weeks. I want you to focus on what you have now and not on what used to be. Those days are over, and they don’t matter anymore.
You’re no longer the helpless kid who didn’t have any options or any way to protect the people he loved.
You’re a big, strong man who takes care of everyone in his life with love and kindness. ”
“Will you keep telling me that, too? And will you ignore me if I’m a total asshole over the next few weeks—at a time when we’re supposed to be blissfully happy and looking forward to our wedding?”
“I’ll keep telling you, and I’ll never ignore you no matter what you say or do. It’s not your fault the timing worked out this way. The trial was supposed to be long over by now, so don’t add the delays to the list of things you feel the need to be sorry about. None of this is your fault.”
He smoothed her tangled hair back from her face with the gentle caress of his big hand. “The day after Janey’s wedding, when I found you outside the hotel in the rain, looking up at the place… That was the day my real life began. Everything before that… Well, it doesn’t matter now that I have you.”
“It matters because it made you who you are, and I love who you are. But it has nothing to do with the life we’ve made together—unless we let it.”
Owen toyed with the engagement ring on her finger, spinning it around and touching it as if he needed the reminder of their connection. “I’d never let that happen.”
Though he spoke emphatically, Laura was still afraid of what the trial might do to undercut his hard-won freedom from a painful past.