Chapter 44
Dominic
I stare down at Cecily, trying to figure out how I got so lucky.
She is pink-cheeked, her dark hair a shiny ring around her head. And she wants me.
Apprehension filters into her eyes. Only a minute ago, those eyes were in the back of her head as I spent time being the reason for it.
"If you think it's a bad idea," she says, still breathless from coming.
"No," I practically growl. "I've just been given everything I could possibly want."
A smile breaks onto her face. "Then what are you waiting for?"
She sits up and gathers her dress, daintily lifting it over her head and tossing it. She's not wearing a bra.
"I wish there were some way to show you how I feel when I look at you." The words are out of my mouth without a second thought, but I'm not sure there was a first thought. I don't remember thinking them, did not consciously decide to speak them.
"I looked at you while you were—" Cecily glances at her center, currently covered by underwear I'm seconds from tearing out of my way. "You looked like you liked it."
"Love it," I correct. Present tense. "Unless you tell me otherwise, I'll be down there daily. Like you're a fucking vitamin."
Her mouth drops open, and I smile proudly. It's not easy to shock Cecily.
"But right now," I tell her, reaching behind myself and gathering my shirt. I pull it off and fling it aside. "Right now, I need to fuck my wife like I promised."
Slipping my hands into Cecily's underwear, I slide them down her legs. Cecily, using her foot, reaches for the waistband of my shorts. I pinch her toe and move it, shucking my shorts.
Cecily's eyes grow with need. We've been dancing around this, saying we absolutely cannot, then fighting how much we want it. I'd hate for her to regret this later. Or worse, to blame it on a moment of passion.
"Cecily," I start, fisting myself. "We—"
"Should date," she interrupts. "When we get back. When this road trip is over."
"I live across the country." Fuck. I hate that I had to say it.
"Long distance," Cecily replies, sitting up. She wraps her hand around mine. Lifts it up and down. My teeth clench.
"No annulment?"
"I've never met anybody like you, Dom, and if our first date hadn't gone so terribly wrong, we might have wound up right here, on this road trip together anyway. We probably wouldn't be married already, but that's beside the point."
She's right. "I care about you, and the idea of hitting the delete button on everything we've been through, I don't like it. I don't know what the future holds, but I'm not interested in erasing us, Cecily."
"I don't want to erase us, either, Dom."
"So we're not getting an annulment?"
Thunder smacks the suite, reverberating around the room, Mother Nature in agreement with our choice.
Cecily shakes her head. "No."
Every tether on my composure fractures. My mouth seals over hers, my exhale heavy and full of relief. The wall I had to put up between us simply for the sake of surviving the force that is Cecily has crumbled.
She rises onto her knees, nipples trawling my chest. Her fingers slide up into my hair, tugging. She bites at my lower lip, running her tongue over the indentation her teeth leave behind.
My hands splay against her lower back, holding her in place as I devour her mouth.
She kisses me like she needs me, like she has needed this for so long.
She pours herself into me. Physically, emotionally, mentally, Cecily brings it all.
It's everything I want from her. Every last drop.
I give it all back, and I hope she can taste how badly I wish we could go back in time, rewrite our history.
We can't, of course, and maybe we shouldn't. Maybe we wouldn't have ended up right here, and if that were true, I would do this all one hundred times over.
Cecily breaks our kiss. "Now, Dom. I need you now."
"Lie down," I instruct. She listens promptly, and it reminds me of the elevator when I told her to pull up her skirt and she complied.
I look down at her, beautiful and naked and mine. "Have you realized the only time you listen is when you think there might be an orgasm in it for you?"
"I can't believe it took you this long to figure out how to properly persuade me to listen." Her dark lashes drop low over her cheeks as she bats them.
I breathe into a smile and come up over her, resting a palm on one side of her rib cage. Cecily mewls as I drag myself slowly up her. "Are you going to listen?"
"Only if you make me come," she shoots back, but the retort doesn't have teeth. She's too breathless. Too needy.
I run myself through her again, as if conversation is normal while I make the motion. "Baby, you're going to come so hard every person in one of these fancy-ass suites is going to hear you through the rain."
Her eyes sparkle with challenge. "Make me."
I glance at my bag. "I should grab a condom."
Honestly, I don't want to. I don't want a barrier between me and Cecily.
Cecily grabs my hips, fingers digging in. "I'm on birth control."
"Bare?" I have to ask. It needs to be clear.
She doesn't answer, at least not with words. She thrusts up with her hips as she holds mine in place, catching me, notching me inside her.
I grunt at the feeling. My Cecily. My wife. Of course she didn't wait for me to push inside her. She took me for herself.
Triumph burns in her eyes. Not hubris, but a quiet victory. She's not celebrating that she got me, but that she allowed me in. In more ways than one.
"Menace," I say, jaw clenched as I sink into her warmth. "My Menace."
Her arms circle my neck and she urges me down, bringing me to her mouth. "Yours," she says against my lips, trembling.
"Mine," I echo, rough and reverent, the word breaking my throat. I move inside her, savoring and memorizing. Slow and deliberate, plunging into every one of her soft gasps as we find our rhythm.
She purrs in satisfaction, wrapping her legs around my lower back, anchoring me to her. To this moment. I've touched her, and tasted her, but this? It's something else. Trust. Vulnerability. Nose to nose, heart to heart. This is Cecily, laid bare.
Her body moves with mine, soft and sweet, so damn responsive. Slow thrusts graduate into something more feral.
Her hips lift to meet mine, and she clings to me. I brush hair from her face, and gaze into her pretty eyes, my lips brushing over hers with every pass.
"So fucking gorgeous," I whisper, rugged and broken. A sheen of sweat mixes with her moaning oh yes and right there and don't stop and me losing my mind, groaning you feel so good and perfect for me.
My hips slam into hers harder, faster. Her nails dig into my back, and I'm filled with need. Desperate, aching need that’s been mounting from the first moment I touched her.
We're wild, urgent, like we’re trying to crawl inside each other just to feel more.
"Cecily...” My voice is raw. I’m close. So close. But I don't want to finish without her. "Come with me," I rasp, pressing my forehead to hers. "I need you to."
And she does.
Cecily's head tips back as her body heaves, pulsing, pleasure ripping through her. I let go, warmth spreading through my body, legs tightening. My hips jerk as I bury my face in the crook of her neck, her name on my lips like yet another promise between us.
We are quiet for a few moments as I lay on top of her, inside her, both returning back down to earth, to this luxury tent in the middle of a pine forest, where raindrops continue to pelt the skylight above us.
Cecily lightly scratches her nails over my back.
I feather kisses over her jaw until she turns her face into me, presses her mouth to mine.
"That was new," she says when she pulls away. "The goodness of it. It felt raw. Slightly unhinged."
I run my thumb along the sweat that has gathered at her temple. "I loved it."
She cups my cheek. "Me too."
My forehead rests against hers, my heartbeat trying and failing to return to normal.
"Cecily?"
"Hmm?"
"You've ruined me."
She's quiet for a moment, then says, "You're welcome."