Chapter 40
Forty
Lainey
I scribble at the paper, jotting down just one more thought.
And then another.
And just one more.
And…just one more.
By the time I look up again, it’s to find that an hour has passed and…
Sawyer is standing in the doorway, his expression gentle, his eyes warm, his mouth curved.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, feeling my cheeks heat. “I got a little carried away.”
But there’s no irritation in his eyes when he pushes off the doorframe and walks over to me. “I like watching you get carried away.”
My brows pull together. “What do you mean?”
“This,” he says, indicating the mess that’s my desk. “I love that I get a glimpse of all the thoughts that are in your brain at any given time.”
“That’s a scary proposition,” I tease.
But he sees right through me.
“What?” he asks softly.
“It doesn’t matter,” I whisper.
“Tell me.”
I shake my head. I don’t want to bring in shit from the past, don’t want to bring Ben back in.
“Pages,” he chides softly. “Don’t worry about hurting my feelings.”
“I don’t want to stop worrying about that. But it’s also not just that,” I add before he can protest. “I don’t…”
“Want to bring the past into the present?”
My eyes slide closed and I drop my forehead against his chest. “Yeah.”
He sighs, wraps his arms around me. “The past is what made you, sweetheart. I’m not afraid of it—and you shouldn’t be either.”
“You make it sound easy,” I grumble.
His laughter holds me almost as tightly as his arms. “I know it’s not. But I still want you to tell me anyway.”
I sigh heavily. “Ben didn’t like it when I did this.”
“Did what?” he asks after a long pause.
“Didn’t like it when I got lost in work.”
Silence.
I push lightly at his chest, glance up at him.
He’s scowling.
“What?”
“I’m trying really hard to not speak ill of the dead,” he says, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “But Ben really sounds like an asshole.”
“I think…” I sigh again, heavier this time. “Sometimes he was. And sometimes I was a raging bitch. But I think ultimately we were just too damned young. And I get why he resented my work—sometimes it took over everything.”
“Sounds like, in order to survive, it had to.”
I pause, consider that. “Yeah, it did.”
“And if I was a betting man, I’d say it wasn’t just that it took up a lot of your time and energy—I think he was jealous.”
“What?”
“He was the one with the fancy degree and job, right?” He brushes my curls back. “Then all of a sudden, you were the successful one.”
“I—” My mouth closes. Opens. Then closes again. “I never thought about it like that.”
“I know,” he says gently. “And I’m not saying that’s what he was feeling. I’m just saying…” His big chest inflates and then deflates on a breath. “I’m just saying I like every part of you, Pages.”
And I LOVE every part of you, handsome.
Thankfully, the words stay in my head.
“Hmm,” I murmur. “Are you sure you like every part?”
He grins and his palms slide down, cup my ass. “Well, I like this part.” Up, up they go, trailing along my sides, drifting forward to massage my breasts. “And I really like these parts.”
I chuckle and then do something I’ve only dreamed about, only written about:
I turn to my desk and—
Sweep my arm over the surface, knocking everything to the floor.
His face is comical, so comical that laughter rises in my throat. But it dies a second later at the look in his eyes.
Because they go so fucking hot and then he’s moving.
“Oh!” I gasp as he hefts me up onto the edge of my desk. “Saw—”
His lips slam down onto mine, and he kisses me…
Like I’m his first and last breath and every single one in between, all at once.
He touches me like he needs me to live.
He holds me as though I’m the most precious object on the planet.
His fingers grasp the edge of my shirt, and he tugs it up and over my head, tossing it to the side. “Fuck, I love these parts.”
I moan as he nibbles at the tops of my breasts, as he presses his nose between them and inhales deeply. A slick tongue on my skin, teeth tugging at the fabric of my bra, dragging it down and exposing my nipple to the air—
And to his mouth.
“Sawyer,” I cry as he suckles at me, using his teeth and tongue and lips to drive me insane.
I wrap my legs around his waist, rock against the hard length of his erection.
He draws back.
“Wh—wait—”
His hands come to the waistband of my pants and he starts to tug them down. “I’m going to love another part,” he murmurs.
Then he’s kneeling in front of me, and my pants are around my ankles, and…
His mouth is on me.
“Oh God!” I moan as he absolutely doesn’t go slow and steady, absolutely doesn’t go easy.
It’s fingers and tongue and teeth, lips and soft growls and thick fingers stretching me wide.
But before I topple over the edge, he stops.
“Sawyer!” I protest.
He grins, nips the corner of my mouth then kisses me deeply. I taste myself on his tongue, ache to have him inside me, so I don’t protest when he breaks away, when he flips me around and coaxes me to lean forward on my desk, nudges my legs apart.
“Hold on, Pages.”
I grip the edges of the wood…then groan as he thrusts deep.
Then don’t stop as he pulls back, strokes in, his big hands on my hips, holding me in place as he fucks me hard and fast and—
“Fuck, you feel so good, Pages. So tight and slick.” He nips at my shoulder, hands clamping down a little harder on my hips. “And mine,” he growls. “Forever mine.”
I gasp as he hits a spot inside me that—
“Oh, my God!”
—has me crying out.
And then coming apart.
“Fuck,” he rasps, his strokes fast and furious and hard. “Lainey.”
And then he’s coming apart too.
And I can’t see it, can’t see his face. But I can feel him. Can hold him close inside and out.
And I can have something bigger and better and more beautiful than I ever imagined.
A feeling that only grows as he slowly guides me down, gently holds me close before pulling out and lifting me into his arms.
He carries me to bed, tucks me beneath the covers, and as sleep tugs me under, his words are the last thing I hear as I drift off.
“’Night, Pages. Sweet dreams.”
And I have them. I sleep the sleep of a woman who’s no longer alone, sleep the sleep of a woman who’s safe and happy and looking forward instead of back.
Sleep the sleep of a woman who knows that I’m finally with a man who sees me.
Every part of me.
When I wake, Sawyer’s gone and the balcony door is cracked open.
I frown at it.
I could have sworn I closed it last night.
Then again, I was a little distracted.
Grinning, I climb out of bed, close it and go downstairs, somehow not surprised in the least to find that my desk has been restored perfectly to its previous messy glory.
Every notebook, every sticky note, every pen.
Not neatly stacked, not tucked away in the drawers.
But spread out on the surface, like Sawyer memorized every location with precise accuracy.
Every messy piece of me—
Exactly where it belongs.