Ashlei
Now what?
It was the question I asked Brandon after we finally stopped playing games and fucked at the South Beach Agency Awards.
It was the question I asked myself the next morning, when I woke up tangled in his sheets, feeling like I never left them at all and yet like a complete stranger in a place that once felt like a second home.
And now, two weeks later, I’m left wondering the same thing.
I stretch my arms up over my head and point my toes, feeling the juicy twist as I lean my hips one way and then the other in Brandon’s high-quality Egyptian sheets. When I creak my eyes open, the sun is splaying in through the windows, painting me in a ray of gold.
“I wish I was a painter,” Brandon muses from the doorway.
I smile when I flip onto my side to face him, propping my head up on my palm. “I seem to remember you painting a masterpiece last night,” I say, dragging the tip of my finger down the middle of my chest where he came after I gave him a long, slow blowjob.
Brandon chuckles and shakes his head, crossing the room and handing me one of the two cups of coffee in his hand. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore,” I admit, and I wince a little as I sit up and take the coffee from him. We’ve fucked more than any two humans should naturally be able to in the past two weeks.
Not that I’m complaining.
I eye him with my first sip, taking in his khaki slacks, leather dress shoes, and olive-green button up. “I hate that you’re already dressed.”
“Well, it is Monday.”
I sigh. “It is, isn’t it?”
“I wish I could lie here in this bed with you all day, but we’re both going to be late if we don’t get a move on.” Brandon checks the watch on his wrist, and then his warm eyes are on me again. “Come back for dinner after?”
I chuckle. “I should just pack a bag.”
“Maybe you should pack all of them.”
I pause with my coffee mug hovering below my lips, heart sluggish in my chest before it kicks to life with a thud. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he says, taking both our coffees and setting them on the bedside table. He folds his hands over mine and leans in close, his breath sweet and warm. “Move in with me.”
I blanch. “Move in?”
Brandon nods. “I know you have a place with Jess and Erin, and I know we just made up and there are a lot of things to discuss, but I—”
“Yes.”
He pauses, frowning at me like he can’t be sure he really heard me correctly. “Yes?”
I laugh, pulling my hands from his so I can loop my arms around his neck. “Yes, sir.”
The corner of his mouth pulls up into a sexy smirk at that, and he bites his lower lip, shaking his head before he kisses me long and deep. “You’re going to make me late for work if you keep talking like that.”
“I don’t think either of us would get fired,” I whisper, licking the seam of his lips until he opens his mouth and lets my tongue sweep inside.
We both groan at the touch, and he pulls me into his lap until I’m straddling him and wishing he was in briefs rather than dress pants.
“I mean it,” he says, breaking our kiss and holding my hips still so I don’t keep dragging them along his slowly hardening length.
“I want you here, every night, every morning, every weekend. I want to see you walk through that door sweaty after pole class, and I want your workday frustrations, and I want to watch you soak this beautiful body of yours in my giant bathtub that I don’t use nearly enough. ”
I smile. “I mean it, too.” Searching his eyes, I reach back to play with the short hair at the nape of his neck.
“I don’t think you understand. These last few months without you…
I haven’t known what to do. I was going to work, and I was going to pole, and I was hanging out with friends and going out and trying to move on, but I just felt…
stuck. Numb. Like the world was still spinning but I was hovering right above it, unable to put my feet on the ground and walk forward. ”
Brandon heaves a sigh, letting his forehead rest against mine. “I know exactly what you mean. God, that day after I ran into you on my run…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know what death feels like, but I imagine the way my chest was splitting open that I came pretty close.”
“Stubborn asshole,” I tease, kissing his nose. “You could have had me, right then and there.”
“I was angry.”
“And stubborn.”
“That, too,” he admits, pulling back to look me in the eyes. “But you kissed someone else.”
“She kissed me.”
Brandon levels his gaze with me, then, and I sigh, waving him off.
“Fine,” I admit. “I wasn’t innocent, I’ll give you that. But that little bitch ambushed me!” I pout. “Am I going to have to defend myself forever?”
Brandon chuckles at that. “No. I’ve already forgiven you, and I’m ready for both of us to move on.”
“Me, too.”
“You are the most frustrating woman I have ever met, but you keep me on my toes. I can’t predict you. And I like it.”
I smirk. “Good, because that won’t change once I move in.”
“I hope it never changes. It’s what I love about you.”
I sigh, closing my eyes. “Say it again.”
“What?”
“That you love me.”
His hands squeeze my hips and I squeal when he effortlessly lifts me and presses me into the sheets, his hips separating my thighs.
“I love you, Ashlei Daniels,” he whispers against my neck before kissing a line down to my collarbone.
“I love you, too, Mr. Church.”
For a while, we just hold each other, kissing and touching and soaking in the morning rays. I haven’t dressed after Brandon stripped me last night, so as he runs his fingertips over my skin, I break out into a waterfall of chills.
“This is a big step, you know,” I say after a while. “With big implications.”
“Implications, huh?”
“Mm-hmm,” I say. “I mean, if I tell my parents that I’m moving in with a man, I imagine they’ll want to know what comes next.”
“And what do you want to come next?”
“I want to marry you and have twelve babies.”
“Twelve?” He barks out a laugh. “We need a bigger penthouse.”
“Or a real house. With a yard. Oh, and a dog!”
Brandon smiles, his eyes flicking between mine, and I expect him to laugh or call me crazy or tell me to slow down and hold my horses.
Instead, he just sweeps my hair out of my eyes and kisses me, soft and sweet. “Whatever you want.”
“You’re asking for trouble, not giving me any parameters.”
“I only want one thing, and that’s you. So as long as you’re mine, the rest is your call.”
I bite my lip, accepting his next kiss with my heart riding on the wings of a thousand butterflies.
“So,” he says, already kissing his way down to the swells of my breasts. He sucks a nipple between his teeth and bites gently. “Should we make a plan?”
I moan, arching into his touch, and I already know without him touching me that I’m wet and aching between my legs.
“Step one, I ride you until we’re both very late for work,” I say, and with the words, I roll us so I’m sitting on top.
“Step two, we go to work.” I unfasten his belt, unzip his pants.
“Step three, you meet me at my place and help me pack.” I yank his pants and briefs down, both of us laughing as I struggle in the process.
But once his cock is free, both of our laughter fades.
“And step four,” I breathe, running the smooth pad of my thumb over his glistening tip. “You bring me home.”
“Home,” he echoes, and then he groans as I roll my fist over his shaft. “I could get used to that.”
“Me, too, Mr. Church.”
And then my mouth is on his cock, and his hands are in my hair, and we’re well on our way to step one.
Who knows.
Maybe one day I’ll be Mrs. Church.
I rather like the sound of that.