Chapter 30 #3
“I have a few hours.” Then he pulled off his coat, and didn’t stop taking his clothes off until he was naked, standing before Charlie.
She was also magnificently naked, her curvy alabaster skin glowing with passionate energy, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders, her distended nipples bright and rosy, matching the color of her plump, moist lips.
She reached for him and said, “I guess I’m not tired after all.”
They made long slow love. Unrushed, almost reverent in his touch, his eyes feasting on her, he let the heat simmer and spark and rise as she touched and he explored and they both tasted and intertwined their bodies.
Deep inside her he pulsed, pushed against her lush womanhood, building a roaring fire of need in him until he could only move harder, buried to the hilt, surrounded by her and holding her.
His mouth was on hers murmuring what words happened to be blowing through his lost mind until everything in him shattered, quaked through him, forcing his cry of bliss and pain and endless pleasure.
And love. He felt the well of love in the aftermath of their mutual spasms of lust.
There was no denying it. Not anymore.
The shuddering seemed endless, like this was her natural state, to be captured in a spiral of orgasmic ecstasy with Trent inside her, surging, his cum overflowing inside her, drowning her in pleasure.
And something more. A whole lot more. She felt like she was drowning in her love for him.
She couldn’t contain it any longer, she had to let it go, had to tell him, make him understand how she felt.
Overwhelmed with love for him that would never leave.
“Trent, je t’adore, je t’aime.” She murmured the words in his ear, held his head, stroked his face as he gulped in breaths, as his body calmed. His magnificent body, the body and soul she loved and would love always.
When he lifted his head, she held his face with her hands, caressed the sandpapery stubble along his jaw, her heart breaking and melting and pouring out love for this man who’d sacrificed everything for her. Then she whispered, “I love you, Trent.”
His eyes went dark and she felt him twitch inside her.
“Say it again.” He spoke in a low, hoarse voice, still catching his breath.
She said it louder this time, her high voice breaking the stillness, the peaceful quietness of her room. “I love you, Trent. So much. I adore everything about you. All of you, the good, the bad, the fun, the mean, the crazy intense part of you most of all.”
“You must be temporarily out of your mind.” A tight smile slashed his face and she realized his words weren’t as playful as they should be.
“I admit I’m crazy about you, Trent. But there’s nothing temporary about it.” She gripped his face and lifted her head to kiss his mouth, to loosen it, calm it, reassure him that she meant what she said.
When she was finished, she let go of his face, sensing his calm, and let him roll to her side. He propped his head up to gaze at her, his face open, more than she’d ever seen before, happier than she’d ever seen before, and a silly grin overtook her.
“I don’t know why or how I could be in love you, Trent, but I am.
” She sighed. His heart slammed his chest at her words.
He’d never felt a rush like this, not from sex, not from winning, not any experience he’d ever had compared to hearing her say she was in love with him, feeling her love.
She stared at him with her big brown life-lighting eyes.
“You’re so big and physical and I’m petite and cerebral. You live in the minute with such joie de vivre and I’m so serious and big-picture oriented. You have such passion and I—”
“You have hidden passion, more than enough to match mine.”
“And you have hidden intellect?” she said, a smile teasing her lips.
He laughed.
“Well hidden. As well hidden as your sense of humor.”
She swatted his arm and laughed. The sound made his heart throb and his chest well, made him want to become the world’s best comedian so that he could hear her laugh over and over again.
“Charlie, I’m new at this. I’ve never been in love before. I’m sorry if I’ve made a mess of things. Sorry I didn’t recognize my own feelings. Or acknowledge them. I’m too stubborn sometimes.”
“Are you trying to say that you’re in love with me?”
“Yes. I’m in love with you, Charlie.” He squeezed her. “I think I have been unknowingly in love ever since I heard your insanely sexy voice on the phone the first time.”
“No, that was definitely lust.”
“Whatever it was, it wasn’t—isn’t—something I’ve ever felt before for a woman.” He cleared his throat. “And something I’m never going to feel for another woman again in my life.”
“That’s a big declaration coming from an amateur at love.”
“Look who’s talking.”
She laughed, the laugh that lit him up from the inside out and sparked every ounce of testosterone in him to possess her to the hilt. He felt his cock rise again impossibly fast.
“We should get married for real. Forget the pretense about our engagement. Let’s do it.”
She sat up and pulled the covers around her, giving him that scientific stare as if he were a specimen that needed studying.
“Are you sure? We both have a lot of unsettled problems. Both of us have . . . uncertain futures.”
“Don’t dance around it, Charlie. We’ve both been fucked. Our careers have just crashed. You lost your mother. But why should that stop us from getting married? I want to put my life back together with you in it. Permanently.”
Her face lit up at his words. Taking her face in his hands he kissed her with the fierceness of a man who expected someone to try and take away his dreams.
She couldn’t be happier about being with Trent.
She’d never felt so content. They lay in bed with the blankets rumpled around them, holding each other and talking about their future.
She wanted to take the engagement and plans to marry slow.
He wanted to move fast, but he would agree to anything she wanted.
Except one last thing. She was troubled by her inability to have children—or her refusal to consider it because she carried the gene for Dermatomyositis.
He wanted to roll the dice, but said he’d defer to her.
It was clear that he would continue to try to convince her to take the risk.
She wasn’t sure he’d ever be okay with a decision not to have their own children.
“As a last resort we could adopt. As many as you can handle,” he said. Her heart melted. She remembered how Trent was with Dylan at the clinic and since then, calling him personally to apologize for using Charline’s drug.
“I’d love that so much. You would make the best father. It would be a shame to let all that potential go to waste.”
“It doesn’t mean I’m giving up on having children of our own, Charlie.” He whispered his warning and she shivered, but more from the wisp of his breath on her skin than trepidation.
They could agree to a stalemate for the moment.
“We have to go. I promised I’d be back by the end of the day. The team jet is waiting for us at Logan.”
“We? Us?”
“Don’t you want to come watch me play in the Super Bowl? It would look awfully strange if the future Mrs. Lockheed wasn’t there watching her betrothed.”
She laughed. “Why not? It’s not like I have a job to stop me.”
“Thatta girl. Thinking positive. You can witness my last hurrah in person.”
Charlie went with Trent back to Miami for Super Bowl week and the game. He called his agent and told him to get Charlie a ticket, and he said he’d find a place for her to stay too since Miami’s hotels were all booked.
After the plane landed, Trent’s phone beeped. It was their attorney.
“You’re playing with fire, Trent. The more you associate with Charline, the more difficult you make my job to minimize likelihood of suspension for next year.”
“I don’t care about next year.”
“Rash words. Retirement is an important decision. You should think about it.”
“I finally have. I finally realize what’s most important to me. And it’s not football. Not anymore.” He watched Charlie suck in a breath and look like she’d just won the Nobel Prize.
“I’m only playing in the Super Bowl game for the team, because I owe them. After that, I don’t owe anyone anything.”
There was a pause. Trent watched Charlie. He put an arm around her as they got inside the waiting limo.
“Except me,” the lawyer said. “You still owe me. I’ll be sending you the bill. A nice big fat one.”
Trent laughed.