25. Blythe
— ? —
Blythe
We didn’t even make it through the rest of the workday.
Reid was already packing his briefcase before I’d finished buttoning my shirt, his movements quick and urgent.
His hands were shaking. I noticed that, the tremor in his fingers as he shoved papers into folders without looking at them.
The same hands that had been so steady on my body moments before, now trembling with the effort of doing something as mundane as organizing documents.
“What are you doing?” I asked, watching him from my perch on the edge of his desk.
“Going home.” He looked up at me, and his eyes were dark and desperate. “With you. Right now. Unless you have other plans.”
“I don’t have other plans.”
“Good.” He grabbed his jacket, took my hand, and practically dragged me out of the office.
His assistant, a middle-aged woman named Dorothy who’d worked for him for years, watched us go with wide eyes. She’d definitely heard something through the door. She’d definitely noticed that my hair was mussed and his shirt was untucked and we were leaving hours before either of us normally would.
I didn’t care. Let her think whatever she wanted. Let the whole building think it. Let the whole world know that Blythe Navarro had just reconciled with her husband in his office in the middle of the afternoon.
The drive to Windrose took twenty minutes. We didn’t speak. His hand stayed on my thigh the whole way, warm and possessive, and every time I shifted in my seat he gripped a little tighter. Like he was afraid I might disappear. Like he needed physical proof that I was really there.
I understood the feeling. I kept looking at his profile, the strong line of his jaw, the set of his shoulders, the way his eyes flicked to me every few seconds like he couldn’t quite believe what was happening.
We’d spent two weeks apart. It felt like a lifetime.
We made it through the front door of Windrose. Bayes came thundering down the hallway to greet us, his whole body wiggling with joy, and Reid gave him exactly three seconds of attention, a quick pat, a murmured “good boy,” before steering me toward the living room.
“Reid-”
“I need you.” His voice was wrecked. “I’ve needed you for weeks.
Every night, lying in that hotel room, thinking about you.
Every day, watching you across the office, wanting to touch you and not being allowed to.
” His hands found my waist, pulled me hard against him so I could feel exactly how much he meant it. “Please.”
I pulled him down onto the couch.
This time was different from the office.
That had been desperate, frantic, two people who’d been apart too long crashing into each other like a car wreck.
This was slower. Certain. Filthy in a quieter way.
I pushed him back against the cushions and climbed on top of him, straddling his lap, and he let me.
Let me set the pace. Let me control everything.
His big hands settled gentle on my hips as I rolled against the thick ridge already straining his trousers.
“Look at you,” he breathed, eyes locked on my face like he was memorizing every freckle. “God, look at you. Sitting on my cock like you own it.”
“I do own it.” I ground down harder, feeling him throb. “I’m looking at you too.”
“Then you can see how completely gone I am.” His thumbs slipped under my shirt, tracing hot circles on bare skin. “How much I love you. How much I want to bury myself so deep you forget there were ever weeks without this.”
I kissed him to shut him up, slow and deep, tongues sliding. We stripped without rushing, clothes landing in careless piles on the floor. When I finally sank down onto him, taking all of him inch by inch, we both groaned into each other’s mouths.
“Fuck, Blythe.” His hands flexed on my hips but didn’t push. “So tight. So perfect. Ride me however you want. Use me.”
I did. Slow rolls of my hips at first, then deeper, grinding my clit against him on every downstroke while the afternoon light painted gold across his chest. His eyes never left my face.
His hands never stopped moving, roaming my waist, my thighs, my tits, my jaw, like he needed to touch every inch to prove I was real.
“That’s it, menace. Take what you need. Your cunt feels like heaven. Hot and wet and gripping me like it missed me as much as I missed you.”
“It did,” I gasped, leaning forward to brace on his shoulders, bouncing harder now. “Missed this cock. Missed you filling me up.”
He sat up suddenly, wrapping those strong arms around me so we were chest to chest, mouths crashing together again while I kept riding him.
The new angle made him hit even deeper. I came first with a broken moan against his lips, pulsing around him, and he followed right after, groaning my name as he spilled hot inside me.
We stayed where we’d landed, wrapped around each other on the couch, his arms locked at my back, my cheek over his heart. I could feel his heartbeat under my cheek, gradually slowing as our bodies cooled. Bayes had given up waiting for attention and was sprawled at our feet, snoring.
“What happens now?” I asked.
His hand stilled on my back. “What do you mean?”
“I’m still pregnant.” I lifted my head to look at him. The words felt heavy in my mouth, weighted with all the complications they carried. “That’s still the situation. And it’s still biologically-”
“Don’t.” His voice was sharp, cutting me off. Then, softer: “Don’t say his name. Not right now, not ever, if you don’t want to.”
“Reid-”
“It’s mine.” He sat up, pulling me with him, his hands cupping my face. His eyes were fierce, burning with determination and desperation and love all mixed together. “If you’ll have me. The baby is mine. I don’t care about biology. I don’t care about paperwork. I don’t care about any of it.”
“You can’t just decide that.”
“Watch me.” His jaw tightened. “That child is mine, and I will love them and raise them and be their father in every way that matters. I’ll teach them to read and ride a bike and navigate by the stars.
I’ll be there for every nightmare and every scraped knee and every first day of school.
I’ll be their father, Blythe. If you’ll have me. ”
I stared at him.
I believed him instantly. Without hesitation, without doubt, without any of the careful analysis I usually applied to men’s promises. I just believed him.
And that terrified me far more than doubting him would have.
“I’d love that,” I whispered. “And the child will love his father too.”
Something cracked in his expression. His eyes went bright, shining with tears he was trying to hold back, and he made a sound, half laugh, half sob, and pulled me into his arms so tight I could barely breathe.
“Thank you.” His voice was muffled against my hair. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I’m thanking you anyway.” He pulled back, and his face was wet. Reid Navarro, the man who couldn’t show emotion to save his life, was crying. “I’m going to thank you every day for the rest of my life.”
I kissed him. Soft at first, then deeper, and I felt the moment the kiss shifted from tender to hungry. His hands tightened on my waist. His breath came faster. His cock, still half-hard and slick against my thigh, twitched back to full life.
“Again?” I murmured against his mouth.
“I can’t help it.” He was already moving, already pulling me closer, hips rolling. “You do this to me. You always do this to me. One look and I’m wrecked.”
“Then let me take care of you this time.”
I pushed him back against the cushions. Kissed my way down his chest, lingering on the places that made him twitch, his stomach, the sharp cut of his hips, lower.
He made a sound when I wrapped my hand around him and licked a slow stripe up the underside, a deep groan that seemed to come from his bones.
“Blythe-”
“Shh.” I looked up at him through my lashes, lips already shiny. “Let me. Want to taste us on you.”
I took my time. Slow and worshipful and filthy, the way he’d done for me so many times.
Swirled my tongue around the head, sucked him down as deep as I could, hollowed my cheeks and bobbed while my hand stroked what wouldn’t fit.
He talked the whole way through in that flat, literal, completely ruined voice, saying things that made my whole body flush and my empty pussy clench.
“That’s it. Just like that. Fuck, your mouth.
So good, so perfect. Looking up at me with those eyes while you suck my cock like you were made for it.
” His hand found my hair, gentle, not pushing.
“I’m going to spend every day of forever making you happy.
Every single dirty minute of it. Going to wake you up with my tongue.
Fuck you over the kitchen counter. Make you come so many times you forget how to spell your own name.
” His voice cracked when I took him deeper and moaned around him.
“God, Blythe. The things you do to me. The way you take me. Perfect. Mine.”
When he was close, when his voice got rough and his hips started twitching up into my mouth, I pulled off with a wet pop and climbed back up his body.
“Wait-” His hands grabbed my hips, desperate. “Let me return the favor, let me eat that pretty-”
I shook my head and sank down onto him in one slow glide, taking him to the hilt. My forehead pressed to his.
“I want you close,” I whispered. “As close as possible. Inside me when you come.”
He made a sound that was almost a whimper. Then he wrapped his arms around me and rolled us carefully onto our sides so we were facing each other, legs tangled, as close as two people could physically get. One of my thighs hooked over his hip. His cock buried deep.
We moved together in the fading afternoon light, slow deep rolls, no rush.
His eyes never left mine. His hands never stopped touching me, stroking my back, my ass, my thigh, sliding between us to rub gentle circles on my clit.
When I started clenching around him he groaned and thrust a little harder, still careful, still so deep.
“Come with me,” he rasped. “Want to feel you. Want to fill you up while you squeeze every drop out of me.”
I did. We fell apart together, mouths open against each other, his release pulsing hot and thick inside me while I shook through my own orgasm, holding on tight.
Afterward, in the growing dark, he pressed his lips to my forehead and stayed there.
“I never knew it could be like this,” he said quietly. “I never knew I could feel this much.”
I traced patterns on his chest. “Me neither.”
“I’m going to be a good father.” His voice was fierce. “I’m going to be the father mine was. Present. Loving. There for every moment.”
“I know you will.”
“And I’m going to be a good husband.” He pulled back to look at me, his eyes serious. “I’m going to earn your trust back. Every day. For the rest of our lives.”
I smiled. “That sounds like a lot of work.”
“It’s the only work that matters.” He kissed me softly. “You’re the only thing that matters.”
We lay there in the dark, wrapped around each other, and I thought about all the years I’d spent with Stan, years of feeling alone even when he was in the room, years of giving everything and getting nothing back. Years of wondering what was wrong with me, why I couldn’t be enough.
This was different. This was real.
“Reid?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you too.”
He went still. Then his arms tightened around me, and he buried his face in my hair, and I felt something wet against my scalp.
“Say it again,” he whispered.
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you, Reid Navarro.” I pulled back to look at him. “I love you, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life showing you.”
He kissed me. Deep and desperate and full of everything he couldn’t say.
And in the dark, with his arms around me and his heart beating against mine, I finally felt like I was home.