Will You Be My Girlfriend?
RILEY
Iwake up slowly, to warmth, and to a mouth between my thighs.
For a second I don’t understand what’s happening. I’m half in a dream, and then the dream sharpens into a hand spreading my thighs wider and a tongue moving against me, unhurried, like he’s got all the time in the world. I gasp, and my hand finds his hair.
My eyes open, and they land on his. He’s looking up at me from between my legs with a boyish grin on his handsome face.
“Morning,” he says.
“Easton…”
“I’ve got practice in an hour.” He drops a kiss to the inside of my thigh, then goes right back to what he was doing, talking against me. “Figured I’d have breakfast first.”
His tongue slowly circles my clit, and I groan in pleasure. He covers the nub with his mouth and sucks. I shudder with need.
I can’t respond to him. I can’t do anything except hold on to the headboard with one hand and his hair with the other, as he takes his time, the way he always does, until I’m right at the edge of it, shaking, close to orgasm.
He stops. Then he moves up my body, lines his hard cock to my entrance, and slides into me, and I come apart around him the second he’s fully in.
I wince.
He goes still immediately, braced over me on his forearms, searching my face.
“You’re sore from last night.” He studies my face. Then leans in for a kiss. “Baby, I’m sorry, we don’t have to…”
He starts to pull back.
I lock my legs around him and hold him where he is.
“Don’t you dare,” I breathe.
“Riley—”
“I want it. I’m fine. Stay, please.”
He looks at me for a second longer, still not moving, and I can see him deciding whether to believe me.
The way he’s studying my face, it makes my pussy quiver, tightening around him, and he groans.
“T-tell me if it’s too much. I promise, I’ll stop.”
I nod.
He moves slow after that. Careful, in a way he wasn’t last night, one hand cradling the back of my head and his eyes on mine the whole time.
He’s so gentle that it doesn’t take long to drive me to the edge again. I come, this time, harder than the last, taking him along with me.
His body shudders against mine, and his lips latch onto my neck, sucking hard, prolonging the orgasm, until the last tremors roll through us.
Afterward he doesn’t move for a long minute. Just breathes against me, still holding my head, his weight braced off me on one arm.
“I’m going to be late,” he murmurs, not moving.
“You better get going before the club changes their mind.” I smile.
He chuckles. “Worth it.” He kisses me, then eases out and gets up.
A yawn slips from my lips, and I roll onto my stomach, head on the pillow.
He comes back with a warm cloth and cleans me up himself, gentle between my legs, pressing a kiss to my hip when he’s done, and I’m already sinking back into the pillows, boneless and warm and half asleep.
“Sleep,” he says, pulling the blanket up over me. “I’ll see you tonight.”
I mean to ask what he means by that, but I’m asleep before the words come.
When I wake again, the room is brightly illuminated by the rays of the sun streaming in through the windows, and the bed is empty.
His side is cold. There’s a note on the pillow where his head was, folded once, my name on the front in his handwriting.
Coffee’s on the machine. Made it the way you make it, so it’s probably wrong. Rest today. Don’t lift anything. Don’t cook anything. Already got breakfast for you. — E.
I laugh out loud in the empty room.
I take the note downstairs with me. The coffee’s waiting, and it is wrong—too strong, not enough milk, but I drink all of it anyway, standing at the counter in his shirt, and it’s the best cup I’ve had in weeks.
The house feels different in the morning light. It felt staged, the first night I walked into it, in a wedding dress with one shoe. Nobody lives here, I’d said. Somebody lives here now.
No. Not somebody, but a family. Easton, I, and our baby.
My palm settles on my stomach.
I spend the morning doing nothing after breakfast.
I’m in the living room, book in hand, back to my usual routine of reading Hadley Chase, when the doorbell rings.
I check through the window first, a habit that’s going to take a while to unlearn after the previous episodes of Preston’s unexpected visits.
This time, it’s just a delivery, a young woman with an armful of flowers and a garment bag over her shoulder.
I open the door.
“Riley Brooks?”
“That’s me.”
She hands both over, and she’s gone. I stand in the entryway holding a bouquet bigger than my torso and a garment bag I’m almost afraid to open.
The flowers are ranunculus and eucalyptus, cream and green, and a mix of baby’s breath.
He remembers… the flowers that were tucked in my hair the day I got into his car.
My heart skips.
I look closer. There’s a card tucked into them.
My excitement ramps up, and I rush to the sofa, settle into it, and reach for the garment bag first, needing to see what’s in it.
It’s a dress. A deep red. I press a hand to my mouth because it’s beautiful. I reach for the card next and open it.
Riley,
We started this as a lie but somehow, even before the agreement, it was real for me. It has always been real.
Will you let me make this official? Be my girlfriend? Mine forever?
Dinner at six. Wear the red dress, if you want to. Valentina picked it specially for you, by my request. Or you can wear anything you want. I love you, Riley Brooks.
— Easton Blake
I read it three times.
The first time I’m smiling so hard my face hurts. The second time my eyes are blurring, and I have to blink to get through it. The third time I just hold it, the card in one hand and the dress in the other and smile through the tears.
God. I love this man.
I sit with the card a little too long before it finally hits me that I need to prepare for our date.
I put the card on the counter where I can see it, and I put the flowers in water. I take the dress to the bedroom and hang it in the closet.
I’m dressing up to head to the salon when my phone buzzes. It’s Quinn. I haven’t heard from her in almost forever.
I answer it, grinning like an idiot.
“Riley Brooks.” Quinn’s voice fills my ears, warm and loud. “I’ve been very patient. It has been weeks. Are you alive?”
I laugh hard. “I’m very much alive, Quinn.”
“Oh, great! I hear the mid-life crisis is now over. So, you owe me a coffee date. And please, pick a place with good pastries.”
“Is that a way of saying you miss me?” I tease, and I can picture her rolling her eyes.
“I guess we’ll find out tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s perfect,” I say, still smiling.
“You sound weird,” Quinn says. “Good weird. What’s going on?”
“I have a date tonight.”
There’s a pause, and then a shriek loud enough that I hold the phone away from my ear, and I’m laughing. Once she’s calm, she's demanding details, and I give her just enough to keep her curious until we meet.
The call ends a few minutes later.
I set the phone down.
The house is quiet again, but I still can’t keep the smile off my face.
I realize for the first time in a long while that I’m exactly where I want to be with the people I want to be with.
Running away wasn’t the end of the world. It was only the beginning of something beautiful.