Spicy Ever After

Chapter 19 #2

Grinning at the modest feast, she crawls forward across the mattress and plucks a bacon-wrapped shrimp off the plate.

“Food. How did you know?” She pops the bite into her mouth.

“How did I know?” I snag a bacon-wrapped shrimp for myself and follow suit.

Damn. That’s good.

Hattie nods, cracks open her water bottle, and takes a sip. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Food grounds me. Gets me out of my head. How did you know that?”

“I didn’t know that, but I do now.” I pick up one of the rolls, tear it in half, and hand her the bigger piece.

Chuckling, she takes it. “I love that you’re a fast learner.”

Love.

The word hits me like a joy taser to the chest.

Even though she didn’t mean it like that, it gives me a clue about how I’d feel if she ever did.

Mind-blowing.

“Oh, yeah?” I tear off a bite of bread with my teeth. “What else?”

Hattie’s liberating one of the meatballs from a kabob skewer. “Wha elsh wha?” she asks around her bite.

“Do you… like about me?”

Hattie laughs, hiding her mouth with one hand, color flagging her cheeks. “Too many things to name.”

I arch a brow. “Too many?

“Yep.”

“Pick one.” I’m grinning like a fool.

She giggles. She fucking giggles, blushing deeper and shaking her head. “You first.”

“Oh, turning the tables.” I help myself to the remaining meatball kabob. “Fair enough.” And I immediately discover exactly what she means.

Too many things to name, but no one’s ever called me a quitter.

“I love how you dance.”

She rolls her eyes. “Like a health hazard.”

Damn, she makes me laugh. “No—” I insist, shaking my head. “I loved watching it and being in your orbit. So exuberant and unafraid.”

On that dance floor with her, her freedom of movement allowed me to shed my own self-consciousness. And just be. In my body.

Her smile is rueful. “I’m lucky it didn’t scare you away. It’s the only thing I enjoy that might pass as exercise.”

I make a face. “Of course it’s exercise.”

She wrinkles her nose. “But it’s not spin class or running, which both Mom and Margaret swear by.”

“So if it’s not what they do, it doesn’t count?”

Her gaze drifts to the side and she presses her lips together, considering. When she looks back at me, it’s with conviction. “Pretty much. At least, that’s what the rule book in my head says.”

“The rule book in your head,” I mutter with a slow nod, ears alert. “How many rules are there in this book?”

Hattie snorts. “Thousands.”

Yep. That tracks.

“And how many do you break on the regular?”

Her glossy lips part on a soundless gasp—as though even asking surprises her.

“All of them.” The words come out hushed. Like confessing this is a risk.

I want to reward it. “Good for you.”

Before the wedding, during the wedding, and at the reception, I felt so out of place. Like I don’t belong here at all.

And now I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Because Hattie might not belong here either.

And I’d rather be outside of this circle with her than inside anywhere else.

I pluck a strawberry from our plate, tear off the stem, and offer it to her. “Dancing is exercise, underwire is the devil, and that rule book is trash.”

Hazel eyes sparkle like a suncatcher. “That’s another thing I love about you.”

I arch a brow in question, as though a fountain made of sparklers isn’t showering my heart.

“That you… encourage me to be myself. That you’re the one voice that says my instincts aren’t just plain wrong.”

My jaw ticks. Is that how she feels all the time? That her instincts, her nature is just plain wrong?

“Your instincts are fucking perfect,” I growl.

She doesn’t catch how much this pisses me off because she tips her head back and laughs.

Probably for the best.

“I also love your voice when it does that,” she says through her laughter.

I pretend ignorance. “Does what?”

Hattie’s eyes shine, her cheeks going pink. “Gets all rough and sexy. Like you’d knock someone down just to get to me.”

And that does it.

I manage to shift the near empty plate to the side table without flinging it across the room, but then I’m on all fours, caging a gasping, giggling Hattie.

“I would knock someone down to get to you.”

Maybe it’s her laughter, that overjoyed look in her eyes that says she knows she has me. Maybe it’s that sexy as hell blush, the flash of her luscious cleavage in that robe.

Maybe it’s the recognition of this gift I’ve been given. This gift I mean to keep. To be the one to cut her free of her bindings. To be the one to dance in the blaze of her light. To be the one who stands at her side. Who’d knock down anyone who tried to take a swing at her.

The one who gets to hear what she loves.

About me.

Fuck me, but I want her like I’ve never wanted anything.

“I wanna kiss you hard,” I warn her.

She grabs my robe’s lapels. “What’s stopping you?”

My girl tugs, and we collide in a kiss that feels like the end of hunger. I could feast on her for ages.

“You taste—” I manage between kisses, “so damn good…”

“Lie down on top of me,” she commands.

“I am on top of you.” It’s true, but I’m still braced on knees and elbows. “I don’t want to crush you.”

She tugs harder. “I want you to crush me. Give me all of your weight.”

When I obey, she wraps arms around me, squeezing tight.

“Oh, God,” she moans. “This is amazing.”

Christ, it is. Her body is a soft paradise, and I never want to leave.

I squeeze her as hard as she squeezes me, then harder.

“Yes! The pressure!”

Her hoarse cry is the best teacher. If she craves my weight, my strength, then she’ll have it.

I press deep, kneading kisses into her neck, loving how her moans tickle my ear.

She bands her arms around my waist and squeezes.

Then she releases and resettles her grip higher, pulling me against her even tighter as she hugs.

We kiss, taste, connect, and resettle, each move a discovery, an ecstasy. One of her legs slips under my robe, and the hot brush of skin on skin between her leg and mine is a maddening tease.

I want to outlaw bathrobes.

When Hattie jerks at my knotted tie, I know I’m not the only one.

“Can we… can we get rid of this?” she asks, a little breathlessly.

“Hell, yes.” I plant a knee on the bed, rise up just long enough to whip off the robe.

Hattie’s eyes widen and her lips part as she takes me in.

“W-wow…” Her mouth clamps shut as her gaze sweeps me. Hattie visibly swallows before she meets my stare. “It… might take me a bit longer to… disrobe.”

I grin at this sweet, sexy woman who is somehow mine. It’s all there in her face. Eagerness. Shyness. Courage and uncertainty.

Her gaze darts around the cottage and her hands go to the robe’s tie. “Maybe… maybe less light?”

“As you wish.” My voice comes out husky and thick with desire. When I climb off the bed, I feel Hattie’s unwavering gaze tracking me as I turn off the light over the bar sink and a sconce over the copper tub. “Better?”

There’s still the bedside lamp, bathing Hattie in a soft, golden glow. Her eyes never leave me, and in them I see a look of admiration and desire I’ve never seen aimed at me.

My heart turns over in my chest.

This woman—this beautiful, funny, warm, and lively woman—wants me.

If I’m lucky, she might one day love me. If I’m very lucky, she could be falling for me now.

And, God, I want that.

The moment stretches as I wait for Hattie’s answer. Her eyes have never left me.

When she finally speaks, her voice is soft and reverent.

“Is this really happening? I’m not just dreaming?” She gives her head a gentle shake. “I never thought this would be for me.”

Even though I’m dying to go to her, cover her with my body, I wait.

“This?” I ask, arching a brow and casting my gaze around the cottage to take in—let’s face it—the most ideal setting two people could want for a night together.

But Hattie just shakes her head more adamantly. “No… You.” Then, in a voice that trembles just a little, she gestures between us. “This. With someone like you.”

The restraint it takes to hold still is enough to drive me mad, so when I speak, it’s through a disbelieving laugh. “Hattie, honey, that’s how I feel about you.”

And then I don’t saunter. I don’t linger.

I pounce.

One second, I’m standing at her bedside, and the next, I am on her, giving her all my weight and kissing her like it’s my fucking divine right.

Hattie gasps. If I’ve surprised her, she’s quick to recover. Her hands race over my back, my shoulders, my ass. I swear, I can feel every cell because every cell hums under her touch.

“God, I love how you feel… So good… so amazing,” she swears between kisses. I move to her neck, moaning through my kisses.

Her hands on my body feel incredible. But I need to touch her too. I need her skin on mine. I fumble for the tie at her waist.

“M-May I?”

But when Hattie goes still beneath me, it’s like I’ve hit a kill switch. I lift my head from the slope of her neck and find wariness in her eyes.

“Too fast?” I ask, willing my breathing to ease, my heart rate to slow. I thought I was taking her cues, but maybe I was just losing my head.

“I-It’s not too fast… I just—” She glances at the lamp by the bedside. Then she draws in a long breath and heaves a sigh.

Why is my woman sighing? Like someone resigned to her fate?

I push up to my knees. “Hattie, honey, talk to me.”

She grasps my hands. “You don’t have to go so far away.” A new look of worry shapes her eyes. She tries to pull me back down, but I hold steady.

“Hang on.” I squeeze her hands before lacing my fingers through hers, a silent reminder that I am here with her. We are in this together. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Again she sighs.

“It’s… the naked thing.”

“The naked thing?”

She nods.

“You don’t want to be naked?”

She shrugs.

I frown. “Hattie, I’ve seen you—”

“You’ve seen me topless. You haven’t exactly seen me bottomless.”

I shouldn’t grin, but I can’t help it. “Bottomless. I like the sound—”

“Don’t tease,” she scolds. “You look like custom-made man hotness, and I’m more… custard-made woman.”

My eyes nearly bug out of my skull. “You can’t be serious.”

She arches a brow—as though I’m the one full of shit.

Just, no.

Hell, no.

These thoughts are not fit to reside in her head.

I push forward, driving our joined hands to the mattress and hovering over her.

“Hattie. I am dying to see you. To touch and taste every inch of you. To be inside you.” I swallow because my throat just dried up. “When we’re together, I can’t take my eyes off you you’re so fucking gorgeous. And when I’m not with you, I see you every time I close my eyes.”

She blinks up at me. And I don’t want to say it’s with doubt, but it sure isn’t with unbridled belief.

My jaw sets. “If I haven’t made that clear to you—how goddamn beautiful you are—I’m a fool.” I try not to scowl, but it’s hard. “And that goes double for anyone else in your life who’s made you feel like you’re not take-a-man-out-at-the-knees stunning.”

Her lips disappear between her teeth and color flags her cheeks. “Um… It’s not that… I don’t think so…”

My brows slam together. “Go on.”

Hattie tilts her head to the side. “For the record, I like what I see in the mirror,” she whispers, like she’s confessing a secret. And, holy hell, maybe it is a secret. “I always have.”

My grin is a wild animal. “Hell, yeah. Then what’s—”

She lifts one robed shoulder in a shrug. “I got used to being the only member of that fan club after hearing things like, You have such a pretty face… You’d be so lovely if you lost a few pounds… The real you is hiding under all that extra weight…”

My jaw locks. “Fucking asshole morons,” I growl.

Hattie giggles and then frees a hand to cup my cheek.

Her hazel eyes shine. “Yeah… I used to go to my room after Mom or Grandma Eloise or one of my parents’ stupid friends would say something like that.

” Her color deepens, her eyes smiling into half-moons as she whispers.

“And I’d lock the door, take off all my clothes, and stand in front of the mirror… ”

My hard cock leaps as though it could reach her. “Yeah?”

“And I’d run my hands over all of my curves, cup my breasts, and look over my shoulder at my hips and ass and the backs of my thighs…”

I swallow hard, straight up loving this image, wishing I’d had a front row seat. “Wow…”

“And even though I knew they didn’t look like Mom’s or Margaret’s or most of their friends…” She shakes her head a little, blinking away tears that suddenly fill her eyes. “I couldn’t bring myself to wish them away, you know?”

“Hell, yeah, I know.” I drag my free hand down the swell of one breast to the dip of her waist. When I reach her hip, I slide my hand under her bottom and give it a squeeze. “Hell, yeah.”

Because, Jesus, what under heaven could be better than this?

Hattie blinks wet lashes and smiles up at me. “I just figured I’d always be the only one.”

Another growl rumbles through me, and I can’t help it.

“You’re wrong there,” I say through gritted teeth.

I drop my hips and hike her ass up, bringing us together. Stars explode in my brain. She rasps my name and grinds against me. A scrap of terry cloth is all that separates my cock from her pussy.

I claim her mouth and kiss her till I can’t breathe. “Matter of fact, your term is over. I’m now president of that fan club.”

I feel her smile against my lips. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I rumble. “Want me to take an oath?”

She giggles. It’s raw honey.

Her hand moves between us, and then I feel it when the tie of her robe comes loose. I hiss in a breath, heart pounding.

Hattie tugs at the one hand still in mine and I release her. When she clutches each side of her robe, I sit up on my heels because no way am I going to miss this. I want to remember this for the rest of my life.

Her eyes lock with mine, and I hold them even when I know she’s pulled the garment open. The trust in her eyes sets my heart hammering.

I love you.

It takes everything not to spill the words. And maybe I should say them, but caution tells me to take this journey with her one step at a time.

It’s only when Hattie cups her breasts in her hands that I break eye contact.

Because goddamn.

Not even that day in the store shed prepares me. She is pure beauty, sweetness, and eroticism from head to fucking toe.

“Hattie…”

I want to say more—I want to say everything—but the rough purr of her name is all I can manage.

I can’t explain it, but seeing her like this—all of her loveliness freely shared—does something to me. It’s as though I get to witness everything Hattie—everything I know and adore about her—all at once.

Body and soul.

It levels me like a wrecking ball.

I don’t stand a fucking chance.

Not one thing I’ve done in my life makes me worthy of this—this gift she is giving me. Her essence.

But even if I don’t deserve her, I’ll be damned if I let her regret sharing herself with me.

“I want to give you everything.”

But what I really mean is…

I want to give you myself.

Take all of me.

I am yours.

And then I prove it.