21. Georgina #2
He looks at the book he has put down, as if he needs reminding what he was doing. “Nothing I can’t abandon immediately.”
“Good.” I look around the small room, taking in the details I couldn’t see from below. “I wanted to see where you were hiding yourself every night.”
“I’m afraid there isn’t a second chair.” He gestures at the one by the window. “You can have that. I’ll sit on the bed.”
“I think we can manage.” I walk to the window and look out at the dark yard below. From here, I can see the house and the little pool of light outside the garden door. I have stood on the other side of that distance so often, telling myself I was quite content to go to bed alone.
Max comes to stand beside me. He doesn’t ask again why I’m here, though I can feel the question in the way he turns toward me.
I turn to face him. In the soft light of the lamp, he looks younger than he has in months, the lines of tension eased from his face.
I think about the way he rode beside me today, the joy in his smile when I asked for the gallop, the way he listened over dinner while I told him every part of it again.
“I wanted more time with you.” I say it quietly, watching his face.
“You could have asked me to stay downstairs.” His voice is quiet, hopeful enough to make my throat tighten.
“I know.” I reach for his hand, threading my fingers through his. “But I wanted to come to you.”
He looks down at our hands, then back at me. I can see him trying not to make too much of it before I’ve finished, and I don’t want to leave him guessing.
“I want us to try again, Max. Properly. I want to be your wife without spending half my time preparing to be disappointed.”
His fingers close around mine. “So do I. More than anything.”
“I know things won’t always be like this.” I glance toward the dark yard. “You’ll compete again. We’ll have ordinary days when we’re tired and impatient and neither of us is particularly charming.”
“I hope you’ll warn me when that happens. I’ve been assuming I was charming throughout.”
A laugh escapes me, and some of the tension leaves his face. I step closer, keeping hold of his hand.
“Last Tuesday, when I didn’t feel like riding, you still came for coffee. And when I asked you to look at those estate estimates, you stayed until we finished. You didn’t make me feel as though I was keeping you from something better.”
“You asked what I thought.” His thumb moves against my fingers. “I liked being asked. Even when you disagreed with most of it.”
“Only the drainage.” I smile, then look down at our hands again. “That’s what I want. To make plans with you. To be able to say I miss you before I’ve spent a month pretending I don’t.”
He is quiet for a moment. “And I need to hear it without explaining why you shouldn’t.”
I look up. He meets my eyes, and there is none of the hurried reassurance I used to accept because I didn’t know how to ask for more.
“Yes,” I say. “That would help.”
My ring is still off, and I’m not ready to change that tonight. But I want to find out whether we can have the life we’re talking about.
He lifts our joined hands to his mouth. The kiss is warm against my fingers, and I watch him lower them slowly, reluctant to let go.
“What would you like to do now?” His voice is lower when he asks it, and I can hear the smile he is trying to hide.
“This.” I step closer and press my mouth to his.
He responds immediately, his hands coming up to frame my face. The kiss starts slow, then breaks open when I suck on his lower lip. He makes a rough sound and deepens it, tongue sliding against mine, tasting me like he has been starving for it. I open for him without hesitation.
My fingers fist in his hair. His hands drag down my back and haul me flush against him until I can feel every hard inch of him through his trousers.
“Elle.” He pulls back just enough to look at me, breathing hard. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I don’t hesitate. My voice already sounds wrecked. “I want to stay tonight.”
Relief floods his face, raw and unguarded. Then hunger replaces it.
“I’d like that,” he says, rougher now. “Very fucking much.”
He kisses me again, filthy this time, no careful edges left. I moan into his mouth when his thigh slots between mine and presses up.
The friction makes my hips roll without permission. He groans approval and does it again, firmer, grinding me on his thigh until a whimper slips out of me.
“That sound.” He bites gently at my jaw, then my throat. “Do that again.”
I do, helpless, when he palms my breast through the sweater and squeezes. “Max… Please.”
“I’ve missed you.” He says it against my skin while he shoves the sweater up and gets his mouth on me, hot and wet over my nipple. “Every day. Missed this. Missed how wet you get when I put my hands on you.”
“I’ve missed you too.” My head tips back. Another whimper. “God. Don’t stop.”
He doesn’t. He works my other breast with his hand while he sucks, then scrapes his teeth just enough to make me gasp. When he finally lifts his head, his mouth is wet and his eyes are dark.
“Come here.”
He walks me to the door, opens it, and pulls me out onto the narrow landing. Cool stairwell air hits my bare stomach. He sits hard on the top step, braces himself on the rail, and looks up at me like a man who has decided to stop being polite.
“On my lap. Now.”
I straddle him. The moment my weight settles, I feel how hard he is beneath me, thick and insistent through fabric, and I moan at the pressure. His hands clamp on my hips and guide me into a slow, filthy grind.
“Fuck. Yes. Ride me just like that.” His voice is raw praise. “Look at you, princess. Dripping on my stairs, grinding on my cock like you couldn’t wait another second.”
“Max…” It comes out as a whimper. I rock harder. The landing creaks. He thrusts up to meet me and I cry out, soft and broken.
“That’s it. Louder. Nobody’s going to hear you over your own need.” He shoves a hand between us, finds me through my trousers, and presses. “You’ve been aching for this.”
“Yes! Yes… Please.”
He undoes my trousers with impatient hands. I lift enough for him to shove them down my thighs. His fingers slide into my underwear and then into me, two at once, thick and sudden, and I moan so loud he has to kiss me to catch it.
“Quiet for the stairs,” he murmurs against my mouth, pumping his fingers. “Save the rest for when I’m buried in you. Cazzo, you’re clenching already. Perfect. So fucking perfect.”
I ride his hand shamelessly, whimpering into every kiss, until he pulls his fingers free and sucks them clean while holding my gaze.
“Up.”
He stands with me wrapped around him. I lock my legs around his waist. He carries me back into the loft, kicks the door shut, and drops me onto the wool blanket hard enough that the cot frame knocks the wall. I reach for him at once.
Max strips what is left of my clothes, then his own, and when he settles between my thighs I wrap my legs around his waist again, heels digging into his back.
“Face me,” I demand, breathless. “I want to see you while you fuck me.”
“You will.” He notches himself against me, rubs the head through my wetness until I whimper and try to push down onto him. He holds my hips still. Dominant. Deliberate. “Ask for it.”
“Please.” My voice breaks. “Please, Max. I need you inside me.”
“Good girl.”