Chapter 19
nineteen
“YOU SEXY THING” — HOT CHOCOLATE
Miller
Kissing Tavey is everything I imagined it would be.
She tastes like tears and bubblegum and defiance.
It’s the taste of tears that stops me.
I pull back, angling her face so she has to look up at me, and say, “Here’s the thing, Tavey.” I mirror her words back deliberately, watching her eyes widen slightly in recognition. “You think this is an either/or situation. Friends or lovers. It’s not.”
“It’s not?” Her pupils are blown wide. Her voice is barely above a whisper.
“No. It’s and.”
“And?”
“Friends and lovers. That’s the important detail.”
She seems to be turning the idea over in her head like it’s something she’s never considered before. Like a piece of code that suddenly resolves into something elegant and obvious. Beautiful in its simplicity. “Friends and lovers.”
“Exactly.” I brush my thumbs over her cheeks, clearing the tears that have tracked silently down her face.
And I let myself look at her. Really look.
At the surprise in her expression. At the delight beginning to dawn underneath it.
At this gorgeous, brilliant, effervescent creature who could possibly want to be my anything as much as I want her to be mine. My everything.
“Details matter, love,” I murmur.
She squints, and I can see her trying to pull up the memory from the night before. “Do they?” she asks, something playful entering her voice. “I feel like I’ve heard that before.”
“You have.”
The playfulness softens into something more serious then. Something that tells me she’s been carrying that half-memory all morning, not quite trusting it.
“So I didn’t imagine it,” she says.
“No.”
She exhales. Long and slow and trembling. Like she’s been holding that breath since she woke up on the bathroom floor.
I give her a moment. Then:
“There’s no going back from this. You know that.”
She nods slowly. “You said that. Last night.”
“I meant it. I mean it now.” I hold her gaze so she can see I’m not hedging. Not softening it for her benefit. “If you walk away from this, I’ll respect that. But I won’t be able to pretend none of it happened. I won’t be able to sit across from you at work and go back to how things were.”
Something flickers across her face. The old fear. The friendship. The job.
I get there before she can.
“And if you’re worried that being with me is going to create problems for you at work—” I break, pause, consider for barely a nanosecond. “Don’t. I can find another job. I won’t ever find another you.”
She stares at me.
For a long moment she just — stares.
“You’d quit,” she says finally. Not a question. She’s testing the weight of it.
“Tomorrow. Without hesitation.”
“Miller—”
“I’m not saying I want to. FMJ is a good company, and I like our work.” I hold her gaze. “But you’re not a variable I’m willing to negotiate on.”
Another long silence.
Then — quietly, carefully — she asks, “Is this really what you want?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Tavey.” My voice comes out lower than I intended. “I’ve been sure. Probably since the moment we met.”
That lands.
I watch it land.
Watch the last of the resistance go out of her eyes like a tide retreating.
“Okay,” she says softly.
“Okay?”
“Yeah.” And then, with a smile that starts small and becomes something devastating: “And. Not or. Friends and lovers.”
Something in my chest simply — settles.
“Good,” I say.
Before I can kiss her again, she asks, “Can I ask yet?”
I raise an eyebrow.
“What am I?” she asks.
“Not yet.” I slide my hand down her back, testing. Watching. Ready to stop if she pulls away.
She doesn’t. Not even when my hand cups her ass and pull her fully against me. Not even when she has to feel the length of my cock hard against her belly.
Her eyes widen slightly, but she doesn’t pull away. Instead, she makes the softest sound of acquiescence. That sound, as small as it is, nearly wrecks me.
“You said I should ask again.”
“I said ask me in an hour. It’s been less than ten minutes.”
“I’m impatient,” she grumbles with a pout.
“Brat,” I chide, giving her ass a playful swat. Again, testing.
She blushes, her pupils going even wider.
So that wasn’t a no.
Okay, noted.
Not for today, but that’s something we’ll come back to someday. For now, for our first time together, I need to keep this simple. I just need to make her come without embarrassing myself.
I kiss her again, slow-walking her backward until her hips hit the counter behind her.
She’s up on her toes already so I pick her up and set her on the counter.
I’m immediately thankful for her skirt that allows me to step between her legs and for whoever designed her cabinets at the perfect height.
She groans again and I can feel the heat of her pussy through the fabric of my cargo shorts. It’s a miracle I don’t nut right now.
I pull back, just enough to regain a modicum of control. Pressing my forehead to hers, I say, “Tell me now if you want me to go slower. If you don’t want this today, I’m happy to wait.”
She releases a shuddering breath, but then leans back to scowl at me. “Happy? Happy to wait?”
I chuckle. “How about willing?”
She grins. “That’s much better. Unnecessary though.” She tips her head to the side and adds, “And potentially disastrous.”
“Disastrous?”
“This might be a Band-Aid we just need to rip off. I don’t have a great track record vis-à-vis thinking through our relationship on my own. If you’re ready for and, then so am I.”
That’s all I need to hear. I pick her up and her legs automatically go around my waist as I carry her out of the kitchen.
“The bedroom is—” she starts to say.
“It’s cute that you don’t think I clocked the location of your bedroom the moment I walked in yesterday morning.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” I admit as I kick the door open wide enough to carry her through.
Still carrying her, I pause just inside her bedroom to look around for her bed. The room is exactly what I expected.
Which is to say—exactly like her.
Books stacked on the nightstand in a pile that defies structural logic. A dragon figurine on the dresser beside a collection of markers organized by color. Fairy lights strung along the headboard. A quilt in shades of gold and green that looks handmade.
She bites down on her lip, watching me take it all in.
“It’s a lot,” she says, half defensively.
“It’s perfect,” I say. And I mean it.
She swallows.
I cross to the bed in three strides, then lower her down my body so we’re standing beside it. I waste no time yanking my T-shirt over my head. With her clothes, I want to take my time, but I don’t have the patience for mine.
“You have more tattoos,” she murmurs, trailing her fingers over the tribal pattern that wraps around my left shoulder.
I’m toying with her strap of her tank top and the silky bra strap peeking out from under it as I answer. “You didn’t notice them last night?”
“They were mostly covered by your vest. And I think I was distracted.” She reaches out a hesitant hand and trails her fingers over my skin. “Will you tell me what they mean?”
“Those I got when I was young. So mostly they meant that I was an angry little shit who wanted to pick fights with anyone who disapproved of me.”
She chuckles at that, but I hear the nervousness underneath.
I tip her chin up so she has to look at me. “Hey, Khaleesi, you staling?”
She looks up at me, nibbling on her lower lip in that way she does when she’s contemplating a problem. “It’s occurred to me that you might have certain expectations regarding my grooming.”
I stare blankly until she looks down pointedly.
“I just need you to know that I’m not a waxer. According to studies, women who groom excessively are more likely to have recurrent UTIs and I—”
Laughing, I pick her and toss her into the middle of her bed, before following her down. I lower my body onto hers, caging her head with my arms.
I shouldn’t laugh, because I know she’s serious. But it’s also just the most Tavey thing ever. And even if I still had doubts, that alone would have knocked them out. But I don’t. I have no doubts. I’m completely gone for this woman.
“I’ve adjusted my expectations accordingly. But just to be clear, any fantasies I’ve had about your pussy are based on the fact that it’s yours.”
I skim a hand up her ribs, nudging the hem of her tank top up, relishing the feel of her skin under my fingertips. I bury my face in her neck, relishing the scent of her. I taste her. I nibble. I try not to devour.
“You’ve done that?” she asks on an arching gasp.
“Done what?” I ask, kissing my way down her chest, hovering over her breast, pressing my teeth into her flesh through the fabric of her bra and tank.
“Had fantasies about my pussy?”
That word on her lips—pussy—sends a shudder of need through me.
From anyone else, it’s just a word. From her, it feels like an invitation.
“Yeah,” I murmur against her skin. I want to look at her, to gauge her reaction to my admission, but I can’t. If I do, I know I’ll lose it. I can’t look her in the eye and tell her all the things I’ve imagined doing to her. With her.
Not yet. Not when my control is already this thin.
So instead, I skim my hand down to the hem of her skirt, bunching it up in my hand until it’s at her waist. I feel the warmth of her midriff beneath my fingers. The bone of her hip beneath my hand. The soft cotton of her panties.
I slid my thumb under the fabric. I find the curls she was worried I wouldn’t like. I find the heat of her. The wetness of her. I feel how ready she is. How much she wants me.
This time, it’s my turn to shudder. I press my hard cock against her thigh because I need the pressure, and I don’t want to take my hands off her long enough to give my dick a stroke.
I angle up onto an elbow so that I can look at her. “Here’s what I need you to do, Khaleesi.” My thumb finds her clit. Strokes it. Circles. Dips back to the moisture, then strokes it again. “I need you to come. Quickly, if you can. Because I don’t know how much longer I can wait to fuck you.”
She arches against me. Gasping. Straining.
“You got that? Can you do that for me?”
“I … Maybe …”
I keep stroking. I vary the pressure. The speed. Listening to those gasps of hers. Watching the micro-expressions flicker across her face. I nearly come myself.
“You can, Tavey. You’ve got this. I’ve got you.” And then she comes, breaking apart in my arms. “Good girl.”
Her climax is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Until, that is, a few minutes later when I strip her bare and see her pussy, which is the most perfect, most beautiful pussy in the world, especially after I’ve sheathed my cock in it.
She gasps as I fill her. She’s so tight and hot that I’m almost grateful for the condom. I’ve waited so long for this—for her. My restraint is already whisper thin.
“Jesus, you’re so tight.”
Her eyes go wide, and she looks mildly worried. “Too tight?”
This pulls a chuckle from deep inside me. “No such thing.”
But, Christ, when was the last time I laughed during sex? Never. Only with Tavey.
Then I gasp a few thrusts later as her second orgasm clenches around my cock and I come.
Afterward, the room is quiet and golden with the afternoon light coming through the curtains.
She’s tucked against my side, her head on my chest, her fingers tracing absent patterns on my ribs like she’s mapping something. I have one hand in her hair and I’m staring at the ceiling thinking about how strange and right it is to finally be here.
In her space.
With her.
The dragon figurine on the dresser catches the light. It’s only then that I notice the shelf behind it, where row after row of LEGO builds sit. All the small contraptions and fidgets I built for her over the years, carefully curated and displayed.
She shifts, and I feel her chin come up to rest on my chest. I look down to find her looking at me with that particular expression—half suspicious, half delighted—that I have spent most of the past three years pretending doesn’t do something irreversible to me.
“The hour is up,” she says.
“Is it?”
“You owe me an answer.”
I hold her gaze.
She holds mine right back, patient and bright and entirely herself, waiting.
I slide my hand from her hair to the back of her head, cradling it the way I have twice now — once last night in that barndominium doorway, and once an hour ago in her hallway — and I don’t look away.
“Well,” I say quietly. “I’m hoping someday you’re going to be my wife.”
The room goes very still.
Her eyes go wide.
Not frightened.
Not overwhelmed.
Just — wide. Like she’s taking in something larger than she expected.
For a long moment, she doesn’t say anything.
Then, slowly, the corners of her mouth begin to curve. “Someday?”
“Someday,” I confirm. “No pressure. No timeline. Just… that’s where I’m going. And I wanted you to know.”
“I would like that,” she says slowly. “Assuming you’re willing to adopt Nero.”
I chuckle. “If he’ll have me.”
“Honestly, he doesn’t get a vote.”
She holds my gaze for one more second.
Then she lays her head back down on my chest.
Her hand, which had stilled, resumes its absent tracing.
And after a moment, quietly, almost to herself:
Someday.
Like she’s trying it on.
Like she might keep it.
I press my lips to the top of her head and say nothing.
Because I’m a patient man.
And some things are worth waiting for.