“I can’t guarantee anything,” I said. “Except that I will love you for the rest of my life.”
I knew that if I focused on anything, I could make it work. If I made her the center of my world, everything else would fall into place.
Her eyes were glassy with tears. She reached up and smoothed her fingers across my cheekbone. “How about we seize each day together for the rest of our lives?”
Did I expect to be lying in bed in my New York hotel room, watching as the love of my life slept peacefully beside me?
Never.
Had I hoped it might happen?
Always.
“Hey,” Violet said, her eyes closed and her voice croaky with too little sleep. She extended her arm, and I caught her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm.
She smiled and stroked my face. “I love that you’re here with me.”
“I love you, Violet King. You are the most important part of my life.”
She pulled me over her, slipping her hands down my back, pressing her lips against mine.
I braced my arms on either side of her and pulled back to look at her. “I’m the luckiest man on Earth. I swear I’m going to do everything I can to make you happy.”
She pushed my hair away from my face. “I believe you. I believe in you.”
My heart skipped. Whatever happened, I would always try to put us and our relationship first. “I believe in us. And I love you.” Now that the words were out, now that she knew, I couldn’t stop telling her, over and over.
“I love you, too,” she said.
“Still?”
“Always,” she replied.
I smiled and dipped my head, licking across her collarbone.
“But only because of the things you can do to my body—you get that, don’t you? I mean, if your dick was ever to fall off, that’d be it for me. I’d be outta here.” She grinned as she opened her legs and I settled between her thighs, my hard cock teasing her wetness.
“I’m okay with being used,” I replied. I wasn’t sure if she was just teasing me or if she was trying to hold back a part of her heart that she wasn’t yet willing to relinquish—maybe she wasn’t ready to trust me entirely quite yet. But that was okay. I knew myself well enough to know I’d never give any reason for her to regret giving her delicate heart to me. I knew how to work hard to get where I wanted to be, and in Violet’s arms, between her thighs, sharing her world was the only place for me.
I slid my lips against hers and braced myself for being inside her again without a condom. Last night we’d agreed nothing should be between us from now on. She was on the pill and the only woman I’d slept with since that first time in my office. She’d be the only woman I’d sleep with for the rest of my life.
She tipped her head back and dug her nails into my shoulders as I slid into her. Fuck she felt good. Tight. Wet. Perfect.
With Violet, I understood for the first time in my life how good sex could be. How it was so much better because of how I felt about her. A delicious gloss on a fundamental feeling, an intimacy I’d never shared with anyone before her.
As I moved above her, slowly at first, my skin sang as she traced her toes down the back of my thighs, fluttered her fingers down my spine, and arched her back.
Lazily, I rocked in and out of her, wanting to stay like this forever, in this blissful state of pre-orgasm fuzz—the place only Violet had ever brought me.
“Alexander,” she half whispered, half groaned. “Alexander.”
I savored every word, every moan, grunt, and gasp from her lips. I’d missed them all. I’d been without them too long.
She flung her arms over her head and tightened around me. She was always beautiful, but it felt as if I possessed her when she came. Violet’s orgasms were mine.
Her sexy, sultry smile of post-climactic satisfaction gave me the signal that she was ready for a little bit more. Her first orgasm had been slow and lazy, a wake-up call.
She swept her fingers across the top of my brow, tracing the edges of effort that lay there. Her soft and subtle touch disguised how wicked I knew she could be. And then, as if to prove my point, she clenched my cock and grinned. “More,” she whispered.
She’d once warned me not to be too gentle with her, and although she liked me to be tender at times, I knew she enjoyed hard and sharp—the rough with the smooth. I wanted to notch up the pleasure. I pivoted my hips and pushed in deeper. Her eyes widened and she bit her bottom lip. I slid my hand under her bottom, holding her, pressing my fingers into her perfectly soft flesh, pushing her against me as my body slammed into hers.
She gasped as I dipped my head and grazed my teeth across her neck, tasting her, drinking in that scent of Indian summer I’d thought I’d lost forever. I drove deeper, faster, harder, desperate to show how much I wanted her, how good I could make her feel. I wanted to prove to her she’d never need anything else but this.
Pleasure circled at the base of my spine and began to rise. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate, dampening down this overwhelming need. Sensation ricocheted across my body, from her fingernails scraping against my jaw to the sound of her groan beneath me.
Fuck.
This woman.
I drove deeper, and each time she got a little tighter, a little wetter, and my climax gathered pace. My jaw tightened. I didn’t want to get there without her. Violet’s eyes widened, as if she were shocked that anything could feel this good, this big, this all-consuming. She clawed at my chest, her body clenching, her movements beneath me becoming jagged and desperate—her eyes watered as she gazed at me. She came beneath me—she was fucking beautiful. Finally I gave in to my orgasm, calling out her name, desperate for her to know everything I did was for her.
I lifted myself up from where I’d collapsed on top of her, my heartbeat still clattering against my chest. I dropped a kiss on her lips.
“I love you,” she said, her palms pressed against my chest. “The way I feel for you is . . .” She pulled her brows together. “Binary. Permanent. I’d never felt it before you. It’s as if what I feel has been specifically invented. Just for you.”
I groaned at her words, so earnest and open. I would spend my whole life protecting this woman’s heart, doing everything I could to show her how much I loved her in everything I did. That was my job now—she was my priority, my future, my destiny. It was all her.
Epilogue
Violet
Six Months Later
“Bicontinental,” I repeated, slower this time, making exaggerated shapes with my mouth so hopefully my brother would catch on.
“I don’t even know what that means,” Max replied, handing me the potato salad.