He grabbed her hips, yanked her up to him, deeper, harder. “Fucking you is like coming home.”
Her body jolted with each delicious thrust. Her heart pumped wildly as he drove into her, burying himself. “Deeper,” she panted. “More.”
“Lie back,” he told her, pressing a hand on her chest, lowering her spine to his desk. She lay flat, and he cast his gaze to his shoulders. “You know where I want you, babe. Show me how flexible you are. Show me how you can bend that body for me.”
She grinned wickedly as she hooked her legs up on his shoulders, wrapping them behind his neck. He practically climbed onto the desk, his knees on the wood, and he took her.
He just fucking took her. Her spine dug into the wood as he fucked her. His hands curled around her head as he drove into her. His cock hit that spot inside her that sent her galloping closer to the cliff. She felt him everywhere.
Every thrust consumed her. He filled her completely, and he owned her body with his. The world rotated on its axis again, as Brent Nichols fucked the last ten years of missing, the last ten years of longing, the last ten years without him, right out of her.
Time was crushed to pieces in the way he took her.
She could barely move, and she didn’t care. Couldn’t care. All she wanted was to give herself to him. All he ever wanted was her. And she gave, and she gave, and she gave.
Her back scraped the desk as the friction drove her to the edge. “Please,” she called out, as tremors of lust slammed into her, assaulting her with pleasure and sending her flying as her body detonated. The world slipped away into bliss, into ecstasy, into the end of missing-the-love-of-your-fucking-life.
There was no more missing. There was only having.
He held her harder, gripped her head. “I love you,” he grunted as he thrust, reaching his own release. “I fucking love you so much.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Travis looked dazed and confused.
He slumped against the wall, watching a woman in red walk away. Brent headed over to him, knotting his tie after having just washed his hands in the men’s room. He had to make a flight back to Vegas with Shannon in a few minutes, but wanted to catch up with his old friend.
“You hiding out here in the hallway?”
Travis blinked, then shrugged. “No. Just trying to understand a woman.”
Brent clapped his buddy on the back. “Good luck with that. It’s like learning a whole new language, and no one gives you a dictionary for translation.”
“Exactly,” he said, gesturing in the direction where the woman had disappeared. “One second she’s all over you, and the next second she practically wants to slap you.”
“Been there, man. I have absolutely been there. If it’s any consolation, sometimes those slaps can turn into something a whole lot better.”
“I was hoping it was going to turn into something better tonight,” Travis said, shoving a hand through his hair, then turned to face Brent and pointed at him. “Hell¸ I was about ready to use your office.”
He laughed. “Afraid you would have found it occupied.”
Travis knocked fists with Brent. “Excellent news. At least one of us is figuring out women.”
“Took a long time. You’ll get there. You should talk to her though. Whoever she is.”
Travis scrubbed a hand across his chin and sighed. “She might be a little pissed off at me right now. I wasn’t completely honest about something.”
“Then let her know you were less than honest, say you’re sorry, and tell her what you want. Her, I presume. Women like honesty,” he said, speaking the simplest of truths. Weird, that after all that had transpired he was now in a position to give relationship advice. “By the way, thanks so much for coming by today. I really appreciate you doing a prelim for me.”
“Anytime. And incidentally, Shay is pretty crazy about you. Let me just say that. I chatted with her earlier, and I’m pretty sure she has it bad for you. She’s a keeper.”
A grin spread across Brent’s face. He was sure of that, too. Being certain of how they both felt was such a gift. One he’d cherish.
Fifteen minutes later, Shannon was on top of him, riding him hard in the limo on the way to the airport, and he thanked his lucky stars the flight home was short because he couldn’t wait much longer to have her again. He had a wild hunch they wouldn’t be sleeping much tonight. That they’d be wrapped up in each other all night long, making up for lost time. She told him she wanted him to come back to her place, and even though he had a ten a.m. meeting with James and his real estate guys, he figured that was what coffee was for.
That was all he’d need tomorrow. For tonight, he’d have her.
* * *
The stars twinkled against the inky black night as the driver pulled off the highway, and headed to her condo. Time marched closer to the moment. To the telling. Her stomach executed a fresh series of nosedives as the town car neared her home. She reminded herself that everything would be fine. Well, maybe not fine at first. But it would be fine soon enough.
She’d tell him, and it would be hard for them both, but they’d comfort each other.
This was not the sort of news that could break them up. The loss was simply another part of the past, one she’d share now that they were finally back in the town they called home. Even though so much had gone wrong for her in Las Vegas, so much had gone right there, too. Las Vegas was the place where her grandma and her brothers lived, and it was the town where she and Brent had fallen in love again, against the neon lights, and the blinking billboards, and the spectacle of the Strip. From the fountains at the Bellagio, to the Shops at Caesars, to the darkened theater at the Luxe—this was their place, and the city of sin had given them a second chance at love.
And at truth.
That was why she wanted to tell him the story there. At home. Not in a hotel room. Not in an office. Not in a cab, or a car, or a plane. But in her house, where she could tell the story the way she needed to.
As the car wedged itself next to the curb, Brent paid and tipped the driver, then grabbed their bags.
“A sleepover at last,” he teased as they walked up the three flights, the sound of their footsteps echoing in the creaky silence of the building after midnight. She unlocked the door, both grateful and nervous that the moment had arrived. She spotted a lone spare key amidst the mail she’d tossed on her table in a rush when she’d left yesterday.
“Crap.”
Brent turned around, and shot her a curious stare.
She smacked her forehead with her hand. “My friend’s cat. She’s out of town, and I said since I was only gone for twenty-four hours that I could feed him.”
“He’s probably hungry.”
She snatched the key from the table. “Be right back. Sorry if the place is a mess. I left in a hurry.”
Racing upstairs, her heels clicking against the wood, she unlocked Ally’s condo to find the silver and black tabby meowing indignantly at her.
“Hey Nick,” she said to the feline.
Now, where was his cat food?
* * *
So this was her place. This was her home. He’d caught a glimpse of it on Saturday, but hadn’t taken it in. Her home had an open, airy feel, even at night. The couch and chairs were light shades of yellow and beige, with gold pillows tossed on the cushions, and billowy curtains by the windows.
Her house was hardly messy at all.
As he wandered through the kitchen, he spotted that frame again on the counter. The bright sunflowers. He peered more closely at it, and wondered again what the stone was by the flowers. Maybe a garden wall?
Wait.
She’d called him a sunflower, hadn’t she?
He snapped his fingers, remembering. On the phone the other night, she’d said he was her sunflower. Maybe this was her way of thinking about him when they weren’t together—with a picture of a sunflower. The corner of his lips twitched up. Fine, he wasn’t a flowery guy, but when the woman you love says you’re the sun in her life, you gladly take the compliment. He tapped the frame once, then set it back in place and strolled down the hallway. He stopped short at her bedroom door, opened wide. He couldn’t resist peeking. That was where she’d spent her nights. That bed, right there, with the orange and purple pattern on the cover.