He loved her.
He really loved her.
She sucked in a breath as she embraced that particular home truth, and burrowing her face into his throat, murmured, “What kind of deal will get you in Walmart?”
His laughter was throaty. Sexy as hell, too. “How about… if you say yes when I ask you to marry me?”
Her breath stopped in her chest. “Don’t even joke about things like that.”
Her chiding had his shoulders hunching with laughter. “You’re such a prig,” he teased. “And I’m not joking. I won’t ask you today, not tomorrow even. But it will come, and when it does, you’d better give me the answer I want to hear.”
“Well, I have to, don’t I? If I want to see you in Walmart that is. Surrounded by plebs.”
“You, my darling, are a pleb. I don’t have to go far to find one,” James chuckled in reply.
She whacked him on the shoulder at that, then before she could try to whack him again, he let her go. A shriek escaped her as the certainty she’d be crash-landing into the floor consumed her, but she didn’t.
She landed in a soft bounce of feathers.
“You jerk!” she hollered, and then squinted when he clapped his hands and the lights came on. As did a fire, which was banked on the other end of the bedroom. She gawked at the huge room with a bed the size of a hockey pitch, then mumbled, “I bet that fire got you a lot of pussy.”
“A gentleman keeps his mouth shut,” was his only answer, but he grabbed hold of her chin and stared her straight in the eye. “None of them ever mattered, Hailey.”
His earnestness had her heart stuttering. “You can’t say that,” she whispered hoarsely.
“I can. It was all meant to lead up to this. To this moment. With you.”
And then he kissed her.
When she felt like her heart was about to explode from the sheer wonder of his words, he joined their mouths, his tongue sliding between her lips to tangle with hers with an ease that was unique to them.
She should have known. Labor Day should have been clue enough. When they kissed, the world ceased turning.
Who else did that happen with? No one.
Because it only ever happened with your soul mate.
She saw that now, and could finally embrace the truth.
With a shudder, she scrambled onto her knees as she kept their mouths connected. Not stopping until her stomach was pressed to his, she better angled her head so they could get even closer. With a groan, she shrugged out of her thin jacket and began to tug at her blouse.
She needed skin to skin contact. Nothing else would suffice.
James grunted against her lips, but his hands went to work too. First on her buttons as he shrugged her out of her blouse, then he pulled away to lift his shirt overhead. In those seconds when his face was covered, she drooled over his washboard abs, then she launched herself at him. He grabbed her, letting her pussy settle against his cock as he held her thighs to his hips. She rocked her own, eager to feel him there, to know him again.
God, she felt alive, she realized as he thrust his tongue against hers and drove her mad with the need to be closer, forever closer to him.
“I need to be inside you,” he confessed as he pulled his mouth away and began to nibble at her jaw, then dropped down to her throat.
Only yesterday, Mark had pulled the same move and it had filled her with revulsion. Now? She felt like she was about to set on fire with the combustible need that powered through her veins.
“Yes, please,” she begged, keeping it short and sweet, enough for him to burst out laughing at her brusqueness.
“You please me, baby,” he told her, nipping her throat, then kissing further, heading down so his lips could sup from her breasts. She arched her back to allow him more freedom of movement and let out a whimper as his mouth curled about a nipple. He tugged and teased it, licking and flicking it in a way that drove her so high, she knew she’d go nuts if he didn’t stop taunting her.
With a moan, she ran the fingers of one hand through his hair, and reveled in his groan of desire when her nails scraped against his scalp.
“In me, please. James, please,” she begged, uncaring that she never begged. With James, everything was free game. Always and forever.