“Good,” I say. “We’re going to sleep. And when we wake up, we’re going to shower, and I’m coming back to your place because I’m not nearly done fucking you, and you have condoms there.”
“Not to mention proper things to tie you up with.”
I blush. “That too.”
Curling up, I tuck myself into Malik’s chest and help him get the blankets over us. I don’t care. I’ll wash the sheets later. I’m not moving from this spot and him.
“When you come to my place,” he asks softly, “will you stay?”
“Yeah, of course.”
He clears his throat and opens his eyes. “I mean permanently.”
I go still. “You’re asking me to move in with you?”
Malik brushes my hair off my cheek. “I told you. When the men in my family know, we know. I want you in my life, Erin. And in my bed. And I don’t want you to live out of a suitcase.”
Unexpected tears prick my eyes. Everything is so overwhelming, but there’s nothing that I want more than that. I can’t imagine saying no to that request. The idea of being with him all the time and diving deeper into this love? Hell fucking yes.
“Yeah,” I say, biting my lip to hide my grin. “Yes, I’ll move in with you.”
He grins like what I just said was the sun coming out from behind the clouds instead of the sun that’s actually rising outside the window behind me.
Pulling me close, he kisses me one last time before we slowly breathe together and fade down into sleep.
11
Erin
Three days later it’s like I’m living an entirely different life.
After we’d slept for a while that day in my apartment, we got up and showered. I got my suitcase full of clothes that I hadn’t moved since the phone call, and we left for his apartment—moving the rest of my stuff would take more time and planning.
In the meantime, I was just glad to get back to his place and the way we’d been integrating our lives together. The office that I’d been writing in would be my office, and I was going to decorate it. Paint it and switch it over from the sparse whiteness of the walls.
My apartment was small, and I’d always wanted an office, so this was fantastic. Definitely not the reason that I was moving in, but I wasn’t going to pretend that I didn’t love that part of it.
That whole day was a whirlwind. Malik’s editor moved quickly along with his lawyer and canceled his book contract so that Michael would get no extra commission from it. There wasn’t anything to be done about the money that he’d already gotten. And as soon as we had confirmation that the deal had been canceled, I got to listen in as Malik called Michael and informed him that he was fired.
After that, I got to hear the shock and surprise when I chimed in on speaker and told him that I was firing him too. Malik’s lawyer sent him the appropriate paperwork for both of us while we were on the phone with him. It was fucking glorious.
Between bouts of sex so delicious that I couldn’t believe that I was actually living real life, we looked for new agents. It didn’t take long. As soon as word got out in the publishing world that Malik Ellis was looking for new representation, there was blood in the water. I swear that Malik’s phone didn’t stop pinging with emails. After a while he had to turn it off just to get some peace.
But true to his word, we decided together. He only considered places that were willing to look at me too, and before long I was sending off my book to different agents so they could read it and I’d never been so nervous, given what Michael had always said about it. Obviously, he was lying, but that critique was still stuck in my head.
I shouldn’t have worried. They read the book overnight, and there wasn’t a single agency that said they wouldn’t take me immediately. The shock was so real and so huge that I couldn’t process it. Malik carried me upstairs and fucked me in the shower to celebrate before we sat down together and figured out exactly who we wanted to go with.
Now, we’re sitting in the office of Rose Glass, an agent whose client list rivaled Michael’s, and after we told her in confidence what happened, assured us that nothing of the sort would ever happen at her agency. And if it did, that we should tell her directly.
“I have to say, Mr. Ellis,” she says, “this is probably the easiest contract I’ve ever worked on, given that it’s already negotiated. Your editor was very eager.”
“So am I,” Malik says. “Now that the book is done, the original deadline is still fine, and everything should be on schedule.”