“No, Brynn. I was just early. I had to wait a little longer for my queen is all…”
I feel a ball of emotions rising up inside me, from the pleasure center he’s still locked onto, all the way up into my throat.
It’s like I want to cry but I also want to sing and shout out with joy too.
There must be a word for it… I know there is. But isn’t it too soon for that?
“Pearce?” I ask, turning my head a little as if he couldn’t hear me.
“What baby?” he asks huskily, sounding more like a relaxed human being by the minute. Twenty years of stress and pressure dissolved in the same way I feel my own past hurts and horrors leaving me for good.
“Nothing,” I whisper, gripping his hand up tighter under my chin as I let out a long sigh, stifling a yawn. “It’s nothing,” I murmur. “Nothing that can’t wait.”
I don’t know how long we make love for the second time, but it’s more like the first times extended remix version.
Like we never stopped. Only took a rest to snuggle.
Pearce’s hardness was almost worrying until he came twice more and set a new record for me too, finally relaxing, I breathe a little easier.
“It’s just what you do to me,” he shrugs, pecking my shoulder when I tell him I’m glad his dick has an off switch.
“Not that I don’t like it,” I purr, pressing myself back against him, letting his smooth bulge run across my slick valley again.
“I was just worried we’d have to take you to the hospital or something if it didn’t go down I mean…”
Pearce laughs, and thanks me for my concern.
“I gotta warn ya though, Brynn,” he says, drawing out his words like a man possessed. “It does get an awful swelling in it sometimes. I might need ya to help me out with it every now and then.”
We both laugh so hard I feel my stomach start to ache.
The rest of me is in a pleasant state of happy-sore. The kind I know I’ll be feeling for a few days yet and maybe the kind that means he goes a little gentler on me and next time lets me ride shotgun.
We lie wrapped in each other until the light through the windows starts to fade and the quietness of the house against the bustle of birds and nature outside gives way to a late calm.
An orange-gray glow breaks through some trees, illuminating the stained glass. Projecting the view I can see in one pane onto the bedsheets.
“It’s really quite clever,” Pearce observes, letting me know he hadn’t even realized the stained glass was the same as the view.
“How could you not see it?” I ask in disbelief, rolling around in the bed to face him.
His face is awash with the deep, warm hues of the projected landscape.
“I never had any reason to notice,” he says, focusing on the same light I know I can see in his eyes reflecting into mine.
I feel the overwhelming urge to sleep but wouldn’t miss a second of this for the world.
Pearce pulls me closer, our bodies a perfect knot of short and tall, muscle and soft skin under the sheets.
I’m not sure if he actually says it or if I dream it, but once I can’t keep my eyes open a second longer, I’m sure I hear his voice.
Or is it my own?
“I love you.”
Chapter Eighteen
Pearce
I could watch her sleep for hours. Forever almost, but then I’d never get to enjoy her awake.
As for myself, I don’t know if I’ll ever sleep again. My mind races with the memory of what we just did, plus meeting her, and all in the course of just one day?
It’s profound. Destiny, like I keep saying.
The words I’ve longed to tell her, find a voice, but only once I’m certain she’s asleep.
Why can’t I just say it? It’s only three little words.
I whisper them to her again, kissing her sleeping lips.
I’ll tell her every chance I get. But there’s still that part of me that’s cautious.
The part that wants her to stay and not run anymore.
I’m more cautious than people might think.
All those million dollar decisions I make on the spot? They’re all carefully thought out. Although I believe in destiny I don’t believe in chance.
We make and break our own luck. And I want Brynn right next to me where she belongs. No luck is required on my part if it’s where she wants to be.
It’s getting dark out, which means a darker house and a colder one.
There are also the nagging thoughts about the whole business with Whitman to consider too.
I would give it all up if I had to, but I don’t want to. Why the hell should I let some asshole rip me off?
I’ve got more of a stake now than before too.