“I didn’t…I mean, no, he didn’t,” Michael groans, looking disappointed.
My fingers trace the angled, granite line of his jaw. And finding his lips, they press against them as he kisses them.
“Don’t try and get out of it like that,” he cautions me with a smile, pretending to bite my fingers, sucking two of them into his mouth instead.
“It’s just a birthday,” I remind him. “This is way better, don’t you think?” I coo, jumping a little as I feel his cock as hard as ever, ready to do it all again.
“That settles it,” he murmurs to himself, running a hand over my sex and bringing it to his lips.
Breathing in our shared essence. Kissing me with his fingers between both our lips.
“I’m taking you out for dinner, and you have two birthdays this year,” he says with a tone of defiance, making me giggle. Making me laugh like I never knew I could because I know he’s not kidding either.
It’s pointless to argue with the man, and once his hand slides back between my legs, I know that it’s pointless to deny his plan to claim me. His plan to make love to me all afternoon is really only just starting.
“We’ve got plenty of time,” he croons. “But save some strength for dinner,” he cautions me.
But my mind can’t see that far ahead. It doesn’t even want to.
All I want now is for him to hold me, to fill me again. To lie here with him inside me and have him tell me how much he wants me.
To tell me over and over that, I’m his.
That Michael and I are official. It’s ‘us’ from now on.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Michael
We make slow love, and we make fast love. Again and again, before I know Vanessa is truly spent. But I meant it when I said I could fuck her forever.
And I intend to, but today’s extra special, and I want her to know it and remember it as much as I cherish the memory already.
Watching her sleep, the smile only a recently deflowered virgin can keep on her lips as she dreams. I take the opportunity to put that damned garden to use.
Walking butt-naked and with enough of a hard-on still to watch where I’m walking, I scour the dozens of rows of rose bushes nearest the front of the house. Snipping and bunching them all up. Grateful when I discover they’re all the thornless variety.
Like everything else for her now, life’s gonna be roses.
No thorns for us. No problems for Vanessa ever again.
Keeping one from the rest, I bunch them up with some paper I find in the kitchen.
Setting them aside for now and putting the single rose, the biggest and prettiest of them all, on her pillow, wanting it to be the first thing she sees before me when she wakes up.
I sit opposite the bed, watching her nakedness as I quietly make reservations for us at a restaurant I know is over the top.
Should do. I built the damned thing.
It’s about as fancy as I think on short notice, and I want Vanessa to have the best of everything. It might take her some time to get used to it, to feel comfortable in it. But I remember being a little like that too, long ago. Thinking that having the best meant being a flashy A-hole. Before I realized that you can have money and still be yourself.
You can have the best of the best and just enjoy it for what it is.
But her birthday. How could Jase not mention that?
It’s a little late to take her shopping for a surprise gift, but I know the manager of a restaurant. And after hearing my plight as I practically whisper it over the phone, he promises to make sure we have VIP treatment all the way.
Starting with a limo that his hotel restaurant reserves for their special guests to come to pick us up. And I only ask him to have the driver message me when they’re out front so I can buzz them in.
I click my tongue after hanging up, deliberately ignoring the growing number of missed calls from the office.
Everything else can just fucking wait. I’ll deal with it once I know my woman has had the whole day she deserves.
Limo and a fancy dinner, though. Not very earth-shattering, Mike.
May as well just give her cash in a card…but how was I supposed to know?
Vanessa shifts in her sleep, and I cover her naked body, keeping her warm while I find her bag of new clothes she left in Jase’s car.
Feeling my lip curl and my insides tremble as I lift the sheer dress from the paper bag, I can’t wait to see her in it.
And these, too…
The underwear she’s chosen. This dress.
It’s as if she somehow knew all this was gonna just fall into place.