If I’m dead, I’m okay with it.
She collapses against me, and I catch her in my arms, holding her tight. We stay there for a moment, panting and sweaty, me still inside her.
“I don’t think I can move,” she murmurs against my neck.
“I don’t want you to,” I whisper back.
Our hearts are both pounding, and we’re both covered in a fine sheen of sweat. She feels like heaven in my arms, and I haven’t been this content in a long time. Maybe this is heaven. Maybe this is hell. I don’t care what it is as long as she’s with me.
I move her to lie on the large lounge, tucking her into my chest and wrapping my arms around her before I slowly pull out. She smiles against me and nuzzles in closer. It doesn’t take long before we both find sleep. Until I wake in the early hours of the morning in the exact same position. I move and stand from the couch, leaning down and kiss her forehead, walking around the room, collecting our clothes.
Her eyes open and close, noticing my movements, then falls back to sleep peacefully. She wakes again when I’m pulling on my shirt and then stands, still half asleep. Without words, she helps me dress and I do the same, slipping her dress back over her body.
Her soft touches and sweet sleepy smiles hits my heart, hard. I take her in my arms, lifting her, carrying her out of the now empty club. She doesn’t complain about letting me take care of her, instead falls back to sleep on my shoulder and I take her home to bed.
I wake first, and like the last few days Lilly is wrapped up in my arms. But after yesterday, all I want to do is to find her lips again.
So I kiss her forehead, her eyelids, and then her nose, peppering her with kisses until I hear her sleepy moans. Once her eyes open and I know she is awake, I move on top of her and lazily begin to kiss her, taking my time.
She returns it, opening her mouth to me.
Then I move down from her soft lips to her delectable neck. One of my very many favourite places to taste. A small moan escapes her lips, and my hands roam down her sides, lifting up her nightie.
Then.
Her body freezes and goes rigid.
My heart sinks.
“No, no. no. no,” I murmur into her neck, trying to use my lips to convince her how right this is. “Don’t go back there. Stay with me.”
I move to her mouth, with a slow sensual kiss. For a split second, I think I have her back, but she pulls away.
“I think I need a second.” Her unsure voice breaks me.
I sigh, collapsing on her, resting my head on her chest, needing to take one more moment to savour what she had given me. What I desperately want again. But instead, I give her what she needs and roll onto my back. My head hits my pillow and I look up to the ceiling, knowing I’ve lost her again.
She takes a long, deep breath and slips out from the bed and walks to my bathroom, closing the door behind her. After everything we shared last night, it burns knowing she’s retreating even more. She can’t keep denying this. She’s hurting herself and torturing me. I’ve seen the real Lilly now, and I can’t go back.
I sit up, pulling the sheets off, walking to the painting hanging across the room, lifting it off the wall, exposing one of my many safes. I pull out a small black velvet box and take a long gulping breath, holding it in my palm.
It’s a surreal feeling, holding an engagement ring, something I never thought I’d ever do in my life. Opening the box, I see my mother’s yellow diamond ring, set in platinum, that was given to me by my father for this very moment. The moment I find the one and commit to her forever.
With everything that’s been happening and her refusal to acknowledge us even getting married, there has never been a right time to do this. But after last night, after what she gave me, it’s now.
I close it and lock the safe, placing the painting back over it. Then slip into bed, sitting up against the headboard and wait for her to come out.
My stomach is in knots and it’s scary as fuck being this open, this vulnerable. This all may have started because of a deal, a fuck up, but this has never been more real than now. She is everything I never thought I wanted, and everything that I need.
Finally, the bathroom door opens and she stands in the doorway, looking at me. Her eyes trail over my body, and I see the same desire I’m feeling in her eyes.
“Morning.” My voice comes out husky, and I try to contain myself.
“Morning.” She clears her throat and leans against the door frame, her eyes back on mine.
But then they trail down, and land on the ring box I have twirling in my hand. Her body goes rigid, and I can feel her fear in the air, thick and heavy.
“You know the wall can hold itself up,” I say, trying to tease her out of her head.