“You think any other woman could make me this hard? Could any other woman turn me fucking celibate for years?”
The heat inside my chest intensifies, threatening to leak out as warm tears. I swallow, even as I struggle to breathe. God, I love this man with every fiber of my existence. I think I have since the moment I laid eyes on him, since the moment he called me Little Borealis.
“My cock has only ever wanted you,” he continues, rocking into me with that perfect balance of strong and gentle. “It will only ever want you for as long as I live. Tell me you understand that, baby?”
A lone tear rolls down the bridge of my nose. “I do.”
“Good.”
“Patton?”
“Yes, baby?”
“I love you.”
I feel him smile against my neck as I shatter once more around his hard length. “I know.”
I can’t think, can’t form words beyond ragged gasps as pleasure courses through my body, igniting a wildfire that spreads from my core to every inch of my skin. It’s a blaze so intense and deep, no ocean would be able to quench it.
And whether it’s my throaty moan or my complete surrender to him, my orgasm triggers his. He jerks inside me, his hips pistoning erratically until he’s caught in the throes of his own release, until his body goes rigid behind me and his guttural roar echoes off the dark theater walls.
His chest heaves, and his heartbeats knock against my back as if trying to fuse with mine. Except they don’t need to try . . . our heartbeats feel one and the same.
Before I can collapse, Patton wraps an arm around me, holding me tight. His lips brush my ear, making me shudder. “Worth the risk.”
Five minutes later, we’ve managed to get our clothes back on and in order. I’ve patted my hair down as best as I can in the dark, hoping I haven’t smudged my eyeliner.
Clutching my hand, Patton opens the door to exit the theater when we both come to an abrupt stop. Standing in front of us is our entire group of friends, looking at us with a range of expressions. Garrett’s jaw is on the floor, Kavi’s fingers cover her mouth in shock, and Dean mutters, “Called it”.
No one speaks for a moment, and then Piper shakes her head, lips pursed to hide her grin. “You guys missed the best part of the movie. Hope it was worth it.”
Heat rises to my cheeks, but Patton smirks, waggling his brows. “You mean the climax? Nah, we got to that on our own.”
Sarina makes a strangled noise, shaking her head as she walks away. “Thanks for that. I’m going to go bleach my brain now.”
thirty-two
nisha
The Bone-deep Ache of Acceptance
“Beaver, buddy, we’ve talked about this. You can’t go around stealing from our clients.” I wince at the glittering Cartier watch lying at my feet. “This is how Netflix documentaries start. You’re going to get us into serious legal trouble.”
Beaver’s sharp blue eyes narrow on me for a beat, his hairless white tail thwacking the air like a whip in challenge, like he knows I’m not happy with his “gift”. Before I can bend down to pick up the watch, he springs forward to snatch it back and bolts across the room. By the time I’ve straightened—because when you’re as pregnant as I am, it takes a while to “unbend”—he’s already perched on his cat tree with the watch dangling from his mouth, staring at me like a hairless, lifeless, motionless wax statue.
I sigh, waddling over to him. Yes, waddling, because that’s my mode of transport now. At thirty-nine weeks, I’m officially a beach ball with legs. And a pair of enormous boobs that Patton definitely enjoys more than I do. I’ve had to size up my uniform of black leggings and tunic, but at this point, the fabric is so stretched out, I mostly resemble a balloon animal on the verge of popping.
Okay, so the balloon example isn’t my finest because . . . well, balloons.Cue a full-body shudder.
I haven’t shaved my legs or seen my toes in weeks. Well, unless you count yesterday, when Patton painted them.
I smile at the memory of him hunched over with the focus of a neurosurgeon performing his very first surgery. I’d insisted I could do it myself, but he’d simply smirked like I’d lost my damn mind, brought my feet to his lap, and brushed each of my nails with my signature black polish. And the sweetest part? He even blew on them afterward like the world’s sexiest nail tech.
Thinking of him reminds me he’s in San Francisco, meeting with producers about a foster system documentary he’s passionate about. With how far along I am, he said he didn’t want to chance not being here if I needed something, so he insisted the producers fly here, instead of making him travel to L.A.
He’s decided to scale back in general with work, making only one major film a year, and focus on our new family, using any extra time he has left for matters close to his heart, like the foster system. When I asked him if that’s really what he wanted to do, his response was,“I’ve already done everything I ever dreamed of, except this—building a family with you. This was always the real dream, baby.”
And honestly, the balance works well. He still gets to do what he loves, and I get more of him being around.
