We checked into our hotel and it was confirmed – we did have just one room.
I calmly focused on Gully in the lift on the way up to our floor. “Are you still trying to see who breaks first?”
He smirked, almost back to normal since the scan this morning, just with a spring in his step and a glint in his eye that I was falling in love with even more than I already had done. “It’ll be you, of course.”
I shook my head. “I have the resolve of a thousand female ancestors, all giving me their strength to block out the power of your dick.”
He laughed, wrapping a hand around my waist and pulling me closer for a hug. “They’re going to advise you to give in and enjoy it at some point soon.”
“Why the one room?” I wanted to see inside his head at some point.
“Because I’m not going to leave you alone in a strange place however capable I know you to be. You’re mine, and I look after what’s mine.”
I pinched his nipple through his T-shirt. “I’m not a possession, Mr Alpha.”
He grabbed my hand, holding it to his chest, just over his heart. “I know that’s how you see it. I know you’re capable – more than capable. I also know exactly how I feel and part of that is doing everything I can to look after you and make you happy.”
My eyes were blinking because of dust in the lift, not because of what he’d just said.
Honest.
“That’s some elevator pitch, Gulliver.”
His smile was soft and full, rather than a smirk. “My aunt Marie properly met her husband Grant in an elevator in New York. It got stuck for over an hour and by the time they got out, she’d agreed to marry him.”
I frowned. “What?”
Our lift thankfully stopped at the right floor and opened. Gully took my hand and the suitcase in his other.
“They were working opposite side of a commercial litigation case. She was fairly newly qualified, he was the rising star of the comm lit world and was licenced to practice in England and in New York. They went out to get each other for the first few days of the case, and then they were stuck in a lift.” He shrugged. “She transferred to his firm – in fact, the firms merged, which is why it’s called Callaghan Green – and moved here, taking on Uncle Grant and his four kids, who were all under eight.”
“Wow. She must’ve been head over heels for him. That’s huge.” I paused outside our hotel room door.
“That’s what she apparently said to my mam.” He made a face that expressed utter disgust. “She was dick drunk.”
I tipped my head back and laughed, hoping no one was trying to grab an afternoon nap because it came out pretty loud.
“Are you worried about that happening to me? Is that why you’ve created this battle of begging?”
He gave me a look that needed a health warning, such was the level of sex it contained. “You’re already dick drunk and it’s been two years since I’ve been inside you.”
A door opposite us opened and a woman’s head popped out.
“For the sake of my husband’s heart, get inside your room and carry on word fucking each other in there!”
We kind of unpacked, freshened up and headed off around York, the weather staying clear enough for us to go up Clifford’s Tower – Gully headed to the top while I wussed out not fancying the heights. Instead I headed to Fairfax House, which gave me Bridgerton vibes. We found a restaurant specialising in South Indian food and ate there, before heading back to the hotel because it felt like the long day it had been. We talked about Ivy, but about her life and not her death, remembering her as she’d lived and loved and been one of the most complex people I’d ever known, and we talked about the bump, however tiny they were right now, in a few weeks they’d be a bigger bump until at some point I wouldn’t be able to see my toes.
That night he curled around me again, ignoring the fact his dick was hard against my ass and I would’ve been more than happy to accommodate it, but I was too tired to instigate any more banter, and for whatever reason, he was quiet, only commenting briefly that my evening sickness hadn’t happened.
He also didn’t sleep well. When I woke, disturbed by being in a strange bed and in a room that was too hot and stuffy, he was awake, quietly holding me – which probably added to the heat – and I could almost hear him thinking.
“You’re going to be tired in the morning.” I turned over in his arms to face him, kicking the covers further down because all I needed was his body heat.
A kiss was pressed gently to my head. “I’ll sleep now. I was just thinking.”
“I could smell the burning.” The joke didn’t quite fall flat, but he did drift off to sleep, the smoothness of his breath and the relaxing of his muscles soothing me back into a sleep which was free from dreams and any other disturbances.
The tension between us was still there, a battle of wills which I was coming close to conceding. The small touches, the soft kisses and the lingering looks were teasing me to distraction, and I wanted to do something with that fire they were fuelling. My mind had wandered too many times to New Orleans and the night we’d spent fucking each other’s brains out in a tiny, humid hotel room, and I wanted more.
