The smile widened when she blushed.
“You’re taking the whole white wedding thing rather literally, blue jay. I hope you aren’t going to make me chase you around the bed.”
“Nick.”
Laughing, he gave her hand a playful tug, drawing her up the stairs with him. He was almost giddy. She had never seen him like this. Even as a child, he had always seemed subdued, as if he thought any hint of joy would cause the moment to be stolenfrom him. Now, happiness lit up his eyes and gave his face a softness she hadn’t seen in years.
I could fall in love with this man, she thought.I could fall and fall and never stop.
Without being any less dazed, a flicker of terror crashed through her stupor like lightning.
The master bedroom had been cleaned—by him, she assumed, unless he’d hired someone. A melting bucket of champagne sat on the nightstand. She recognized the brand, and turned to look at him in shock. “How did you set all of this up so quickly?”
“I drove over here on my lunch break.” Making work of the rest of his shirt buttons, his dress shirt fluttered around him as he walked to his expensive stereo and pressed “play.” Jay braced herself for hard rock and was therefore surprised when one of the old songs she used to dance to began to play instead. “Dance with me.” He held out his hand. “This time, no one’s watching.”
Every doubt and fear she’d ever had slammed against her all at once as his fingers closed over hers and he spun her towards him with an ease that made her feel nearly weightless in his arms—as if she were some precious, fleeting thing that might disappear without his grip to tether her to this realm any longer. It was a covetous embrace he held her in, with the scarcest amount of restraint, and when she leaned into him and braced her hand against his bare chest, his fingers tightened over hers as if that restraint was as fragile as her will to resist.
All those nights that she had cried herself to sleep, she had longed for a love like this—a love so big that it consumed her entire world. But love like that was terrifying, and when it had finally fallen into her lap she had fought, and fought, and fought, because being consumed meant losing parts of yourselfthat were no longer yours to keep, and reconciling with the emptiness left behind.
But now there was only Nick—herNick—swelling to fill up those empty spaces in her aching soul, and she was so fucking tired of fighting.
So she told herself she wouldn’t.
Jay kissed him, cradling his jaw as her fingers spread to lightly trace his ear. The passion between them had always been charged with violence, and this gentleness crackled against her skin like static as the kiss became less sweet, more demanding.
Her hand dropped to his shoulder, thumbing his collarbones, and the hard planes of his chest, before slipping into his waistband to cup him beneath his dress pants.
“Fuck.” He gripped her wrist. “I can’t last if you do that.”
But Jay noticed he didn’t pull her hand out. Pressing against him, she said, “I need you, Daddy.”
With a snarl, he lifted her up and dropped her onto the bed, stepping back to shrug out of his shirt before working the placket of his pants with fingers made clumsy by his haste.
“If you’d said that to me back then,” he said, stepping out of his pants and walking towards her nude, “I would have been your slave.”
Jay scooted back on his bed, heedless of how it made her skirt ride up. “I wouldn’t have wanted that. Love shouldn’t make people into prisoners.”
“Always the proverbial good girl.” Getting on his hands and knees, he slowly prowled up her body until he was straddling her thighs. “I hope you don’t plan on fucking me like one.”
“I’m only as good as you make me.”
“I see.” He smoothed his callused palms over her thighs before shoving them apart. “Then don’t be.” Hooking his fingers in her underwear, he yanked hard enough that she felt the fabric catch and weaken before they ripped. “I like you begging and slutty.”
The current of air between her legs made her gasp.
And then, so did his tongue.
She was forced to grip the headboard as he gave her the sort of kiss that wouldn’t have been suitable for any sort of ceremony at all.
“Tell Daddy your new name,” he whispered between her legs, as she trembled over that precipice of mindless, breathtaking desire. “I want to hear it again.”
“Justine Beaucroft.”
With a low, satisfied rumble, he swung onto her hips and entered her on a hard stroke. He seemed to take the recoil of her body as a fight, because he pinned her hands down beside her face on the next thrust and held them there. The dying light coming in through the window sparked off her wedding ring in a flash of red as her fingers spread open beneath his.
“You’re mine,” he said, looking down at her.
Jay looked up at his handsome face and faltered, her staggered breathing a match for the pace he was setting with each rock of his hips. “And you’re mine,” she said, as a slight question.
