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“It’ll hold up,” Deklin said. “Even if he does say I blackmailed him into it. It’ll just look like he’s jealous of our relationship.”
“So…I…” I shook my head, trying to make everything process more quickly. “Mead granted me custody.”
“And made it possible for…someone to adopt Dallas.” Color rushed into his cheeks. “I made it general, in case you don’t want…I mean…” He let out a rush of air. “Sofi, I want to marry you and adopt Dallas.”
And I was speechless.
“I don’t need an answer right now. And I don’t have a ring.” The words were rushed, as if he thought he needed to say all of this before I rejected him. “Like I said, I’ll go at whatever pace you want, but whenever you’re ready, that is what I want. You as my wife. Dallas as my son.”
I wanted to ask about the fact that we lived in two different states, but as soon as I thought it, I realized that it didn’t matter. After I tied up all of the loose ends, there’d be nothing keeping me here in Vegas. I could go anywhere I wanted to go.
But there was only one place I wanted to be.
Wherever Deklin was.
“Yes.”
His eyes widened.
“Yes,” I repeated. “I don’t care about a ring. I love you, and I want to be your wife. I want you to be Dallas’s father.”
He caught my face between his hands, and I had a second to see his eyes blaze before he crushed my mouth with his. I grabbed the front of his shirt, wanting him closer. All of the adrenaline and fear and relief suddenly converted into an all-consuming desire, and the need to have him with me, inside me, was overwhelming.
He stood up, taking me with him, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. My tongue tangled with his, fingernails scratching the back of his head as I ran my fingers through his hair. I heard the bedroom door close, the dim light vanishing completely. Despite the dark, he managed to put me on the bed and then found my bedside lamp.
I pulled him down onto me, yanking on his clothes as he worked on mine until we were both wonderfully naked, and it was all sweet silken skin at our fingertips. My body hummed, and I felt more alive than I ever had before. I traced the lines of his body. His jaw and down his neck to his collarbone. Over the muscles in his stomach and then his back. Over his firm muscles of his ass and thighs.
When I wrapped my fingers around his cock, he groaned, biting his lip to muffle the sound. I used the advantage to roll us over, putting him beneath me. His hands ran over my body as I kissed my way down his torso. Those sexy lines at his hips got extra attention before I moved to that thick, bobbing shaft. I flicked my tongue against the tip, tasting the salt of his skin.
“Fuck,” he moaned, burying his hands in my hair.
I smiled, then wrapped my lips around the head and went to work. I used my tongue, licking and circling and teasing, taking encouragement from the low sounds he made and the way his fists tightened in my hair. I moved lower and then back up, increasing suction as I went until the begging and pleading became nonsense.
He was close, and as much as I wanted the satisfaction of him coming in my mouth, I needed him inside me more.
I raised my head and moved up his body until I straddled his waist. His eyes were wild as I balanced myself with a hand on his stomach, reaching underneath me to hold him as I deliberately lowered myself one little slip at a time until we’d come together as completely as possible.
His hands slid up along my ribcage and over my breasts. Strong fingers teased my nipples, making me shiver as I rocked back and forth, enjoying the way he stretched and rubbed all the right spots inside me. When his hips started to move, I matched his rhythm. Our gazes met and held. Whoever had said that eyes were the windows to the soul must have come to that revelation while making love, because as I let myself go, let myself drown in the rich green of his eyes, I knew his soul was just as pure and beautiful.
A hand dropped down to where we were joined, and his thumb found my clit, already swollen and sensitive. With firm strokes, he coaxed me toward orgasm, my stomach clenching, pleasure zinging through me with an almost painful intensity.
My breathing came faster, harsher, and our rhythm changed into something near-frantic as we raced to completion. Then, suddenly, we were there. I tightened around him, and he groaned my name, the two of us coming together in that white-hot ecstasy that went above and beyond mere physical pleasure.
I was home.
Forty
Jude – 1993
I absently rubbedmy jaw and then winced. I didn’t regret letting Mark Titan hit me, but I wasn’t enjoying the bruise. It’d been two days, but it still hurt if I put too much pressure on it. That was why I had some unprofessional stubble instead of my usual clean-shaven look. Still, Mark had been sitting in jail thanks to a judge who owed me a favor, and a bruise was a small price to pay for it.
I sighed and closed my eyes, resting my head on the back of my chair. I could’ve avoided all of this if I hadn’t hired the bastard in the first place, but hindsight was twenty-twenty. All I could do now was deal with the fallout.
My phone rang, but I ignored it. It was late enough that the chances of it being anyone other than Rachel was slim.
Okay, maybe the bruise wasn’t the only price I’d paid.
Mark’s accusations had made the news, and more than one tabloid had jumped on the idea that I’d been sleeping with a former employee’s wife. My lawyer was working on suing them for libel, and I was content to let him do his work, but my lack of vehement defensive posturing had just made Rachel even more convinced that I was cheating on her, even if Heidi wasn’t the woman she’d been jealous of originally.
The sound of a door closing caught my attention. No one else was here, and I wondered if maybe the call hadn’t been from Rachel, but now my wife was coming in to yell at me in person. Or maybe Mark had made his exorbitant bail and was coming in now to finish our fight.
This time, I wasn’t going to stand back and let him hit me without any retaliation. No cameras here. If he threatened me, I’d show him that I could kick his ass, even if he was twenty years younger than me.
Except the person who stepped into my office wasn’t Mark, but rather his wife, Heidi. Slender and delicate-looking, she was one of those kinds of women who was beautiful no matter what, even when she’d been crying, like she was now. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her face drawn.
“Jude.” She crossed her arms over her stomach as she came into my office. “I didn’t know where else to go. I’m pregnant.”
Shit.