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The driver pulls up and the attendant opens the door for us, but I don't move. Instead, I rise on my toes and whisper against his ear: “Then take me home, Bennett. And show me what forever looks like.”
BENNETT
The ride to my penthouse is exquisite torture. Layla sits beside me, close enough to touch but maintaining careful distance, as if testing whether this reconciliation is real.
“A week without you is too long,” she says quietly, her fingers finding mine in the darkness.
“An eternity,” I agree, lifting our joined hands to press a kiss to her knuckles. “I won't survive another separation like that.”
She turns toward me, and I see my own desperation reflected in her eyes. “Good thing you won't have to,” she whispers, her free hand sliding up my chest to rest over my heart. “I don't want to fight you anymore, Bennett. I want to fight for us.”
The simple declaration undoes me completely. I pull her across the seat until she's practically in my lap, my mouth finding hers with a hunger that's been building for days.
The kiss is desperate, all teeth and tongue and thetaste of champagne mixed with tears neither of us will acknowledge. Her dress rides up as she straddles me, midnight blue silk bunching around her thighs.
“I missed you,” she whispers against my lips, voice breaking. “Even when I was furious with you, I missed you.”
My hands frame her face, thumbs brushing away moisture at the corners of her eyes. “I know, sweetheart. I know.”
She grinds against me, and I bite back a groan at the friction. Even through my tuxedo pants, I can feel her heat, her need matching mine.
“Tell me this is real,” she breathes, fingers threading through my hair. “Tell me we're really doing this.”
“Look at me.” I wait until her eyes meet mine. “This is real. You're it for me, Layla. I'm not letting anything come between us again.”
Something in her expression crumbles—the last of her walls falling away. When she kisses me this time, it's with complete surrender, complete trust. My control wavers.
My hands slide up her thighs, finding the delicate lace of her underwear already damp with arousal. “So wet for me,” I murmur, stroking her through the fabric. “Did you miss this too?”
“Yes,” she gasps, hips bucking into my touch. “Every night.”
I slip beneath the lace, finding her slick and ready. Her head falls back as I stroke her, her breathing shallow and quick.
“That's it,” I encourage, watching her face as pleasure builds. “Let me see how much you need this.”
She rides my hand with increasing desperation, chasingrelease after days of emptiness. When she comes apart in my arms, my name falling from her lips in a whisper, I capture the sound with my mouth, swallowing her cries.
“I love you,” I whisper against her temple as she trembles against me. “I need you to know that.”
“I love you too,” she breathes, and the simple words heal something broken inside me.
The car slows as we approach my building. Layla slides off my lap reluctantly, smoothing her dress with shaking hands. I adjust myself as discreetly as possible, though the evidence of my arousal is impossible to hide.
“Ready?” I ask, though I'm not sure I can walk straight after what just happened.
Her smile is pure temptation. “More than ready.”
The doorman greets us with professional discretion, though I catch him noticing Layla's flushed cheeks and the mark darkening on her neck where my mouth found purchase. I guide her to the private elevator, my hand possessive at her back.
The moment the doors close, she turns to me with intent blazing in her eyes.
“Now,” she says simply.
She’s here. Really here. And for the first time in days, I can breathe.
I pin her against the elevator wall, my mouth claiming hers as my hands grip her waist. She tastes like everything I've been craving for five endless days.
“I'm going to worship every inch of you tonight,” I murmur against her lips. “Make you forget we were ever apart.”