Page 66 of Dr. Stone (Billionaires’ Club #9)

FIFTY-TWO

Andie

Breathlessly, between long, possessive kisses, I managed to tell Jace where my room was, yet somehow, we still ended up in a much grander suite. And all I could do was pray this wasn’t Sebastian and Darcy’s master suite we’d just impulsively kissed our way into.

Jace carried me inside, his mouth now at my neck, possessive and unrelenting as we moved through the opulent living space. Floor-to-ceiling windows wrapped around the suite, revealing a private balcony that spanned the entire length of the room. It was gorgeous, but I barely registered it.

Without warning, Jace pulled back, leaving me breathless and confused.

“Before we go any further—before I worship your gorgeous body all night long—I have something for you.” He kissed the tip of my nose, then guided me over to where a sleek briefcase sat waiting on a desk.

He flipped it open, slid out a folder, and pressed it into my hands. “Open it.”

Better than any gift this man could ever give me, I flipped open the folder and carefully turned through the pages.

At first it was nothing but lines of legal jargon, black ink that meant nothing to my racing heart—until it did.

My eyes landed on the bottom of the last page, and there it was.

Jonathan’s signature. Bold, final, and binding.

A sharp gasp escaped me as the words blurred.

My hand flew to my mouth, my other trembling so hard I could barely hold the papers steady.

Page after page, I searched again just to be sure I wasn’t imagining it.

He’d signed everything over. All custody.

All rights. Every ounce of control he’d ever had.

Relief slammed into me so hard I thought my knees might give. Tears welled fast, spilling before I could blink them back. No more threats. No more abuse. No more of that bastard. My son was mine. Completely mine

“Oh my God.” I finally spoke. “He’s really gone.”

“And he’ll never hurt you again,” Jace said firmly.

“I love you.” It was all I could get out, my chest swelling, relief surging through me so intensely it left me trembling.

“I love you more.” He smiled, easing the folder from my fingers and setting it back on the desk. “I just wanted you to see it—to know that man is truly out of your life.”

Before I could answer, his mouth was back on mine—dominant, claiming—just as it had been that very first night. I melted against him, consumed by the fire I’d been starving for. The world narrowed to his lips, his touch, his scent.

I didn’t even realize how we made it to the bed. One second we were tangled in the kiss, the next my sundress was gone, his shirt discarded, and I was unraveling beneath him—high on him, on this moment, on the impossible miracle of being his again.

In the middle of knowing exactly where this was headed, because that’s how Jace and I had always fucked, he stopped. Just stopped. And now his eyes were locked on mine.

“Now that I’ve felt what it’s like to lose you, to lose a future with you, I can’t take a single second for granted. I’ve been given a second chance, and I’m not wasting it.” His mouth brushed along my jaw, each kiss making my body burn hotter, ache deeper, until I was trembling with urgency.

His gaze caught mine again, steady and sure.

“Tonight is going to be different, gorgeous. Instead of just fucking you until sunrise,” his hand swept gently across my forehead and his smirk curved into a tender kiss, “tonight I’m going to memorize every inch of your body. Worship every part of the woman who stole my heart without even trying.”

His lips found the hollow between my collarbones, and the jolt that shot through me nearly unraveled me on the spot.

“We went too hard, too fast from the start.” His voice lowered, eyes burning into mine like he could see every unspoken thought I was too afraid to admit.

“But not tonight. Tonight I take it slow. I unravel you piece by piece. I prove to you that you’re mine, and that I’ll be yours.

Forever.” His tone dropped even lower, rough and raw.

“Because the time I spent not knowing if I’d ever get you back made one thing clear.

You already have my heart. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. ”

Something shifted then. The air around him changed, pulling me with it.

This was the real Jace, the man who loved me fiercely and without needing a reason.

My body and soul bowed to that truth, desperate for more.

And when his final gaze pinned me in place after telling me he’d be mine forever?

God. It didn’t feel like being trapped. It felt like being chosen.

Words failed me. Even if I tried, I couldn’t have spoken.

And like he promised, he went slow as fiery hell, igniting everything and more than I’d ever felt before.

He kissed the center of my chest through the lace of my bra, then down along the curve of my waist. I melted beneath him as his palms slid up my thighs, slow and commanding, until they framed my hips like he was anchoring himself there, demanding in a gentle way, that I would be going nowhere.

Unlike the wild and untamed Jace that I craved in bed, this version of him didn’t rush, not even a little, and it had me dripping with heated desire and shattering inside already.

I fell under a trance of euphoria as he explored me with the kind of patience that told me he’d been imagining this— craving this —every night he’d lain in silence while we were separated, wondering if he’d ever get to feel me again.

And now that he had me beneath him, he wasn’t wasting a second of being in this treasured moment we’d been gifted.

I moaned, a current of pleasure rippling from my aching clit and surging through my belly, as he kissed me where the energy coiled, then moved to my hip, pressing his perfect lips into the tender skin of my inner thigh.

Each kiss from him felt like a promise, and each breath seemed to prove that pledge. My entire body shuddered as his fingers traced over my panties, teasing but not yet sliding them down, right where I was aching and burning for him.

Instead, he leaned back up and kissed me once, soft and reverently slow, his hand cradling my jaw. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me, gorgeous?” he whispered, brushing his thumb over my cheek. “You’ve undone every wall I’ve spent a lifetime building without even trying.”

I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. This was a different man, more beautiful than I ever imagined he could be.

With this new hunger and passion radiating from him, my heart pounded so hard I felt it in my fingertips.

And just when I thought I’d managed to contain the way I was coming undone beneath him, he began to undress me with a slow, reverent care that shattered whatever control I had left.

I thought I might explode as he slid my panties down, unhooked my bra, and laid each piece aside. It was almost like he was memorizing what I looked like as I watched him strip me bare, making me feel worshipped in a way I didn’t even know I needed.

And when he finally saw all of me again after all this time, he didn’t say a word. He just exhaled and looked at me like I’d unraveled something inside of him.

“You’re so goddamn beautiful,” he said, almost to himself. “God, you’re…everything. And I’ve missed you so much.”

I arched into him when his lips found my hard nipple, my skin burning everywhere his lips touched. I was near combusting, overwhelmed by the sensation of his body hovering just above mine, like he couldn’t bear not to press fully into me.

Jace moved with fervent desire, his clothes eventually gone, and then he was with me again, settling over me and bracing his strong hands on either side of my head.

His length pressed between my thighs, thick and hot against my soaked slit, letting me feel the tension coiled in every muscle of his body.

“I want to prove to you how much I love you,” his voice was gravelly yet soft near my ear. “I want you to fully understand what you mean to me.”

When he gently and slowly pushed inside of me, moving as deeply as my body could take him, he let out a deep groan of satisfaction.

It sounded like something torn from the chest of a man who hadn’t let himself feel anything in his entire lifetime until now.

He was damn right that this was going to be different than before.

He was proving that with every move he made.

It was almost as if he were a man who finally allowed himself to find peace in love instead of fearing it.

He paused once he was fully inside me, his forehead pressed to mine, like the intensity of allowing himself to feel all these emotions and experiencing the pleasure simultaneously was too much for him.

My entire being melted into him at that moment.

This was real, this was raw, this was more than just hot, desirous sex—this was the two hearts surging to become one.

“This is— you are —home to me,” he whispered. “And I haven’t had one in a very long time.”

I wrapped my arms around him, my legs curled tight around his waist, and that’s when he found his slow, controlled rhythm, moving deep enough that every thrust made me tremble beneath him.

The way we kissed, the way he moved inside me with our mouths never far apart, his fingers working slow, deliberate circles over where I ached most—he practically shattered me the moment he touched me like that.

His grip? Hell. Everything about this moment was earth-shattering.

There were no dirty words and nothing was rushed.

There was nothing but his devotion to me, and mine to him.

It was deeper than I imagined sex with a man could be.

Jace was making love like someone who’d known loss—who’d lived without touch, without connection, without softness.

And now that he had it, he was clinging to it fiercely, determined that neither of us would ever feel separation or heartbreak again.