Page 39 of Love.V2 (Occupational Hazards #2)

Tess

I had only ever been to Dylan’s hotel once. It was one of those long-term stay places, almost like an apartment.

His suite had a little kitchenette, sitting area, and a big king-sized bed. It was all white and cream, washed out and bland. When we’d stopped by to get him some more clothes last week, I’d pouted and told him he never had to come back to this sad little not-an-apartment ever again.

But the door opened, and here he was. Sad and beige in this sad and beige room. The surprise on his face clenched my heart into a fist. He hadn’t expected me.

Well, I couldn’t blame him for that. I was good at running away. Not so good at running towards. But that was going to change.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” I had rehearsed what I wanted to say on the drive over here, but I hadn’t thought about how I’d get invited in.

Shit. Hadn’t his last words in my office been about staying here tonight, away from me?

I should have called him before rushing over.

“Um, can…do you mind if I come in? It’s okay if you don’t want me here… I mean, if you still need some time…”

He was already swinging the door open. Thank God .

“You seem relieved.” His voice was like sandpaper. I wandered into the little sitting room, perching on the edge of a taupe, pleather loveseat.

“I didn’t know if you’d want me here.”

“I always want you.”

I felt the urge to sigh, like those words had the potential to flip a release valve on all the pressure bubbling around in my chest.

“You sure? Even after…everything?” I finished lamely. He sank into a chair opposite me with a blank look on his face.

“Of course.”

Of course. That simple, that complicated.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call on the way over, but I was on the phone with my landlord. Yelling.” My eyes flicked up to Dylan, gauging his reaction.

His eyebrows bounced upward. “Really?”

“Yeah, he’s getting someone to fix the washing machine tomorrow.”

“That’s…great.” His lips tipped up as he tried to smile, but didn’t quite make it. He wasn’t sure, yet, what this had to do with him.

“And I should have fired Victoria months ago. She was toxic and pulling the team down.”

A divot appeared between his brows, then smoothed. “Alright,” he intoned, woodenly.

“And I never should have left you.”

That, at least, got his attention. His eyes lost some of that glazed detachment, focusing, darting around my face.

“It was probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life,” I went on, clammy palms scrubbing down my pants.

“Not the biggest, though. I stopped being there for you. You’re so right, I withdrew from you a long time ago and I’ll never be able to make that up to you.

” It hurt to think about all the time we’d lost, all the pain we were feeling now that could have been avoided if I’d just…

tried. If he’d just worked a little harder on us .

Dylan’s elbows rested on his knees as he scrubbed his hands through his hair. “Tess, I was too harsh earlier. I didn’t mean what I said. All this is my fault. You wouldn’t have left if I hadn’t taken you for granted.”

“But it’s not just your fault, is it? You wouldn’t have sunk yourself so deeply into work if I had made sure you felt important to me.”

I watched as his jaw ticked at my admission.

“You are, by the way. Important. No matter what your salary is or where we live.”

His eyes went glassy and wet.

Mine felt prickly, too. “I’m sorry I didn’t make you feel that way before.”

“I’m sorry, too. I should have tried harder to be there for you instead of…”

I reached for him. I felt like I’d been in this relationship by myself for too long. I wanted to hold on to him, feel his skin, know he was right here with me.

His fingers tangled in mine.

“We both pulled away. It’s not just your fault.

I know…” Darn. I thought I’d gotten all my tears out back at Molido.

Dylan stroked one away as it rolled down my cheek.

I continued, choked. “I know how painful it is to want to connect to someone and feel like there’s nothing on the other side.

We weren’t connected for a long time there, and I think both of us share the blame. ”

A deep sigh left his body; he wilted in his chair, as if I’d taken all the air out of his lungs. “I think so, too. When I came to Chicago, I was so set on just focusing on you, on what I did wrong. But you’re right. I had a lot more resentment than I let myself feel.”

“Me too. Maybe it was easier to see the ways you slipped away instead of owning the ways I did, too.”

“Thank you.” His forehead bowed to rest on our entwined hands, shoulders easing down even more. “Thank you.”

I bit my lip, for the first time really comprehending what Dylan must have felt all this time. How much he buried inside himself to come to Chicago and win me back, even though we were both to blame for the way everything fell apart.

His skin was warm under my hands. I ran my fingers up and down his forearm, feeling the twists of veins, the beat of his pulse. It felt like mine.

“Now what?” Dylan raised his head, a question in his eyes. I wasn’t used to seeing that. Some time ago, that uncertainty would have caught me off guard, made me falter. Dylan always had a plan. He always knew what to do.

But now, I smiled. I didn’t just have a plan. I had a Plan B, too.

“I don’t want to be Sad Tess anymore,” I confessed, pulling my hands away.

He held on, chasing me until he realized I was heading into his lap.

I straddled his hips, breath catching when his arms closed tight around my waist. “I want to want things and be curious and try stuff, even if it means it might hurt or be embarrassing. ”

“You are never embarrassing.” His voice sounded stern as his forehead tipped to meet mine.

I was close enough to hear his throat working in a swallow.

Close enough to hear his next words, even though they were hardly a whisper.

“I don’t want to be terrified you’re going to leave again.

You left me in pieces over the course of years, and I had no clue how to stop it.

I lost myself because I lost you. I don’t want to lose either of us again. ”

“Then we won’t.” Again, that simple, and that complicated.

Of course it would be hard, and all of this was easier said than done, but I wasn’t satisfied just retreating and watching the world happen around me.

I would fight for him over and over if I needed to.

I brushed my lips across his. “You are enough, Dylan. You don’t have to work at it. You just are.”

“You’re enough, too. Even if we just watch TV and eat pasta every weeknight.”

“Only Tuesdays,” I choked, because those damn tears were back, but this time, they felt like hope. He laughed, but it was lost when my mouth closed over his, sealing in these words, this new energy that was us.

It wasn’t starting over, and it wasn’t what we were before. It was completely new. Not just sweeping something under the rug, but an actual next step forward. Together.

“I love you,” I whispered.

Dylan’s hand tightened in my hair, gripping like he wanted to hold on for dear life. “I love you so much, Angel.”

“I want to fight for you. ”

“Well, that’s good.” His nose brushed against mine. “Because I will never stop fighting for you.”

I smiled as I kissed him again, my tongue dipping between his lips to taste more. He pulled me closer, using the locks twined through his fingers to turn me this way and that, taking my mouth deeper, then teasing, nipping, only to dive back in again.

We kissed for a long time, seconds turning to minutes, and the sheer joy of being together again flooded me.

These last few weeks, we’d been together physically, but it had felt like we were making up for lost time.

Like nothing had changed in our relationship except we missed each other and were trying to make that be enough.

It wasn’t.

It was nothing like this . His hands, running over me not to grasp, but to cherish. The teasing smile that brushed the edges of his lips like he, too, couldn’t believe we were here. The feeling like we were on the other side of something, and we’d made it out alive.

When he sighed my name, arms clasping me tighter, I felt the growing bulge beneath me, and the contented, comfortable feelings started sparking at the edges. His palms ran down my back, then up underneath my shirt. The rasp of his hands on my skin struck a match.

“I need you.”

The raw confession, paired with the desperate flex of his hips beneath me, roared into an inferno. I caught fire as a mix of love and adrenaline and relief and Dylan washed over me.

“Yes,” I gasped. The word was hardly out of my mouth before he surged upwards again, this time bringing me with him. My feet landed on the gray-striped, utilitarian carpet so quickly my head spun .

“Take this off. All of it.” He sounded feverish, pulling and grappling with my workout tank. “Not like New York, Tess. I need all of you. All of this off.”

My shirt was barely over my head before his mouth slammed down on mine. I moaned as his tongue delved inside, spearing between my teeth to taste me again and again as I worked his buttons open.

We pushed and pulled, flew and fumbled and somehow made our way across the room.

I sensed the moment Dylan stumbled, tripping on the mattress behind his knees, and I followed him down.

We landed hard, groaning when bare skin met bare skin.

I shivered at the silken slide of him against me.

The way he gripped me tighter made me lightheaded.

I loved it. I sank over him to capture his mouth, and he opened for me with a groan, hips bucking. The hard jut of his cock against my belly flooded desire between my legs. He shifted again, pressing once more on my low back, grinding me against him.

“Tess.” My name, strangled in his mouth, finally broke through the haze of lust. He was working to move me, raise me up so he had better access to my pants. I huffed out a laugh even as I scrambled off of him. He rose to his elbows, like he meant to follow me.

“Tsk,” I clicked my tongue, peeling my leggings down and onto the floor. “You too.”

He shoved at his waistband so hard, the button popped. I snorted again, watching as our clothes and shoes made a pile at the foot of the bed before Dylan sat up and dragged me close .

The hiss of our sigh was palpable, like the air being let out of a compression chamber. No matter how much sex we’d had over the past few weeks, this, right here, was real. Liberating.

I grasped him tighter, rising up on my knees to take him inside. He said my name again, called me Angel, called out to God, but I was swept away, overcome by the feeling of him.

It never got old. We could do this for another dozen years, another twenty, fifty, and I’d still lose track of my senses the moment he was inside of me. I was swamped, fingers fluttering, core stretching to accommodate him.

His smell was all over me, his taste on my tongue, his skin sliding against mine like velvet. It was overload. It was too much. It was perfect.

I rocked over him again and again, panting and clawing at his back. His thumb brushed the tip of my nipple, making me gasp and tighten around him.

“Fuck, that’s it. Ride me, Tess. Take me.”

His words sharpened everything to a point. My mouth opened, truths spilling out before my brain could catch them. “I want to take you. I want to make you mine.”

Dylan bucked, groaning. His hand cupped the back of my neck, pulling me closer, millimeters from his face. “I’m yours, Angel. I’ve always been yours. I will always be yours.”

“Always.”

“Always.” He growled the promise into my swollen lips, and the sound of it rushed down my spine, setting off a chain reaction I was helpless to stop. I cried out as the peak rushed over me, whimpered when he tweaked my nipples, rubbing my clit to prolong my pleasure.

Before I’d taken a full breath, I was flying again, flipped onto my back, Dylan bearing down on top of me. I sucked in a gasp at the look on his face, so harsh and pained I almost asked what was wrong.

He buried his face in my neck before I got the chance, keeping up a pounding rhythm that had my still fluttering nerves on edge again. “Perfect,” he groaned, scrambling for purchase to pound into me harder, deeper. I arched, nearly screaming as the pleasure rose again.

“Dylan,” I gasped, the only word I could form before I crashed under the waves of ecstasy once more. He moaned above me, shouting while his hips snapped a jerky rhythm. I rode it out with him, holding him tighter when I started to come back to myself, stroking his back as he panted into my neck.

“I almost…” he whispered, the softest flutter of lips against my pulse. “…there was a part of me…” His words were stilted, strained. “I thought maybe I’d lost you earlier.”

I closed my eyes, letting his breath and words wash through me.

“I thought since I walked away…”

My heart broke. I wrapped my fingers in his hair and pulled him up to look at me. He’d thought since he’d walked away, I wouldn’t come to him. That I wouldn’t fight.

I stroked his face, tracing his jaw. “Walk wherever you want. I’ll just follow.”

His lips tipped up into the gentlest, most heart-stopping smile I’d ever seen. “Yeah? ”

“Yeah.” I kissed him because I couldn’t stop myself. Because he was mine, and it was a travesty that he’d ever doubted it. “I’m sorry, Dylan. For everything.”

“I’m sorry, too, Angel.” He kissed me back before scooting up the bed to wrap the covers around us. “For everything.”

We laid there, curled around each other, pressing kisses and I love you’s into each other’s skin until my limbs grew heavy in the warm circle of his arms.

“Tess, what you said earlier today…about not marrying you…” Dylan started. I waited for the familiar sensation of alarm to slither its way into my brain, but I just felt content. Quiet. I drifted a little deeper, hovering on the edge of unconsciousness.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, stroking his shoulder. “We can talk about it later.” I was already fading, half-asleep.

“Tess.” Even with my eyes closed, I heard his smile. “We should talk about it. I want everything out in the open.”

“We have time,” I whispered. My jaw cracked in a yawn. “I’m not going anywhere, Dylan.”

His fingers traced my temple, brushing a few hairs away from my cheek. “Promise?”

“Promise.” A few beats passed while I battled my weighted eyelids open, looking at him across the pillow. “Now you promise, too.”

His face softened as he pulled me closer.

“I’m not going anywhere either, Angel.” He murmured into my hairline, pressing kisses there. “I promise.”