Page 50 of Sugar (Gilded #1)

EASTON

ONE MONTH LATER...

M y girl was tipsy.

Her girl was tipsy.

Neither was as happy as they deserved to be.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t the shitstorm with Doug that was bringing them down—though that wasn’t helping. According to Maddie, Greer had basically thrown herself into school. She’d barely been able to convince her to join us at Golden for Tripp’s birthday party.

But Maddie was nothing if not tenacious, and Greer had relented.

Wren had, too.

Only she wasn’t there.

And according to the text they’d received, she wouldn’t be joining us.

“What do you think is going on with her?” Mads asked as she took a sip of her ridiculous drink. “This is the third time she’s bailed on me in the last two weeks.”

“Fourth,” Greer corrected. “Brunch.”

Maddie leaned into me to share something I already knew. “We started our mimosa brunches in honor of the OGs’ sangria ones. We used to never miss them.”

“Maybe she’s busy with her man,” I pointed out.

“I’m busy with you and your demanding dick, but I still make brunch.”

“Yes, but not everyone is so selfless and ungreedy with their significant other’s time.”

She burst out laughing before I finished my sentence.

“You guys are so cute, it makes me need another drink.” Greer stood. “And food. It’s amazing.”

“It’s not steak dirt, that’s for sure,” Maddie said.

“I have no clue what that means. Tell me when I get back.”

As she headed for the bar, I snagged Maddie’s wrist and pulled her to stand. She rushed to keep up with me as I dragged her across the bar to the entrance that only Cohen, Atlas, and security had access to.

With his blessing, I punched in Cohen’s passcode and opened the door. I ensured it locked behind us before continuing into a darkened Gilded.

“It’s creepy in here,” Maddie whispered. “What’re we doing?”

“Patience.”

“Ah, yes. What I’m known for.”

In honor of Tripp’s birthday party, Golden was closed to the public and Gilded was completely closed as a precaution.

Atlas and Cohen didn’t need some drunken partygoer—or stubborn journalist—stumbling in to discover the secret club.

I kept going until we reached room seven.

She smiled up at me through hooded eyes. “We can’t.”

“We can.”

“The party.”

“Will still be there in a few minutes.” I backed her against a wall before dropping to my knees. “But I’ll come out of my fucking skin if I don’t get a taste of you.”

“We can’t have that happening,” she whispered, relenting almost instantly.

“Take your panties off, Madeline.”

Lifting her skirt, she hooked her thumb in the sides and pushed them down before carefully stepping out of them.

I grabbed them from the floor and rubbed the silky material between my fingers. “Already soaked.”

“Always for you.”

“ Only for me,” I corrected as I pocketed them. She wouldn’t be getting them back. “Lift your skirt out of the way and show me what’s mine.” When she did, I lifted her leg over my shoulder to lap at her wetness.

“Easton,” she whimpered.

Each time I filled her. With my tongue. My fingers. My dick. It didn’t matter what, but each time, she moaned my name. Like she knew it drove me out of my fucking mind.

Like she loved the reminder that it was me touching her. Tasting her. Owning her.

And it never failed to make me lose control.

Instead of teasing her like I planned, I ate with greedy desperation.

Like her pussy was the answer to everything.

Like it was my fuel.

My fucking lifeblood.

Because it was.

Every damn thing about Maddie was.

And all of it was mine .

Maddie

FIVE MONTHS LATER...

I was going crazy.

And not for the usual reason.

Okay, not just that.

Because on my cushion at Gilded—literally mine, custom-made and brightly colored and everything—it wasn’t only horniness that was stealing my sanity.

It was curiosity.

I’d been waiting for Easton to tell me himself, but he hadn’t. It wasn’t the time or the place, but I’d reached the end of my rope.

Moving carefully so the cuffs didn’t dig in, I tugged Easton’s pant leg to get his attention.

His dark gaze shot down to me. “More champagne, mine?”

My Dirty Shirley he offered with a straw because he hated the syrupy taste. The champagne, though? That he delivered himself.

It wasn’t what I was going to ask, but I wasn’t stupid enough to say no.

He gripped my cheeks to hold my lips open as he spit the insanely expensive beverage into my mouth.

The rush of arousal was almost enough to distract me.

Almost.

I didn’t need to gesture him closer. In tune with me, he leaned forward and gave me his complete focus.

He always did that.

No matter what else was happening, I came first.

“What is it, mine?” he prodded when my silence stretched.

“When are you going to tell me about the trip?”

He sat back and blinked down at me.

Uh oh.

When I’d seen the trip reservations in his email, I’d assumed I would be going with him. It wasn’t one of the wild and impulsive conclusions I was prone to jumping to. It was a plausible inference backed by loads of precedents.

True to his promise at the beginning, Easton was greedy with my time.

He never tried to play it cool. He’d moved me in between the fall and spring semesters because just staying with him nightly wasn’t enough.

He still had me come to his office whenever I had a free moment.

If I didn’t have enough for his liking, he came to me.

It seemed unlikely he was suddenly abandoning that single-minded obsession to take a solo trip to a remote bungalow in the Maldives.

Or so I thought.

But his shuttered expression was enough to send a flicker of doubt through my head.

“I planned to tell you after a nice dinner, but here is more fitting.” He ran a thumb across his jaw. “We needed somewhere to go on our honeymoon.”

I swallowed hard. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“But the email I saw was a reservation.”

“Correct.”

My heart and my clit thumped to the same beat. “In six months.”

“Correct,” he repeated. “That gives you six months to plan a wedding.”

“I can do that.”

Technically, I could do it in a week if it meant being Mrs. Easton Wells, hotness at law.

He leaned down again, getting in my face so his was all I could see. Love and adoration and lust glittered in his dark eyes even as his voice came out gravelly and stern. “I wasn’t asking.”

I tried to smother my grin and force somberness. “Of course not. You tell me what to do, and I do it.”

“Exactly. And we’re getting married in six months.”

“Okay.”

“And you’ll have my last name.”

“Yes, I will.”

“And the world will know who you belong to.”

“They will.”

His phone hadn’t buzzed to say that the reserved room was ready, but he unlatched my cuffs anyway. “Time to go to the car, Madeline.”

“I was hoping you would say that.”

Maddie

FOUR YEARS LATER...

“I have an issue, husband,” I said, sticking just my head into our bedroom doorway.

“If the issue is that you’re all the way over there while I’m over here, then I have the same one.” Easton turned to face me as he reached down to adjust the bulge in his tight boxer briefs.

It was nearly enough to make me forget my own problems, the reason for the space, and to breathe.

Thankfully, he pulled his pants up and fastened them into place, allowing some common sense to return to my brain.

Not much.

But some.

“What’s the issue, wife?” he prompted when I continued to ogle him.

“I can’t get my dress zipped up.”

“That sounds like the opposite of a problem.”

“And if I ask you to do it, you’ll see my breasts because they’re out of control right now.”

“Again, the opposite of a problem.”

“And then we won’t leave.”

He offered me a wicked smirk. “Which part is supposed to be the issue?”

“I would like to attend this premiere because it’ll be the last one I can cover for a while. I need you to zip my dress without luring me in with sexual manipulation.”

“If I agree, I’ll be perjuring myself.”

“Agree to try?”

“Deal.”

At our reluctant arrangement, I entered the room.

And he watched me like I was the sexiest, most breathtaking woman he’d ever seen.

Despite the fact I waddled.

Or maybe because of it.

I turned when I reached him, but he didn’t fasten the zipper into place. He shoved a hand into the opening and reached around to grab my swollen, tender breast. He kept his hold light, but his deft fingers teased my nipple into a hardened peak.

Arrangement forgotten, I leaned back into him and lifted my hand to run my fingers through his hair. Hair that had an insanely sexy dusting of gray peeking through at the temples. “You have to do the other one now, or it’ll look like I have a headlight out.”

He chuckled as he lowered my hand so he could nudge the sleeves down my arms. He worked my other breast while his his free hand spanned my belly.

My very large, very pregnant belly.

He massaged it, easing some of the tightness in my muscles.

“You’re supposed to be securing me into the dress, not taking me out of it.” My protests ended on a moan when he kissed my neck.

“It’s your fault for looking so unbelievably sexy.” He started to slide his hand down to my sex, and if he did that, we wouldn’t be leaving.

But I’d meant what I said about wanting to attend the premiere, so I gathered all my willpower and…

It still wasn’t enough.

I spread my legs for him to touch me.

Once we were both so pent-up that the night would be torturous fun, he pulled away and secured my dress in place. He spun me in his hold, and his eyes dropped to take in the cleavage that was heaved up the square neckline. “Fucking hell fuck. Go change.”

“This is the only dress I have that fits,” I said with a pout.

It was just for show. The aches and pains and insomnia I wasn’t big on, but I loved my changing body.

He knew I was working him and scowled down at me in a silent warning. “I have stipulations for tonight.”

“Why am I not surprised?” I muttered.

Easton had rules for me regardless of the situation. At three weeks from my due date, it was no shock that he would have more of them.

“What was that?” he bit out.

“I said of course. Happy to obey. Let’s hear them.”

He lifted a skillful finger to count off each one. “You stay off your feet as much as possible.”

“Happily.”

“You let me know the second anything feels off.”

“Got it.”

“And no after-party.”

I shrugged. “Two outta three’s not bad.”

“It’s not nonnegotiable.”

“But I don’t even know how much of the movie I’ll be able to watch. I’ll need the after-party to get caught up on the bits I miss because your son likes to dance a jig on my bladder.”

“Tripp already told me which scenes are good for bathroom breaks so you won’t miss anything important.”

I was supposed to be a fierce opponent, but there was no resisting that level of consideration toward my career. Not to mention, my bladder.

I’d always imagined myself as a hard-hitting journalist who would break stories of scandals, corruption, and the gritty underbelly of the world. I’d wanted to be the biggest pain in the ass the world never knew it had.

But then I’d covered Old Flame for The Coastal Chronicle, and all that had changed.

My genuine love of movies and the unpretentious way I judged them on vibes and enjoyment resonated with others. I filled a void left by harsh critics, miserable whiners, and dummies who lacked the media literacy to understand nuance.

That following landed me a regular movie column on JoltNews.

I still got to investigate and report, I just did it about a topic that I loved. If there were no new releases or premieres to cover—or none I was interested in—I drew on a lifetime of movie binges to recommend classics.

That was what I would be doing during my lengthy maternity leave that Easton said was mandatory for both of us.

But there was something else we wouldn’t be able to do for quite a while, and I wanted it one last time before our baby came.

“Fine,” I relented before lifting a finger. “But I have my own stipulation.”

My loving husband arched an expectant brow.

“I will leave as soon as the credits roll,” I said, “ if we can go to Gilded after.” Hunger filled his dark gaze, but I still sweetened a pot that didn’t need sweetening. “I’ll even sit on my cushion if you help me up after.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Madeline Wells.” He held out a hand.

I accepted it. “I could say the same of you, Tyrant.”

Unlike the first time we struck an arrangement, neither of us was fighting our feelings. He wasn’t struggling to keep his distance because of our age difference. I wasn’t embarrassingly hiding the desires I didn’t understand.

We knew who we were. We loved each other to the point of obsession.

And we were never giving each other back.

That was why we sealed our deal with a kiss.

And then I leaned back. “About the premiere…”

“No party,” he bit out.

“No movie at all.” I glanced down at the slow, steady drip. “I’m pretty sure my water just broke.”

The End