Grounded (Up in the Air, #3)(39)

I couldn’t see a thing, but I could hear the wicked smile in his voice.

He plunged two hard fingers inside of me, once, twice, and I came on a dime. He was kissing up my body, nudging aside the material where it covered a nipple. He sucked hard on my nipple as he plunged inside of me. I gasped and struggled harder against the soft bindings.

He was dragging his cock out of me, hitting every perfect nerve, when he uncovered my eyes. The rest he left imprisoned as he dug his elbows into the mattress on the sides of my breasts and drove into me again and again. His eyes showed me that the tender-lover was driving for this ride, though the warm smile in his voice as he tormented me had given me fair warning.

“Say it, Bianca,” he said, his voice more tender than demanding. Still, I knew it was an order.

“I’m yours, James,” I told him softly.

His eyelids fluttered briefly as he started to come inside of me. He bottomed out in me with the sexiest little moan, and I came.

“Cashmere f*cking,” he told me with a smile as we caught our breath.

I laughed. “So that’s what that was called. Good to know.”

He unwrapped me from the long scarf slowly, rubbing it along my body as he did so. I rubbed against him, always craving his touch, even as my eyes drifted closed and I fell into a hard sleep.





I had the dream again and woke up scrambling out of bed in the dark, disoriented and scared. Hard familiar arms caught me almost immediately, lifting me from behind, and carrying me into the bathroom. I had to shut my eyes tight as light flooded the room.

We were already naked so he just stepped into the tub, never letting me go as he turned on the water and leaned back against the edge of the huge tub. I turned into him, wrapping my arms around his neck, clinging as hard as I could. Soothing arms stroked my back, washing and comforting, soft whispers telling me everything would be fine.

“I can’t stand it. I know it’s a dream, but it feels so real,” I whispered. I didn’t break down, didn’t cry this time, though the dream had shaken me as badly as before. More so.

“Shhh, Love. Just breathe. The memories will fade. Nightmare memories always do.”

He said it like someone well acquainted with nightmares. I wasn’t surprised.

I lifted my head to look at him. He stroked my hair, meeting my eyes squarely. He could communicate so much to me with just those exquisite, tarnished eyes of his.

I swallowed hard. Residual fear from the dream still haunted me. The thought of losing him made me desperate and empty and filled me with despair darker than anything I’d ever known, and I was hardly a stranger to dark thoughts.

I pulled back enough to move up his body, straddling his hips in the rising water. I traced a finger over that smooth brow, the hollow in his cheek, that perfectly straight nose, those pretty lips, and then across that hard jaw.

I cupped his face in my hands, watching him steadily. He pressed his own hands over mine, giving me such a loving look that I melted.

“The thought of losing you makes me desperate,” I said, shifting our faces closer. My eyes were steady on his when I took the leap. “I love you, James,” I said, my voice just a whisper. “So much.”

His eyes closed for just an instant, and he took a deep breath. When he opened them again there was such a raw relief there that it made me shake.

“Thank you,” he said roughly. “I’ve been waiting for that, and wanting that, for so long.”

He stroked his hands over my hair, watching me, his eyes going to that soft loving place that I’d come to crave and depend on so quickly.

He was silent for so long, just watching me and touching me, that I lost our silent standoff.

“Do you…love me?” I asked him, my chest hurting.

“That’s a silly question,” he said, stroking my cheek. “An unnecessary question. I’ve never made a secret of my feelings, Bianca. I know you’re a skeptic, but you must have realized that I fell for you right away.”

I leaned my cheek into his hand. “Why haven’t you ever said the words, then?”

He bit his lip.

I watched that vulnerable action with rapt attention.

“I wanted you to say it first. Not for pride, and not for my ego, but for my heart. I haven’t said those words to anyone since my parents died, and I didn’t want the first time to be met with a rejection. I was afraid you would get spooked and run again. I preferred to give you time rather than break my own heart. Can you understand that?”

I nodded, feeling crushed under the weight of my own skepticism. I hated what my baggage had done to him, what it might do in the future, all of the pain it had caused him, because there was no cure-all for my issues. One big one was rearing its ugly head even as I had the thought.

“But why?” I asked him, my voice much smaller than I liked it to be. “That’s what I don’t understand.

His brows shot up, and he gave me a genuinely baffled look. “Why?”

“Why do you love me?”

His eyes got so soft, changed in an instant from confused and into that impossibly tender look that got me every time. “You want me to break it down for you?” he asked succinctly.

I nodded.

He traced a finger across my brow. “I can do that. I’d enjoy that actually. You’re my favorite subject, Love. I’ll start with your eyes. I fell in love with those first. One look was like a punch to the gut. You have these ageless eyes on such a young face. I just knew that you had seen bad things, lived bad things, and from the start, I knew that you could understand pain. Understand loneliness and despair. Understand feeling hopeless and helpless and alone. I fell in love with your eyes first because I looked into their depths and saw the other half of my soul.”