It's Only Love(53)

“Will you do something for me?” Ella asked.

“Anything you want.”

“Sit on the edge of the bed.”

He did as she requested.

“Now lean back and get comfortable.” She reached for a pillow and dropped it to the floor before kneeling in front of him.

“Ella . . . What’re you doing?”

“Exactly what I want to do. Nothing more, nothing less.”

He blew out a deep breath. “I so don’t deserve you.”

“Yes, you do, Gavin.” She ran her hands from his calves to his knees and inner thighs, settling between his legs. “You deserve me, and I deserve you.”

His fingers slid through her hair as she bent her head to run her tongue up the length of his erection, making him tremble. She loved his reaction so much she did it again.

“Ella,” he whispered. “You’re killing me.”

“Relax and enjoy it.”

“Right,” he said with a tense laugh. “Relax when you’re doing that?”

Equal parts amused and aroused, she wrapped her hand around the thick base and began to stroke him while continuing to tease the tip with her tongue. Never before had she wanted so badly to rock a man’s world with her mouth and tongue and hand.

She wanted to give Gavin cause to think about this moment for days. Drawing him into her mouth, she sucked lightly while lashing him with her tongue and stroking him faster with her hand.

His fingers tangled in her hair, which made her scalp tingle. “Ella . . . Baby, if you keep that up . . . Oh f*ck . . .”

She’d never before allowed a man to come in her mouth, but she’d never loved any of them the way she loved Gavin. So when his fingers tightened around her hair, when his breathing became shallow and rapid, when his thighs tightened, she didn’t stop. Rather she kept it up until he raised his hips and came with a groan.

Then he released her hair and fell backward onto the mattress, his chest and abdomen heaving like a bellows.

Ella licked him clean, absorbing each tremor and aftershock before moving up to rest on top of him.

His arms encircled her.

She closed her eyes, basking in the incredible sweetness of the moment with the man she loved beyond reason. At some point in the last few days of incredible bliss with him she’d forgotten all about her plans to be careful, to guard her heart, to be wary. She was all in and getting in deeper by the minute.





CHAPTER 16




Hope will never be silent.

—Harvey Milk



Gavin drove her home in the morning, so early it was still dark when they pulled up to her place. “I’m so not ready for how cold it is today,” he said.

“Happens every year around this time.”

“Always catches me by surprise.”

“I have something that’ll keep you warm today,” she said as he followed her inside to have breakfast before they went their separate ways for the day.

“I can’t wait to see this.”

They stepped into the front hall and Ella nearly jumped a foot when Mrs. Abernathy appeared out of the gloaming.

“You’re off to an early start this morning, Ella,” the older woman said. She wore a bathrobe and held a mug of coffee.

“As are you, Mrs. Abernathy.”

“Good morning, Gavin.”

“Morning,” he muttered as he followed Ella up the stairs. “God, she scared the shit out of me.”

“Me, too.”

Inside the apartment, they took off their coats and Ella headed directly to the coffeemaker.

He was right behind her, molding his body to hers and making her forget about what she’d been doing. “It’s going to be all over town by noon that we’re sleeping together. Are you okay with that?”

Ella tipped her head to give him better access to her neck. “I don’t care if you don’t.”

“I don’t. But your parents . . . Your dad . . . What will he say?”

“I’m thirty-one, Gavin. What can he say?”

“Um, a lot?”

“He and my gramps have been on a campaign to get us all settled down and happy. This is exactly what he wants.”

“He wants me making mad, crazy love to his beautiful daughter every chance I get?”

She laughed. “He might not want that, but he wants me happy.”

“Are you happy, Ella?”

“How can you ask me that? I’ve never been so happy in my whole life.” She turned to him, resting her hands on his chest. “I’ve finally got what I’ve always wanted. How could I be anything less than elated?”

“I like that word. Elated. It looks good on you.”

She reached up to caress his face. “Happy looks good on you, too.”

“It feels good.” He leaned in to press his lips to hers. “It feels so good.”

With his lips sliding over hers and the hard press of his erection against her belly, Ella was tempted to forget all about the big day she had ahead of her at work. She wanted nothing more than to drag him back to bed for more of what they’d shared during the night. She ought to be completely exhausted, but rather she was buzzing from the incredible high they’d found together.

“You want pancakes?” he asked, tearing himself away from the kiss reluctantly.