Mile High (Up in the Air #2)(60)

The elevator stopped and he stepped off, still kissing me, as he strode to his beautiful bed. He laid me on it, pulling away to push his slacks off impatiently. It took the briefest moment, and he was back, arranging me in the middle of the bed.

He parted my legs wide, moving his hips between them, lowering his chest to mine. He was propped up slightly on his elbows, and he moved those elbows almost into my armpits so he could cup my face as he stared down at me.

His eyes were so tender and soft that an embarrassing tear slid down my cheek. His thumb caught it, and he pressed his thick arousal against my sex, pressing that first perfect inch inside of me. He entered me very slowly at first, though I was slick from arousal and the shared fluids from our last bout of f**king.

“I missed you,” I told him again, and he groaned, moving into me more forcefully, but with the smoothest strokes.

“I’m glad,” he told me with the softest smile. “I’m relieved that you want more than just the dominant side of me.”

I wanted so badly right then to tell him that I loved him, but the words wouldn’t form past the lump in my throat. I kissed him instead, gripping my hands in his silky hair and pulling him down to me.

He seemed pleased with that, kissing me back with a moan. His thrusts increased into that steady pounding that he’d taught me to love, and I melted under him, an exquisite orgasm building inside of me. I cried out into his mouth as I came, and he joined me, his own cries just as loud, just as desperate, as mine had been.

“You’re mine,” he told me, but it was a tender admission that time.

He crushed me under him when we’d finished, as though he didn’t even have the energy to roll off of me, when he was the most inexhaustible of men.

I didn’t complain, even though it was a bit of a struggle to breath like that. But I liked his weight on top of me. I relished it. When he did finally roll off of me, it was only to lay plastered to my side, a heavy arm thrown over me.

We didn’t speak for long minutes, and I felt a sleepy fog invading my senses. But something was nagging at me, a persistent thought that I wanted to clear between us before exhaustion took me.

“Do you feel used by me?” I asked him suddenly.

He rose on an elbow to meet my eyes squarely. His studied mine, looking sad. It made me feel a little sad just to see it.

“I don’t,” he said after a long pause. “I worry that you don’t care for me, not like I care for you. I worry that you aren’t able to return my feelings. And I realize that, for the first time in my life, I would let you use me, however you wanted, if it came to that. If that’s all I could get from you, I would take it.”

I stroked his cheek, feeling an almost uncontrollable need to reassure him. “I do care for you. It scares me sometimes, the way I feel.” My voice was a whisper. It was all I could manage.

His eyes closed and he pressed his cheek into my hand, looking relieved but still almost anguished, all at once. It was hard to look at him, his face was so raw with emotions.

“Then live with me,” he said softly. “Be with me. Swear you’ll never leave me.”

I sighed heavily, but I knew him well enough to know that he couldn’t help but be so demanding. I’d given him a confession of sorts, and it was his first and strongest instinct to press forward and use it to his advantage. I had known, just known, that he would. When I gave, he took more, it was what both drew me to him, and terrified me about him.

“We need to be rational adults about this, James. Let’s start by trying to be together, trying to spend time together, when we can. I think that’s a good start. So, yes to the ‘be with you’ part. We’ll see on the rest.”

He arranged me against him for sleep, spooning me from behind, both of us lying on our sides how we slept. “Move in with me. We’ll be traveling so much that I’m not sure you’ll notice the difference, but say you’ll live with me. Just give me that much, and I’ll relent from pressing you for more, for the moment.”

Shockingly, his persistence actually just made me smile. That’s when I knew that I was well and truly sated. Or perhaps that was just an excuse for my sudden weakness. I made a conscious effort not to analyze it to death, and just thought about his request. What would it mean, to live together? It wasn’t a permanent step, right? I could always withdraw, if I panicked.

“I’m keeping my house. I worked my ass off for that house, and I’m keeping it,” I told him, shocked even as the words left my mouth, because I knew how he would take them, and it was, amazingly, actually how I meant them.

His arms squeezed me almost painfully from behind. “Of course. We can stay there when we’re in Las Vegas. Whatever you want. I’ll sell the other house in Vegas, if you prefer, though we should probably keep it for the stables, if you want to keep riding.”

I felt such a relief at my own acquiescence, at the world of relief that I heard in his voice and felt in his body, that it floored me. I had wanted this just as much as he had, I realized. I just hadn’t allowed myself to admit it.

“I do want to keep riding,” was all I said.

“Yes. Thank you, Bianca. You make me so happy. I never knew life could be like this,” he murmured into my hair. His voice was thick, as though with tears. I wasn’t brave enough to look back and see.

“So now you can’t propose, or do anything else crazy, since you said you’d relent if I agreed to live with you.”