All the Way (Romancing Manhattan #1)(24)



“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”



I wake up and reach for her in the dark, but the sheets are cool where she was lying not long ago.

She’s not here.

I sit up in my bed and rub my hands over my face, then look around the room and pause when I find her.

She’s sitting on the floor in front of the glass door that leads out to my deck, her knees pulled up to her chest and arms wrapped around them, a blanket wrapped around her. Her nose is practically pressed to the glass.

I reach for another throw blanket, and rather than ask her to get up and come back to bed, I sit behind her, wrap the blanket around us both, and pull her against my chest while I breathe her in.

“Are you okay?” I whisper in her ear.

“Storm’s coming in,” she whispers back. Her eyes are wide as she avidly watches the wind push through the trees. Lightning strikes out at sea, lighting everything up and making London flinch. “I don’t like storms.”

“I’ve got you,” I murmur, and kiss her shoulder.

“Did you see the water?” she asks. “When the lightning struck, did you see how choppy it was?”

“Yes.”

“I hope there aren’t any ships out there,” she says as the thunder booms and she flinches again. “Seaside storms are so crazy. Violent. Angry. Like a woman who’s royally pissed off and she doesn’t care who knows it.”

“That’s a good analogy,” I reply. “It does look like someone is having a tantrum.”

“And it’s destructive,” she adds.

“What is it about the storm that scares you?”

“Everything. The wind is wild, it could easily pull something out to sea. The rain isn’t a sprinkling, but more like God is dumping a huge bucket of water all at once. And the lightning and thunder just tips it all into crazy town. It’s loud and bright and messy.”

“Sounds like life, if you’re living it right,” I reply, and kiss her cheek when she glances back at me. “And sometimes that can be scary too.”

“This is a deep conversation during a crazy storm.”

Lightning flashes overhead, and almost immediately thunder claps, and she turns to bury her face in my chest.

She’s the strongest woman I’ve met in a very long time, and this storm has her reduced to shivering like a child.

“Hey,” I murmur, and tip her chin up to look at me. “You can’t control the storm, London. It’s going to happen whether you’re scared, or not. But you can calm yourself in it. That’s the trick.”

“I’ve never been good at that,” she confesses. “I can’t sleep through it, and I feel like I have to watch every second of it, in case something horrible happens and I have to run.”

I brush her hair off of her cheek and hook it behind her ear.

“Nothing horrible is going to happen tonight,” I assure her. “In fact, I think some wonderful things are going to happen.”

“Really?” Her voice and eyes tell me she doesn’t believe me, so I just lower my mouth to hers and kiss her deeply, soaking in every moment with her. She shivers when my fingers drift from her neck, over her collarbone, to her breast, and it’s not from the storm, but from my touch.

She comes alive when I touch her and it’s fucking amazing.

“That feels nice,” she says before swallowing hard and turning to me fully now, naked beneath our blankets, a tangle of legs and quiet breaths.

“You’re beautiful, London. I find it very difficult to keep my hands to myself.”

“No need,” she says as her eyes drift closed and she leans into my touch. She lets the blanket fall and reaches out to run her fingers down my chest, not stopping until her hand is wrapped around my fully erect cock. She pumps it slowly but firmly and I want to jerk her onto me and have my way with her.

But that’s not what this moment is all about.

It’s about forgetting, and discovering new memories.

Before I can lay her down and touch every inch of her with my mouth, she leans down and brushes her tongue around the rim of my cock, barely touching me but setting me on fire.

Just when I think I can’t take any more, she slides that sweet mouth over me, then pulls up and just barely scrapes her teeth over my skin, and I can’t sit still anymore.

I sink my fingers into her hair, gripping hard as she works me over. I can feel the tightening in my balls, the humming in the base of my spine, and I know that if she doesn’t stop right now, I’m going to come in her mouth.

And as much as I don’t hate that idea, that’s not what I want right now.

“London.” My voice is gruff, and she doesn’t respond to me, so I tug her up and off of me, stand, and lift her in my arms, carrying her back to the bed.

“I want to be on you,” she says, her voice sure and strong.

“I won’t argue with that.” I kiss her, letting my lips slip and move over hers as she pushes my shoulders back, urging me to lie down in the middle of the bed. She reaches for a condom, and swiftly rolls it down my length, making my eyes cross. “Christ almighty.”

“I can’t tell you how good it feels to be able to do this.” She holds me at the opening of her pussy, and slowly lowers herself onto me. Her hands are braced on my chest and she starts to rock back and forth. “I couldn’t sit like this a few weeks ago, and I can do it. It doesn’t hurt.”

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