Glow (Glimmer and Glow #2)(123)
“Brace yourself,” he instructed. Glancing down and gauging the angle of things, Alice put her hands behind her on the blotter and tilted her upper body back. She also shifted her pelvis up, tilting her * into a slightly upward angle. “That’s right,” he growled, his expression almost angry as he stared between her thighs. He guided his cock to her entrance and thrust. He groaned in mixed agony and pleasure when he sunk into her partially and halted. Alice thrust her hips upward, so desperate for him. It’d been more than a month now since she’d been with him. Her mind was more ready for him than her body was. She whimpered in frustration.
“Shhh,” he soothed, nipping at her mouth, plucking at her lips hungrily. He always melted her with his forceful, greedy, coaxing kisses. She grew so focused on reciprocating that her body relaxed around him as he sawed his hips. He clasped her rib cage in his big hands as he worked his cock into her with gentle but firm deliberation. He cupped a breast and ran his thumb and forefinger over the nipple, caressing her beading flesh. She moaned, feeling her body heat around him. “That’s right,” he said next to her open lips. “Let me in, beautiful girl.”
He flexed his hips. A rough groan tore from his throat. She cried out when he drove all the way into her, two halves of a whole sliding home. She saw his eyes roll back in his head.
“Way too damn long,” he grated out through a clenched jaw.
“I agree,” she whispered, because the sensation of him filling her and throbbing so deep was stealing her voice.
He looked up and met her stare.
“Never again,” he stated simply.
“Never again,” she promised.
He reached around her, his hands at the small of her back and his strong arms squeezing her knees until they touched her shoulders. Her legs were spread and immobilized between their straining bodies. Alice bit her lip at the intensity of the pressure of his piercing cock. He’d put her in a very vulnerable position. She was at his mercy.
She had been on other occasions before, too. But now, she knew she trusted him, and she was so much stronger because of it. She looked into his deep, lustrous eyes as he began to move, and knew there was no going back.
*
ALICE had had only a shadowy idea of what would be involved in the press conference. It turned out that it was probably a good thing that she hadn’t understood the implications of what was what about to occur, or she would never have agreed to attend it.
After Dylan’s and her emotional and passionate reunion in the stables, they’d returned to the castle and continued their celebration in a more leisurely fashion in bed. Alice couldn’t think of anyone or anything but Dylan. Discovering her ability to love and trust left her liberated. Reborn. Dylan seemed equally as awed, and she was reminded again that despite his superior confidence and faith in their relationship, he, too, had once been a loner. He had once been that wary, angry boy who had let down his guard for an innocent girl of four.
In those moments, she never understood more clearly how doubt and uncertainty could have caused her to lose him.
She’d never risk that happening again.
Lying there in bed together entwined, touching and talking and making love, Alice felt like she’d been given the gift once again of innocence, to look at him and wonder, to admire him, to love him without the burden of anxiety.
She wasn’t even concerned when it came time for them to rise and get ready for the press conference, still encapsulated as she was in the bubble of their intimacy. She decided to wear a dress that Dylan had bought for her, a cobalt blue wrap dress that was professional-looking but still complimented her figure and eyes. When she saw Dylan choose a dark blue suit, she walked into his enormous walk-in closet and chose a cobalt blue tie. She draped it around his neck, grinning.
“So we look like we go together.”
He quirked his dark eyebrows and slid the tie beneath his collar. “We more than just look like it.”
His reply made her giddy. She grinned wider and started to turn away to put on her shoes. He caught her hand. She turned around, her eyebrows arching when she realized how sober he looked.
“You don’t fully grasp it yet, Alice, but your life is about to change forever,” he said quietly. Her smile faded at his intensity. “You’re about to be acknowledged as Alan Durand’s sole heir. You’re a very wealthy woman. People are going to question our involvement. They’re going to insinuate and assume a lot of things about us.”
“I don’t care about that—”
He held up a hand. “Let me finish.”
Alice nodded.
“I want a future with you,” he stated simply.
“I want one with you, too.”
“Because of that basic truth, I will never, upon any occasion, ask you for or share a penny of the money or estate your parents left you. Never. That’s not a shifting promise, Alice. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to step down as the executor of your trust. You can take it over yourself, or hire a legal and financial representative or a team to handle it. If you want advice on who to hire, I’ll give it, or I’ll point you in the direction of someone else who can advise you on some different candidates. The point is, you are the sole beneficiary. It’s your choice to make.”
Alice flushed in discomfort. “Do we really have to talk about this now?”
He squeezed her hand. “Yes. Don’t let the topic of money make you wary. You, of all people, are going to have to learn to talk bluntly about it. It’s not crucial to our relationship, but it is important in a general sense to your life. Very. I want you to know right up front that, thanks to Alan and the success of Durand, I’m not doing too badly myself.”