by Christa Wick
“She would’ve lost the suit, P.J. Trust me, I’d fired her with cause, with a ton of evidence against her that was plenty damning. Her accusations that I swept my male execs indiscretions under the rug are totally baseless. While my P.I. did discover the senior execs in question having extramarital affairs, they weren’t with anyone in my company. I have sworn affidavits and extensive P.I. reports proving my case. The only one guilty of any intraoffice cavorting was her. I promise you that.”
I nodded, having no trouble at all believing Anna would be foolish enough to go in with a bluff. Based on the few words she and I had exchanged, the woman wasn’t exactly drawing up her outlandish claims with all the crayons in the box. “You really didn’t need me at all, did you?”
Dropping his hand to my thigh, he gave a light squeeze, his eyes flashing silver at me. “Not for the lawsuit, no. And not just because Anna didn’t have shit on me, but because you did a way better job rebranding me this past year than even you realize. My lawyers were thorough, bringing in a big trial analyst to scrutinize the hell out of everything. The analyst did a whole bunch of polls and things and found that for the most part, people kind of love me now.” He smiled and brushed his lips against mine. “And that’s all thanks to my brilliant PR manager.”
A smile snuck up on me. “Wow, I am good. I should probably start charging you more for my PR services this coming year.”
“Are you saying you intend to continue being my PR manager?”
“Depends,” I replied. “Are we staying married?”
His eyes darkened as he slid off the mattress onto the floor and held out the ring to me on bended knee. “Put it back on, love.”
My chest felt ready to explode. I smoothed a fingertip across his worried brow, watching as his expression turned to immense relief when I uncurled my hand finally and let him slide it back on my ring finger.
“You do know that this whole plan of yours was crazy, right?” I asked as he quickly came back onto the bed to cover my body with his.
His hands moved to my legs, lightly surfing over them to wrap around my hips. “I’d do it all over again if it meant you saying yes.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and though he hadn’t proposed again while sliding my ring back on my finger, I whispered “yes” a few times as he pushed me back against the mattress and settled in between my legs.
His lips found mine as his hands worked the buttons on my blouse. Reaching down, I ran my palm along the front of his boxers to find him rock hard and ready.
The last of my buttons flew off my top an instant later, shooting across the room to skip across the floor like stones on a lake. His hands dropped to my slacks, fumbling as he continued to kiss me. I eased his fingers to the side and unzipped. Lifting my hips, I pushed the pants and underwear far enough down that he could strip them the rest of the way.
Blake wrapped his arms around me, rolled onto his back and brought us to the center of the bed with me on top. Before I could ease part of my weight off him, he cinched my hips to his, keeping me atop him fully. “Baby, I want you to ride me.”
He slid his hand down to stroke at my bare pussy, the thrust of his fingers inside me and my accompanying moan proved me ready. Leaning back, I grabbed hold of the base of his shaft and slowly sank down onto him, small whimpers of need escaping me with each inch of thick, hard cock my pussy swallowed.
Propped on one elbow, Blake watched me descend as his hand toyed with my breast. “So beautiful, P.J.”
He lifted his torso high enough to kiss my breast and slowly suck one nipple in. “God, I love these.” He licked from one nipple to the other. “And this.” He ran a hand over my hip, down between my legs to tease my clit as I tightened around his cock. “So damn responsive.”
I moaned. His cock was stretching me, pushing at my walls to intensify the strength of the contractions already rolling through me.
Reclining on the mattress again, he kept his fingers on my clit, his pace following the deep downward strokes of my pussy on his shaft. “Are you going to come for me, love?”
At this rate, sooner than he thought. His fierce, adoring gaze, filled to the brim with all the love I could finally see, was making me squeeze him tighter until I was fighting just to breathe. My movements became erratic, and he grabbed my hips to hold me tightly to him. Every muscle in his body instantly seized up as I knotted around him, my pussy grinding tight circles as an epic orgasm slammed into me.
A long, breathless minute later, when I started to collapse forward, the last of my climax wrung from me, he caught me gently and rolled me onto my back, his thick cock still buried in my clenching sheathe. Taking deep after-strokes, he kissed my neck and then he cupped my face.
“I love you, P.J.” His thrusts slowing, he caressed my cheek. “You just missed seeing it happen. But I promise you, baby, I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you don’t miss any more.”
I nodded, happy tears flowing from me now that I could finally tell him what’s been in my heart this entire time. “I may have missed the part where you fell in love with me. But I knew all along I’d been falling in love with you.”
He inhaled sharply, his reaction over hearing me finally say the words intense, almost feral.
Touching his cheek as lovingly as he was touching mine, I kept going, “I remember every moment my feelings got deeper, stronger. And even though my brain kept trying to remind my heart that our marriage was only an arrangement—”
He hissed in a gritty growl.
I placed my hand on his chest. “Let me finish. Even though I told myself it was all pretend, in my heart, it wasn’t. Every time you touched me, I had to bite my lip to keep from telling you how I felt. And with every romantic thing you did for me, I had to hold myself back from shouting it from the rooftops. And when we exchanged vows, the reason I’d been retreating mentally during the ceremony was because in my heart, I’d meant every word.”
“I love you, Blake. And I’ll spend the rest of our lives together making sure you know just how much I—”
He crushed me to his chest before I could finish, his mouth swooping down to claim mine.
Epilogue
BLAKE
-- Three Years Later --
Entering the penthouse, I found Abigail wearing a worried face that matched the tone of our earlier phone call. Lifting her hand, she pointed toward the living room. I nodded, gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and kissed her cheek.
“Go on and take the rest of the day off."
Abigail looked reluctant to leave, but acquiesced. The penthouse door shut behind her as I entered the living room. Pippa was there just as Abigail had indicated, resting on the couch, a pillow under her head and another under her knees.
I sat on the floor, no words passing between us for the first minute as I lightly rubbed my palm over her pregnant belly.
Finally, I had to ask. “You okay, baby? Did you get some bad news today? Has the doctor said something?"
She shook her head, captured my hand and brought it to her lips for a kiss. Releasing her hold on me, she wiggled around on the couch, searching for something, then pulled out the planner for her baby shower.
I took it from her, not yet opening to where the bookmark might have revealed the source of her worry.
"Isn't Kevin handling most of this, love?"
"He is. But…he wanted to make sure the guest list was complete."
Frowning, understanding now what was making her upset, I opened the planner and saw the glaring but wholly understandable omissions.
"No family," I said quietly. "Did you want to change that?"
Pippa rolled onto her side, her expression too complex for me to read beyond simply being able to ascertain that she was sad.
"I asked myself that today," she replied softly, rubbing her belly. “You think I’m crazy?”
I put the planner aside and move closer, one arm draped across her chest, my hand securing her opposite shoulder. "I never told you this
, but the first year I made the Forbes list of billionaires, my mother actually contacted me."
Shrugging now like it hadn’t been that big of a deal back then, I explained candidly, “Though I didn’t have to take her call, I did. I’d been curious, mostly, but also…just a kid wanting their parent’s praise, I guess. Anyway, she’d tried small talk. Remarked that she always knew I was a determined child. Somehow, the call lasted twenty minutes. Took fifteen before I had no doubt where she was headed."
"She wanted money," Pippa whispered, tone and expression sympathetic.
"Basically, yes. She wanted to tell me about a wonderful investment opportunity…in her stepson's business."
Pippa's face contorted, her eyes closing and a few tears squeezing out. I kissed her cheek, rubbed my thumbs against her wet cheeks. “No, P.J. I don't want you to cry over someone as inconsequential as the woman who birthed me. All I need in this life is with me now."
She nodded, captured my face, and pressed a quick, bolstering kiss to my lips before pulling back and confessing, "I called my parents today."
“I see.” To this day, I still hadn’t told Pippa about those vile text messages her mother had sent. True to his word, her father kept his wife from contacting Pippa again. As such, they’d been completely absent from our lives ever since—an arrangement I was perfectly happy with continuing forever.
Still, these were her parents. If she wanted to reconcile, I’d support her.
…While of course keeping my promise about finding another way to break them if they hurt her even the slightest bit.
“My father told me about your talk with him before we got married,” she continued. “Funny, you failed to mention that little chat.”
I’d thought about telling her that night I told her the truth about the weeks leading up to our wedding, but I just couldn’t bring myself to let her see those vicious texts, to let her feel even an ounce of pain from that verbal violence. “I had my reasons.”
Pippa gave me an unreadable look. “I figured those reasons had to do with something my mother said or did. Which is why I did some digging and had your P.I. recover all the missing texts you deleted from my phone.”
Shit. Bracing myself for not just an angry Pippa, but a pregnant and angry Pippa, I debated whether I should start taking her clothes off now or wait until after she was done reading me the riot act.
She started off slow, simply poking my shoulder and getting some recon first. "How did you even unlock my phone to get to my texts? I didn’t tell you my password until after we were married."
I took the finger she had poked me with and kissed its tip. "That's how. You’re a deep sleeper; getting your fingerprint access wasn’t all that difficult."
Processing my well-intended violation of her privacy, she chewed at her bottom lip. “According to my father, you called my mother some pretty mean things."
"She deserved it," I asserted. "Back then, at least.” I wasn’t sure if they’d somehow patched things up. If they did, I’d learn to tolerate the evil woman as my mother-in-law, but I’d want her to get checked out by a board certified psychiatrist first.
"She still does deserve it," Pippa admitted, sounding sad, but unsurprised. "She repeated all the things she’d written in those text messages you erased, and then some. When she then began spouting some choice words for you, I hung up and put both of them on my block list again."
My eyes slammed shut, rage filling me over that damn woman hurting someone as sweet and loving as Pippa.
Pippa sat up, one leg landing to my left, the other to my right. Leaning forward, she cupped my face and stroked her thumbs against my cheekbones until I opened my eyes and met her gaze.
"Two things," she murmured as she leaned her forehead against mine. "One…" She paused to gloss a kiss against my lips. "Thank you."
When I grinned in surprise and tried to snag another kiss, she shook her head tersely, expression now serious.
And here I’d let my guard down. Did I learn nothing from last week’s showdown over whether or not I could continue to carry her up to our bed every night through all three trimesters? She’d eventually won that final round of debate, rather spectacularly, in all her heatedly pregnant glory.
While my feisty wife had turned into an even more ferocious thing over the past few years on all fronts, business and personal, entrancingly, this pregnancy had been making her run even hotter than usual. Both in and out of the bedroom.
"Two…" She jabbed me in the chest with her index finger to recapture my wandering attention, which had fallen to watch her thick nipples pucker and poke through her thin top. "I will require you to grovel over hijacking my phone and my fingerprint and going this long without telling me about the texts and your talk with my father.”
Though I knew she was just kidding, I planned on taking that decree very seriously. Taking care of Pippa’s every need was something I both loved doing and rarely got to do given how independent she was.
“No take-backs,” I announced as I promptly rolled to the side and onto my feet.
Extending a hand, I helped Pippa stand. Not letting go, I guided her toward the master suite to do some serious groveling.
"Bed or bath, my love?" I asked.
A fresh smile lit her face. "A bath sounds like heaven.”
I led her into the bathroom and cleared the cushioned bench for her to sit on. Filling the freestanding tub, I stripped my shirt away in between adding bath oils and flower petals to the water.
“Blake, you really don’t have to grovel, I was just joking. I would’ve done the exact same thing if our positions were reversed.”
I lovingly shushed her and hit the floor with my knees, my lips at her throat as I unthreaded the buttons on her blouse. Finding a front closure on her bra, I groaned, my head dipping to suck at the flesh I was busy freeing.
Five months into the pregnancy, her breasts had become highly sensitive, especially her nipples. A single lick could straighten her spine. Anything more could loosen her thighs in an instant.
I licked first, then blew to intensify the sensations. Pippa's eyes drifted shut. Her chest pushed forward and her bottom lifted from the cushion so I could strip her skirt and panties away with three tugs.
Her head rolled to the side, her gaze soft as she reached over to help me remove my pants, her hands squeezing my ass to speed the process along.
I was already rock hard, and her raking her nails lightly against my thigh wasn’t helping matters. Pre-cum pearled at the tip of my cock as soon as she freed it. She stole the bead with a swipe of her fingertip and sucked it into her mouth, shivering, eyes hungrily meeting mine.
"Approaching flood levels," she warned.
I immediately reached over to shut both faucets off so the tub wouldn't overflow before I realized that wasn’t the flooding she was referring to.
Not wasting another second, I slid into the tub behind her so I could proceed to all the groveling and spoiling. With the gentle handjob she’d given me having me close to coming already, I needed to reclaim some semblance of control.
But the very second the hard planes of my body made contact with all her lush, soft curves, I started losing it again. "Sexier and more beautiful every day,” I growled.
I wrapped both my arms around her, and positioned my hands so that one was tugging at a nipple, the other at her clit. A smiling sigh vibrated her lips as she settled against my chest.
When she reached back and slid a hand between us to fist my erection, I stopped her. "I'm supposed to be groveling, remember?"
"Which is supposed to mean I'm in control," she countered.
"Does it?" I murmured, grabbing Pippa by the hips and pulling her far enough up my stomach that the head of my cock pushed between her thighs.
She moaned, arching, lifting a little higher then slowly forced herself onto my shaft.
Ah. Now I understood where she was going with all this. The further along into the pregnancy we got, the gentler I’d been with her i
n our lovemaking. Even when she begged me to go harder, I’d somehow manage to keep myself in check.
Groans, moans, mewls…it didn't take long for her to forget about the things that had made her sad today. Didn't take her long to go wild, either, as she took me deeper and far more intensely than I’ve been taking her lately.
Now knowing what she wanted and needed, I reclaimed control and doubled down on my efforts with her nipple and clit. Long strokes, short, pinching tugs. Her breathing quickly turned erratic. Her pussy squeezing me tighter and tighter the more I played with her.
Stretching an arm forward, I guided her legs over the sides of the tub and began gently pounding into my sexy wife. I wrapped a palm around each thigh, keeping her pussy and legs spread wide to drive her even crazier with every hard thrust, both thumbs bulldozing up and down the length of her clit the entire time.
Close to coming now, her pussy coiled all around my cock, her inner muscles tugging me with their contractions at every deep plunge.
"Blake…"
Hell, she could say my name and moan, and that was it for me.
A breathless cry tore from her throat as she clamped down on me suddenly and froze.
The raw, intensely sexy beauty of her release overwhelmed the last of my restraint, my cock no longer mine to control as I began coming deep inside of her.
When she finally squeezed every last drop from me, she collapsed back against my chest.
