by Noelle Adams
Adam smiled fondly, looking a lot more like himself. “Believe me—I know.”
***
Adam decided to stay for dinner after all. Then he stayed to take a walk in the park with Logan and Zoe. Then, since it was nearly Logan’s bedtime, he stayed to help give the boy a bath and then put him to bed.
Since it was so late by that time, he decided to spend the night.
Zoe was absurdly happy about the small gesture—that Adam didn’t feel the need to go home and have some space and privacy on his own.
Adam took a shower while she locked up the house, and he was reading a thick book in bed, wearing nothing but a pair of black pajama pants when she came into the master bedroom.
She stood and looked at him for a minute, feeling both a surge of affection and surge of attraction. He looked so adorably at home. And, at the same time, he looked so incredibly gorgeous she just wanted to slurp him down.
He glanced up after she’d been staring for a minute. “Something wrong?”
She shook her head, fighting the urge to jump on the bed and squeeze him. “I’m going to take a quick shower too.”
Adam smiled back, but he just nodded and returned to his book.
They’d had sex the night before, but she thought sex would be a good plan for tonight as well, and she sure hoped Adam wasn’t going to be distracted by some dull treatise on history for too long.
To help persuade him to put his book away, when she got out of the shower, she smoothed her hair, which she hadn’t gotten wet, and put on new lingerie—a mesh and lace babydoll in a shade of lilac that left almost nothing to the imagination.
Satisfied that she looked pretty and sexy, she went back into the bedroom, a little annoyed when it took Adam a minute to look up.
As soon as he did, he closed his book.
She did a little twirl for him, flushing at the look in his eyes. “Do you like it?”
“Very much,” he said, a husky note in his voice. But then his expression changed. “Would you mind covering up for a minute?”
She frowned in surprise and stopped on the way to the bed.
Evidently recognizing her disappointment, Adam explained, “I just wanted to talk for a minute, and you’re way too distracting when you look like that.”
Enlightenment dawned with a flash of encouragement, as she realized that Adam might be ready to talk about whatever was bothering him. She hadn’t dreamed he would already have gotten past his inclination to hold back.
She grabbed a silk robe from the closet and pulled it on over her lingerie, tying it closed as she walked over to the bed and climbed in beside him. “What did you want to talk about?”
Adam’s lips parted but he didn’t speak immediately. He’d been looking at her, but now he looked away.
“Is it what was bothering you earlier?” Zoe asked, partly to try to help ease him into the conversation and partly because she was starting to get anxious. Whatever Adam had to say, he was reluctant to say—which meant it went deep with him.
“Yes. I wasn’t sure if this was the best time to bring it up, and I’m still not sure. I’m worried about messing up on the timing again, after things are going so well between us. But you’ve been pushing me to not hold back so much. So this is me trying.” He gave her a rueful look.
“Thank you,” she murmured, trying to sound natural, as if this wasn’t a big deal. Even though it kind of felt like a big deal. “So it’s something about us?”
“I’ve been thinking about something. Something I want. And I realize that we might not be in the same place on this yet. I’m not trying to push you into something you’re not ready for. But I just want you to start thinking about it.”
“Okay,” she breathed, almost trembling as anxiety tightened in her chest. She had absolutely no idea what he was going to say. “What is it?”
“I would like for us…I would like for you to start thinking about our possibly living together.”
Zoe froze. “What?”
Adam started talking faster, as if trying to get it all out before she could voice an objection. “I realize it’s a big step, and you might not be at that point yet. I’ve been in love with you for a really long time, so I’m probably too impatient. But that’s what I want. And that’s why it’s been bothering me to hear you talk like you and Logan will be living by yourselves indefinitely. I don’t want you and Logan to live by yourselves.” He paused and swallowed, as if taken aback by how much he’d said. Then he gave her an ironic half-smile and admitted, “I want to live with you and Logan.”
Zoe had raised her hand to her mouth as Adam had spoken. And joy, excitement, and giddy understanding started to throb through her. “You want us to live with you?”
“I do. When you’re ready.” He’d been mostly looking away from her, but now he turned to scan her expression. “Was it too soon to say anything? I didn’t want to pressure you or—”
Zoe tackled him, launching herself at him in an ecstatic hug. “I want us to live with you too!”
Adam’s arms had gone around her instinctively, but now he pushed her away slightly with his hands on her shoulders so he could see her face. Winded and obviously surprised, he asked, “You do?”
“Yes! Of course I do. I’ve hated not having you around all the time. And Logan feels the same way. I just didn’t think you were thinking in that direction.” Zoe grinned at him so blindingly that he seemed to recognize she spoke the truth.
“Of course I was thinking in that direction. Now that I have you, after so long, I want everything.” Something awoke in his eyes—something she only saw occasionally—a blaze of feeling so strong and pure and intense she thought she might drown in it. “I want everything,” he repeated hoarsely.
She grabbed his face and kissed him. Then kissed him again and again. “Oh, Adam,” she said between kisses. “I want everything too.”
Eventually, he seemed to process her answer enough to respond to her kisses. She squealed when he grabbed her and swung her over on the bed so he was on top of her. “So we’re agreed?” he asked, as if he needed confirmation despite the blaze of joy in his eyes.
“Yes,” she agreed, reaching up to stroke his face with her fingertips. “We’re agreed. Only…” she trailed off, not wanting to ruin their moment with a much less significant issue.
Adam’s expression sobered. “Only what? You can tell me. It’s all right if you don’t want to—”
“I do want to. I do. I love this house so much, and it’s a shame to leave it after all the work we’ve done, but I’d much rather live with you. That’s what’s most important to me.”
He stared at her blankly, his weight still heavy on her lower half as he braced himself on his forearms. It took him several moments before he’d processed what she said. “What do you mean?” he asked at last, drawing his brows together. “Of course, we would live here.”
Zoe’s mouth fell open. “What?”
Adam rolled off her and lay on his side beside her, propping himself up on one arm. “This is our home, isn’t it? I never thought you and Logan would move to the apartment. I was going to move in here.”
“You were?” she asked, squeaking embarrassingly in her surprise. “But the apartment is part of your family. And you’d have to downgrade so much if you move in with us.”
“It wouldn’t be a downgrade in anything but real estate value.” His tone was almost diffident, but that only proved how true his words were. “In every other way, this would be so much better. And you and Logan are my family.”
Zoe clasped her hands together as she started to process that she could have Adam and still have her beloved house. “So you would really move here? It would be all right?”
His eyes grew warm in a familiar way. “Well, I couldn’t get rid of Carson.”
“Of course not.”
“And I would need an office, but fortunately that renovation is already in process. And I would have needed a heightened security system, but that’s being fi
nished tomorrow.”
“Oh! You little sneak! You’ve been outfitting this house for you all this time!”
Adam actually laughed out loud. “Of course, I have. Why did you think I was being so pushy about something like an office, when you obviously have no need of one yourself?”
In teasing outrage, she berated his underhanded presumptuousness and sneakiness and tackled him again, and they had a playful wrestling match until Adam had gotten her on her back again, holding her in place with his body.
His face softened as he gazed down, the laughter transforming into something much deeper. “Oh, baby, I know it was presumptuous. But, when I first saw this house, I wanted it. For us. And back then I had almost no hope of ever having you, of ever being with you and Logan for real. But the house still felt like ours.”
“It is ours.” The emotion tightened in her throat. “Please come and live with us here.”
He kissed her, deeply and so urgently she lost her breath. But he broke the tension with a lilt in his voice when he said, “It’s about time you asked me.”
She was caressing his face, stroking the graceful lines of his cheekbones and jaw, but she managed a somewhat acceptable huff. “I never thought you could give up your apartment. And it’s inappropriate for someone to invite herself and her two-year-old boy to live in someone else’s apartment.”
Adam chuckled and kissed her again.
He kissed her face in a series of playful, affectionate caresses. But then he captured her mouth once more, and the kiss deepened to such an extent that it was clear the conversation was over. As she opened her mouth to Adam’s and tangled her tongue with his, Zoe was washed with waves of joy, love, excitement, and pleasure.
She was breathing urgently through her nose as Adam’s mouth worked over hers, and she clutched at his hair with one hand as she stroked his back with the other. Her body began to react to the kiss, and she rocked beneath him, wrapping one of her legs around his in order to increase the friction between their bodies.
Adam groaned into her mouth as her groin found his hardening arousal. She rubbed herself against it, erotic tension deepening below her belly as she felt him intimately against her.
They broke off the kiss by mutual consent and stared at each other.
Getting some leverage with her legs, she managed to push him over onto his back and climbed over him, pushing the robe off her shoulders as she did to reveal the lilac lingerie beneath.
Adam’s eyes blazed hot as they crawled from her tousled hair to her lace covered breasts to the flimsy mesh barely covering her belly and groin.
She smiled, pleased with the success of her sexy outfit. Then she leaned down to give him a hard kiss. She trailed her mouth down his jaw and neck and started to nuzzle his bare chest.
She loved the smooth, strong lines of his shoulders and his collarbone. She stroked his skin there as she lowered her mouth to his flat belly. It shuddered as his breath hitched when she mouthed the flesh on his side. He wasn’t making much sound, but her own arousal heightened as she could see how his body reacted to her touch.
She focused her eyes up at his face when her mouth lowered below his belly-button. He’d propped his head up on a pillow so he could watch her progress down his body. His eyes were smoldering with a primitive kind of heat. His skin had broken out with perspiration, and his nostrils flared as he grew tenser and tenser.
Zoe made a husky noise in her throat—a helpless vocalization of her pleasure. She palmed his obvious erection through the fabric of his pajama pants.
He winced and stifled a groan.
She squeezed him rhythmically, loving how his hips shifted restlessly as he tried to control his response. When she adjusted her grip and squeezed again, he released an uninhibited moan and arched up his back, his face twisting in pleasure. “Oh baby,” he gasped, as she massaged him again. “Please.”
Zoe’s own arousal was throbbing between her thighs, and she was so wet it was almost uncomfortable. Her hands shook as she took the waistband of his pajama pants in both hands and pulled it down gently over his erection.
When she’d gotten his pants off, she stroked him intimately, her nipples tight and her skin blazing just from the way his gaze never left her face and body. When he started to make little thrusts into her hand, she lowered her mouth.
Adam hissed as she licked the length of him, and he groaned again when she took him fully in her mouth. His hand twisted in her hair as she tried to establish a rhythm, but before she’d hollowed her mouth out more than a few time, the muscles of his thighs and belly tightened palpably and his body became to shake.
He choked out, “Zoe, baby,” and made a move as if he would pull her away. But it was too late. He came hard into her mouth in a series of jerks and spasms.
Zoe loved it. She loved how his face reflected a rush of pleasure and satisfaction. She loved how his body released so much tension that he fell limp afterwards. She loved the look in his eyes, like he’d finally assuaged his thirst after years of drought.
She loved it. And she stroked and kissed him gently until his body fully relaxed and he’d started to soften.
Then she crawled up higher and burrowed against his side, nuzzling the crook of his neck.
He managed to wrap his arm around her and hold her against him, although he was spent in the way he always was after he came so hard.
It was a few minutes before he was able to say, “Damn it.”
She giggled and kissed his jaw. “Don’t be that way.” For the most part, he’d gotten better about not coming so quickly, the way he had when they’d first started to have sex. But tonight he’d come much sooner than he would be satisfied with. “I liked it. And I have faith in your powers of recovery.”
He smiled at her ruefully and leaned down to kiss her. Then he started to stroke her body with his free hand, the other holding her tightly against him.
She stretched against him, humming with pleasure as he fondled her breasts and caressed down to her bottom. And, when he slid his hand between her legs, she adjusted to give him better access.
He stroked her intimately, his fingers sliding against her wet inner walls. She gasped and grunted as a climax tightened quickly, and she dug her fingers into his side in her urgency.
He worked her over with one hand, bringing her to a shuddering climax. Then he made her come again, until she was sobbing out her pleasure and gasping wetly against his chest.
By then, he was hard again. So she climbed up and straddled his hips, lowering herself onto his length.
She rocked over him as Adam lifted his hands to cup her face. And her heart felt like it might overflow as she saw in his expression love, pleasure, need, desire, and something akin to awe. “I love you, baby. So much.”
Turning her head slightly, she pressed a kiss on his palm. “I love you too.”
She rode him slowly, holding his hands up to her face and kissing them occasionally. But eventually her body’s needs took over and she bounced above him as he bucked up into her. She came just before he did, and her cry of pleasure was just as loud and uncontrolled as his was.
She collapsed over him afterwards, and his arms tightened almost fiercely around her. For a long time, the only sound in the room was their urgent panting.
His body was as hot as a radiator, softened with the intensity of his release. Her own body shaped itself to his, and she occasionally reached up to stroke his face.
It always took Adam a long time to recover his power of speech after sex with her, so she didn’t even try to talk until his arms had loosened and he’d shifted beneath her. She adjusted, so she wasn’t completely on top of him.
His eyes were focused, and he was looking down at her.
“Hi,” she said, smiling at him, tired but almost overwhelmed with joy.
He smiled back. “Hi.”
“I’ll be right back.” She got up and went to the bathroom to clean herself up a bit. When she returned, Adam had moved to a different spot on
the bed, one that wasn’t quite so wet.
She turned off the lights and climbed into bed, letting him pull her back into his arms.
“Can you talk?” she asked in the dark. When they’d first become intimate, she’d sometimes tried to talk to him too soon after sex, before he was recovered enough to focus. It hadn’t been a good thing. So now she always asked him first.
“Yes.” He kissed her hair.
“How soon can you move in with us?”
“I’ll get things started tomorrow. The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned.”
She gave a silly little giggle. “Me too.”
They were silent for a long time, and she imagined living together with him, imagined how happy Logan would be, how they could settle into a life together.
At one point, she got so excited that she squeezed Adam without warning, causing him to huff.
“Sorry,” she said, “I’m just so happy.”
When he didn’t respond, she tried to peer at him in the dark. He reached over to palm her cheek. “I am too. I can’t even…”
He didn’t finish, but she knew what he meant. He was so happy he couldn’t even begin to express it. Sometimes it frightened her that Adam’s feelings ran so deep, that his nature was so intense. He could be overwhelming, all consuming. But the depth of his feelings didn’t frighten her tonight.
It just made her feel safe.
He was so different than Josh. Loving him was different than Josh. And it seemed some sort of miracle that she was allowed this sort of happiness twice.
“Adam?” she asked, knowing he was still awake.
“What is it?” His voice was serious. He must have recognized her shift in mood.
“Did Josh know? About your feelings, I mean.”
He didn’t answer immediately. Then, “He did.”
“How did he know?” For some reason, she wasn’t shocked or upset. It just seemed a truth that answered so many unspoken questions.
“He guessed. I never admitted it to him. But we had a few conversations early on, when he first started to date you. I was asking about how it had happened—how you and him had ended up together so quickly. I was assuming—I was hoping—that it wasn’t serious between you. And he…he guessed.”
