by Marie Force
Elisabeth’s heart pounded erratically as his words registered. “The ring is beautiful.” And it was… On either side of the stunning center stone were smaller diamonds in a platinum setting.
“I’m glad you like it. I showed restraint.”
“Which I appreciate,” she said with a smile. “The ring is gorgeous, but your words… They’re the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard, and they mean more to me than anything else you could give me.” She leaned over to kiss him, lingering when he responded with unexpected ardor. “And you’re everything to me, too. I realized that when I watched you walk away from me that night, knowing I’d hurt you when that’s the last thing I’d ever want to do. I hope you know that.”
“I do now.” He wrapped his arms around her and coaxed her into another kiss that made her head spin. “You know, it’s possible what happened on that rooftop will turn out to be the best thing that could’ve happened.”
“How’s that?”
“It gave us both the time and perspective to understand what we really want.”
“You already knew what you really wanted. I was the one who messed things up.”
“It wasn’t just you, Lizzie. I knew you were skittish about the money and the lifestyle, so dazzling you with the rooftop and the tuxedo and the Bentley and the out-of-the-blue proposal was the wrong approach. I can see that now. I should’ve seen it then. Less is always more with my girl.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. Any woman would’ve been thrilled with such a romantic proposal.”
“Any woman except the one who matters most to me. She’s one of a kind, unlike any other.”
Smiling at him, Elisabeth propped herself up on her hands and leaned over to pepper his chest with kisses and little nibbles that she knew drove him wild. Pleased by his deep breaths and quiet moans, she continued down, giving his abdomen the same attention, running her tongue over the cuts that outlined muscles that quivered in response.
She loved the way he responded to her, how he made her feel that anything and everything she did to him was exactly what he wanted. Because he was a guy, there was one thing he loved above all others, and it was the one thing Elisabeth had never done for anyone until she fell madly in love with him.
As she kissed her way down the front of him, she remembered the long-ago night when she’d asked him to show her how he liked it. The priceless expression on his face had been a memory she’d returned to over and over again during their weeks apart.
She wrapped her hand around the thick base of his cock and squeezed, drawing a gasp from him that became a moan when she took him into her mouth. He’d taught her how to take him into her throat, how to suck on the sensitive head and how to use her tongue to bring maximum pleasure. After weeks of wondering if she’d ever get to see him again, let alone touch him so intimately, she wanted to show him how much she loved him.
Judging by the moans of pleasure, the thrusts of his hips, the tight clench of his hands in her hair and the trembling in his legs, he loved what she was doing. The one thing she didn’t love, however, was letting him finish in her mouth, which was why his efforts to remove her became more frantic as she redoubled her efforts, intending to go all the way this time.
She took him deep and swallowed as she added vigorous strokes of her hand, drawing a loud groan from him.
“Lizzie, fuck… Christ.” His hands tightened in her hair. “Baby, stop… You don’t have to… Oh my God.”
She didn’t stop. Rather she kept going until he exploded into her throat, thrusting and crying out from the powerful release she’d drawn from him. His reaction left her feeling victorious and thrilled with the way he gasped for air as she kissed her way back to his lips.
“You totally wiped me out, baby,” he said between kisses.
“If I know you, you’ll recover in no time.”
He surprised her when he gripped her bottom, his fingers delving between her cheeks to find that pleasing him had also pleased her. His touch electrified her, and the discovery had him hardening between them as if he hadn’t come just five minutes ago.
This, Elisabeth thought, was how they were together—insatiable, endlessly creative, happy to spend long hours alone together with nothing to do but find new ways to pleasure each other.
With his hands under her arms, he moved her up to better align their bodies for what he had in mind.
“How can you be ready to go again so soon?”
“It’s you, baby. You turn me on just by breathing.”
Once upon a time, back when she first knew him, she might’ve thought that was a line coming from a seasoned playboy who knew how to tell a woman exactly what she wanted to hear. But after a year with him, she knew better. He meant every word of what he said to her, and she’d gotten to the point—over time—where she believed him when he told her no other woman had ever touched him the way she did.
Elisabeth sat up, straddled his hips and eased him into her, gasping at the pressure against already sensitive tissue. She was always sore after they made love, but sore in a good way—the best possible way. Wincing from the pinch, she lowered herself down slowly.
“Easy, baby. I know you’re sore.” His fingers circled her clit as he sat up and drew her nipple into his mouth, both of which helped to hasten his entry.
“Been awhile,” she said, wrapping her arms around him as she sank down farther.
“Feels so good.” His lips vibrated against her neck, setting off another ripple of sensation she felt everywhere. “Nothing feels better than being inside you.” He gripped her bottom and moved her slowly up and down, creating the best kind of friction.
If she could’ve spoken, she would’ve told him that nothing felt better than having him inside her. But he’d stolen the breath from her lungs and the words from her lips with the subtle movement of his hips, fingers and tongue. It had been this way between them from the very beginning, a connection that couldn’t be denied no matter how hard she’d initially tried to fight it. And she’d tried. And he’d pursued, winning her over with his relentless belief that people from different worlds could exist in harmony if they drowned out the noise around them and focused on the things that worked perfectly between them.
So she’d done that. She’d kept her focus on him, on them, on all the ways they worked so well together rather than the few ways they didn’t. But looming in the background, always, was the reality of how different their lives really were. Every so often, one of those glaring differences would make things difficult for them. They’d managed to get through it. Every time except for the night on the roof, when she could no longer deny their differences.
“Where’d you go, honey?” he asked, bringing her back to the present with his gruffly whispered words.
“I’m here. I’m right here.” She ran her fingers through his hair. “I like your longer hair.”
“I wondered if you would.”
“I do. I love it.”
“Then I’ll leave it long just for you.”
Pleased with that, Elisabeth rolled her hips and was rewarded again with the tight grip of his fingers on her bottom. “Not yet,” she said, smiling at him.
He bit his lip, which he did when he was fighting to hold off, and intensified his efforts to get her to where they both wanted to be. She was so primed from his earlier ministrations that it didn’t take much to send her gasping into yet another orgasm. She’d once thought she was good for only one a day. That was another of the many myths Jared James had helped dispel for her.
He was right there with her, holding her close throughout the wild ride, until they sagged together, clinging to each other in the aftermath.
“Don’t ever leave me again, Lizzie. I wouldn’t survive it.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
* * *
The phone call he’d been waiting for came at nine o’clock the next morning. They were still in bed, where they’d been since the afternoon before, emerging only to accept a takeout d
elivery that Jared had brought right back to bed. Because the call came to his personal cell phone, he reached for it on the bedside table.
“Jared James.”
“Good morning. This is Doro Chase, the broker for the Chesterfield heirs.”
Lizzie’s hand moved from his chest to his belly, letting him know she was awake. If she ventured any lower, she’d find out how awake he was, too. “Yes, hello. I hope you’ve got good news for me.”
“Indeed I do. The heirs have accepted your offer.”
“Excellent. Since this will be a cash transaction, I’d like the closing to be scheduled within two weeks. I have urgent business that will require the estate be turned over to me two weeks from yesterday. I assume you can make that happen?”
Jared could almost hear her gulp. “I’ll do everything I can.”
“Very good. Let me know when the closing is scheduled.”
“We’ll need to travel to the mainland—”
“We’ll do it here. I’m spending fourteen million dollars, Ms. Chase. Surely they can come to me.”
“Of course. I’ll let them know.”
“If you could messenger a letter of agreement to me today, I’d appreciate it. I’ve got plans to make.”
After she assured him she’d send over the letter, Jared thanked her and ended the call, returning his phone to the bedside table. He put his arm around Lizzie and held her close.
“What plans do you have to make?” she asked in the sleepy, sexy morning voice that had been one of the things he’d most missed about her while they were apart. Who was he kidding? He’d missed everything about her and was thankful to wake this morning with the promise of forever with her.
“Our wedding.”
She propped herself up, pushing the mane of hair back from her face. “Our wedding? I thought you bought the place for Alex and Jenny to use.”
“I did, and it’s all theirs as soon as we say ‘I do.’”
“And when is my wedding taking place?”
“Two weeks from today.” He loved the way her eyes bugged out of her head.
“Are you out of your mind? You expect me to marry you in two weeks?”
“You’re lucky I’m giving you that long. If it were up to me, we’d be on a plane to Vegas today. I figured you’d probably want your folks there and maybe a few friends.”
“Two weeks.”
“Some friends of Jenny’s just had a two-day engagement and managed to pull off a beautiful wedding. I figure with two weeks, we’ve got all the time we need.”
“I have to go back to work on Monday!”
“You’re probably going to want to ask for some time off since you just found out you’re getting married in two weeks.”
“Jared, you’re acting crazy.”
“I’m crazy, insane, over-the-top, out of my mind in love with you, and now that I’ve got you back with me—where you belong, I might add—I want a second ring on that finger, and I want it two weeks from today.” He kissed her and then tipped his head and kissed her again. “Okay?”
Probably because she could see how badly he wanted it, she said, “Okay.”
“You can go back to work on Wednesday. I’ll take you. We both have things to sort out in the city. And you, my love, have a very sexy wedding dress to buy.”
“How sexy are we talking?” she asked with a coy smile that made his heart flutter.
“Sinfully sexy.”
“I’ll see what I can scare up.”
“Babe, I want to have this fight now so we can get it out of the way.”
Her lips pursed adorably. “What fight?”
“The one about how I’m paying for this whole thing.” When she began to object, he pressed a finger to her lips. “I’m paying for it, Lizzie.”
“You’re not paying for my dress.”
“I’m paying for all of it.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Lizzie…”
“Jared.” The look she gave him left no room for negotiation.
“Please? It would make me happy to buy you a sinfully sexy dress.”
“And I love you for that, but I’ll buy my own sinfully sexy dress, and I’ll knock your socks off with it.”
“I pay for the rest.” He went with a statement over a question because he really didn’t want to talk anymore. Not when he had the love of his life naked in his bed. There were so many better things they could do besides talk.
“You can pay for the rest. But the dress is mine.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Can we have sex now?” he asked.
Her tentative glance told him she had something on her mind.
“What?”
“Why don’t you say it the way you used to?”
“Say what?”
“What you just said. You never would’ve asked so politely before I messed things up between us.”
“You didn’t mess things up on your own, Lizzie, and I was always polite.”
Her brow lifted in a haughty expression that made him laugh out loud.
“Okay, maybe not always, but I was most of the time. Wasn’t I?”
“You were real with me, and I liked it. It took me awhile to get used to your brand of ‘realness,’ but once I did, I liked it.” Her hand lay flat against his chest until she dragged it down to his belly, setting off a chain reaction that had him hard and ready in under a second. “I liked it a lot.”
Realization dawned on him all at once, and he offered a wolfish smile. “So you wanna fuck?”
“There it is!” she said, laughing as she reached out to cup his cheek. “Don’t be different with me.”
“I didn’t mean to be.”
“Don’t be careful with me either.”
He turned his face into her palm and placed a kiss in the middle. “I’ll always be careful with you. You’ve given me the greatest honor of my life by agreeing to marry me.”
“That’s very sweet of you to say, but I hope you know what I mean. I want you to be you, Jared. The way you were before, not some cautious version of yourself. It’s not going to blow up in our faces again. We won’t let that happen.”
“I got ya, honey. So are we gonna fuck?”
Laughing, she said, “I don’t know if I can. I’m so sore from yesterday’s gymnastics.”
“Oh, baby,” he said, kissing his way down the front of her. “I can work around that.”
Epilogue
Two weeks had never gone by faster, Elisabeth thought as she stood before a full-length mirror in one of the upstairs bedrooms at The Chesterfield to take a final, critical look at herself before the biggest moment of her life. The dress was, indeed, sinfully sexy, clinging to her breasts and fitting tightly to the rest of her. While it was definitely sexy, it was also simple. She’d rejected dress after dress for being “too much,” until she found one that was just right. There was no train, no bows, no frills, and she loved it. She only hoped Jared wasn’t hoping for something fancier.
That thought summarized all the last-minute nerves she’d experienced as the days flew by in a flurry of activity. True to his word, he’d left the firm over the strenuous objections of his partners, who would feel his loss painfully in their wallets. But Jared had stayed focused on the life they had planned for themselves and the partners had finally accepted his resignation.
Elisabeth had given a week’s notice at the shelter and proposed that Aimee be promoted to take her place. The board of directors had agreed, and though they were sad to be losing Elisabeth, they were excited to move forward with Aimee in charge.
Jared had closed on the Chesterfield Estate yesterday and had been ready with all the things they’d ordered from the mainland—and paid a small fortune to have shipped to the island in time for theirs to be the first wedding at the new venue.
Because of the short timeframe, they’d skipped invitations and spread the word digitally like the modern couple they were. The thought gave Elisabeth a fit of
the giggles. He was modern and hip. She was always trying to catch up and keep up. She had a feeling that wouldn’t change after they were married, thus her worries about whether she’d be enough for him long term.
As she worked her way through last-minute nerves, she tried to remain oblivious to the photographer who snapped her every expression. This wasn’t just any photographer. Oh no… Her fiancé, being the businessman he was, had given exclusive rights to photograph their wedding to one of the top bridal magazines in the world, knowing the images of them and their fantastic wedding venue would bring The Chesterfield more business than they could handle.
Elisabeth had agreed to it because she couldn’t deny it was a brilliant marketing strategy, but with the stipulation that the photographers and magazine team remain in the background during the wedding. So far, they’d been terrific about respecting her boundaries.
A knock on the door preceded her sister and parents into the room. “Oh, wow,” her sister, Melanie, said as she took in the full ensemble. Jared had insisted on bringing hair and makeup people to the island for the big day, so she could have all the pampering she would’ve gotten in the city. Because she wanted to look beautiful for him, she’d chosen not to fight that battle and couldn’t deny his people had done a masterful job.
Her hair was down around her shoulders the way he liked it, in an array of soft curls that were held back from her face by a single clip in the back. Tiny blooms from the Chesterfield gardens had been artfully woven into the design, and her bridal bouquet was made of white hydrangeas that Alex had cut for her. As her maid of honor, Mel wore a periwinkle gown she’d chosen for herself and carried deep blue and purple hydrangeas.
“How are things downstairs?” Elisabeth asked her family.
“Everything looks lovely, honey,” her mom said as she dabbed at tears. “I can’t believe how quickly the two of you pulled this off.”
“I can’t take much of the credit,” she said. “It was mostly Jared.”
