The Reward

by Jade A. Waters

  Most importantly, he’d shown me his love. Real, powerful love that made me feel like I could do anything.

  I gave his side a rub and leaned back to smile more fully up at him. “Hey.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I never did finish my bath. Care to join me for a new one? I could use a wash-off and a long hug.”

  Dean pinched my chin. “My pleasure.”

  Enclosed in his arms in the warmth of the water was the best way I knew to spend the next part of the night.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Over the next several weeks, Dean supported me through the steps I needed to take with the police regarding Charlie’s entering and assault. It turned out that him smashing my phone on the floor was the best thing that could have happened in terms of evidence against him, since it was considered a serious crime to block someone from calling for help. The whole event was icky to deal with, especially so many years after I thought I’d walked away, but I tried to find the positive in it. Charlie was gone, and in time, very likely going to jail, so his threats from the past couldn’t infringe on my life anymore. I was happy, healed and good. Really fucking good.

  Which left me to focus on better things—like settling into my new routine with Dean.

  That felt like the easiest part of my life these days. We’d rearranged furniture until we were both content, worked on the kinks of finances we’d share versus those we wouldn’t and finally relaxed into our new, comfortable state like I’d had a feeling we would all along. There were days where it was clear the arrangement would take work, as merging two lives together often did—but it was good work, work we both wanted to tackle and that made it seem as though we could get nothing but closer in time.

  That was an amazing feeling.

  This was what brought a smile to my face while I played a sonata one Saturday morning. I straightened my torso and closed my eyes, allowing myself to drop into the music with the thoughts playing through my head as pleasantly as the sounds of the keys. The weather had started to grow chillier over the last few days, and with the fog rolling in from the bay against gray skies, the trickle of rain that sprinkled the beach while Dean and I had eaten breakfast that morning had struck me as the perfect inspiration for quality time at my piano.

  Dean hadn’t minded, either. He’d cast affectionate gazes my way while he cleaned up breakfast, and after, he’d settled on the couch to read the paper for the hour I practiced my favorite pieces, the tunes lifting me up like they always could. Positioned facing the back window as I was, I had a view of the waves tumbling in and the murky skies, which shifted me into a haunting tune I got so absorbed in that I didn’t realize Dean had come up behind me. I jumped slightly when his palm slid over the top of my shoulder, and though I didn’t stop playing, I gazed up at him.

  “Selby.” He held my cell phone up and gave it a shake. Her name and number flashed on the screen.

  “Oh! Sweet.” I stopped to take the phone from Dean, answering while he sat beside me on the bench. His wistful glance over the keys made me rest my head on his shoulder as I lifted the phone to my ear. “Hey, girlie! How are you?”

  “Good! I heard you pounding those keys,” she said, warming me up with the phrase she’d used since we were kids. “Having fun?”

  “Yes, I am. I was probably going to wrap up soon.” I slipped my hand over Dean’s thigh, and he covered it with his own before standing to circle behind me. He started to rub my shoulders and I melted. “What’re you doing?”

  “We’re celebrating this weekend.”

  “Because?”

  “Because we’re officially past the first trimester. I haven’t thrown up in five whole days, and,” she said, her excited tone bringing a huge grin to my face while Dean’s fingers dug into my muscles in the most delightful manner, “I have a picture here of your new niece or nephew.”

  “No way! Selby, that’s fantastic!” I beamed up at Dean and mouthed, Ultrasound picture! He acknowledged this with a grin but kept right on rubbing.

  “We thought we’d see if you two wanted to come over for dinner tonight. You can marvel at this picture we have posted on the fridge.”

  “Of course you have. I love you, Selby. Have you started the scrapbook you mentioned yet?”

  “Maya. You know me.”

  “Right. Dumb question.” I snickered. “Hey, one sec. Let me check on dinner.” I pulled the phone from my ear and looked up at Dean. “Dinner at Selby and Alex’s tonight?”

  Dean’s mouth turned up in the corners in that boyish smile of his, but he shook his head no. I cocked my head, breaking from his massage to swivel around on the bench, surprised when he settled on the floor in front of my knees. His eyes were bright, his expression intense.

  “Hang on, Selby.” I put the phone on mute and tilted my head. “Why not tonight?”

  “We have plans.”

  “We do?”

  Dean lifted his head in a measured nod and my heart skipped a beat. What was he plotting? “We do. But tomorrow night would work.”

  “Hmm. Okay.” I unmuted the phone, scrutinizing Dean but getting nothing save for his playful grin. “So, tonight won’t work. Dean’s up to something.”

  “Interesting...”

  “I know.”

  When Dean hooked his fingers around my kneecaps and squeezed, I jumped with a squeal.

  “Hey!” I shook my head at him but focused on Selby. “What about tomorrow night? Will that work?”

  “That’s fine! We can hold off. Oh, that means I can marinate something.”

  “There you go!” The cup of Dean’s hands around my knees hadn’t dulled the pins and needles lining my spine, nor had his heavy gaze while I tried to figure out what he was up to. “What time?”

  “Mmm, six? Does that work?”

  “That’s great. We’ll be there.”

  “Cool. Alex says hi.”

  “Hi back. And Dean says the same.” He gave a thumbs-up.

  Selby said, “I’ll let you get back to it. Love you, sweetie.”

  “Ditto!” When she hung up, I set the phone on the lid of the piano and reached out to brush Dean’s arm. “‘Fess up. What’s happening tonight?”

  He took a deliberate pause before answering. We’d slipped between hot, entrancing moments and sweet, cuddly ones as easily as we’d had those mundane ones so common in living together, and I’d loved them all. This look on his face, however, remained my favorite—his jaw working and the lines around his eyes growing taut, because he was no doubt thinking up something to drive me wild.

  “Well?” I asked, poking his chest.

  Dean caught my hand and brought my finger to his lips. “I’m taking you out tonight.”

  “You are? Where?” His lips were soft on my fingertips, and he slid his other hand up my thigh before taking a provocative squeeze of my hip.

  “I’ve been thinking we should get out. Hit a club.”

  “What type of club?”

  Dean’s grin was contagious. I pitched closer to him, my mouth almost to his, but he kept the distance between us on purpose. “One where I can give you an assignment.”

  “Oh...” My word came out a near coo. We’d never stopped playing with assignments, tests and rewards, but we’d ceased calling them by these labels months before. They just happened, part of our dynamic, unspoken but remaining sexy as ever. Still, the reference to how we’d started long ago spurred me on. “I like that idea.”

  “Good.” He rested his other hand on my thigh and sat up on his knees.

  “Are you going to tell me more?”

  Dean swayed his head. “Nope. I want you to obsess over it all day.”

  “You tease.”

  “Yes. But I think you’ll enjoy it.”

  “I suspect you’re right.”r />
  Dean’s eyes sparkled, and when both his hands met the crease of my hips, he gripped me tight to lean in for a kiss. It was a slow move at first, his lips brushing mine, his tongue barely slipping into my mouth before he nibbled my top lip, then the bottom one. Once he tightened his hands on my legs, I pushed harder, sneaking my own tongue into his mouth. We both parted our lips wide, and Dean’s hands trailed up to the top of my yoga pants, folding inside and giving them a yank that made me break away with a pop.

  “Well, hello,” I moaned.

  “Hi.” Dean didn’t stop nudging the fabric down, and I pressed onto the balls of my feet to lift my ass off the bench. After he wrestled them with my panties down to my knees, I sat naked on the bench before him. Heat rushed into my pussy as he kissed my neck, then lowered his face until he’d almost reached the space between my thighs in a mesmerizing taunt. “I blame your playing,” he said, his voice low. “Can’t help but want you.”

  “The piano. Right...” Dean stretched out his tongue, taking a lick of my clit that wrenched a sharp inhalation out of me. “Here on the piano bench, huh?”

  “If your piano was bigger, I’d do it there.”

  I had a second to widen my eyes before Dean dove. He clamped his mouth over my clit and clutched my hips in his hands to dig his thumbs into the bone, and I moaned and slipped backward, leaning part of my weight on the piano. I spread my thighs to give Dean more access, and he ran his tongue in circles around my clit before sliding down to lap the full length of my slit. I closed my eyes with a moan while he thrust his tongue inside, one of my hands fluttering to the top of his head as he sucked me up and whipped heat through me.

  I didn’t know what it was—the promise of whatever would come later, the look in Dean’s eyes when he slipped two fingers inside to join his tongue, or the fact that my seductive boyfriend was swallowing me up on my piano bench with the waves rolling outside the window behind us. But I came not two minutes later, a quivering mass that he tugged into his arms and smothered in kisses right there on the floor while he whispered to me.

  “God... How did I get so lucky?”

  I was fairly dazed when he said it, the shuddering of my body running clear up to my head and making it hard to see—but I was pretty sure he had that backward.

  The lucky one was me.

  * * *

  Dean did his best to entice me with hints of what lay ahead all day.

  At first, it was subtle, a comment here or there about the evening we’d share. He had this captivating glow in his eyes when he suggested we eat a late dinner, then leave around ten for the city. He wouldn’t elaborate despite my many pleas, and I’d tried everything to sway him, too—a massage, sexy kisses and preparing lunch, even making a show of serving it to him that hadn’t done the trick. By the early afternoon, I gave up with an exasperated splay of my hands and a playful whine before changing for a run. After I’d jogged down the stairs in frustration, Dean had looked over at me from his seat at his desk with another deliberate smile. “Don’t wear yourself out,” he said. “You’ve got a big night ahead.”

  “Tease!” I shouted, charging out the door and into the coastal air. I had about a thousand ideas of what that could mean, but I couldn’t pin any of them down. So I set off for one of my favorite new routes I’d discovered running along the beach and into the greenery surrounding it and let the salty fog kiss my face as I tried not to wear myself out, as instructed. While I ran a tad slower, I enjoyed the mix of tunes in my headphones for the five miles I covered on a series of dirt and paved trails, stewing over what Dean was up to.

  In the past, the lead-up to these adventures had sparked a flurry of sensation in me: excitement, arousal and joy, but a touch of nerves, too. Something had shifted in the last month, though. While I still felt the enthralling parts, and such anticipation banging around in my brain for the electric temptation of putting myself in Dean’s hands for whatever wild ideas crossed his mind, any nervousness I’d felt had taken on a lighter, less intimidating feel. Part of it was me growing more confident and comfortable in Dean’s care, but that old thread of apprehension that had tugged a little string way down deep in me had started to dissipate. What if something went wrong like it had so long ago, with our mutual rookie failures to communicate before we’d brought in the stranger at the sex club? Or what if I lost myself in it all? What if I had to face my greatest fear? All those worries had faded so far into the background, I almost didn’t recognize them anymore.

  If things went wrong, we’d address them. I wasn’t unsafe with Dean, and wrong was never going to be due to any malice or a dangerous act we hadn’t worked through or communicated about in advance. Losing myself was a silly concept, too. If anything, Dean had found me. He’d cherished me, loved me and shown me that as happy as I thought I’d been, what I’d needed was a life free of judgment to embrace what I craved, and to explore things that truly revved my pulse. I didn’t need to worry about what they meant or how they would go, because there was no getting lost in anything but Dean’s love. He wanted me to be who I was, doing what I loved with him and always, always free to be me.

  That feeling was so perfect, warmth blossomed through me as I panted around a grassy knoll and headed back the quarter mile to our home. My arms swung fast, my blood pumped through my veins and though I had a good burst of adrenaline carrying me through my run, the heat of my body had nothing to do with that, or even the sun caressing my skin from its half-mast behind the thin clouds. That awareness brought me to the root of all nervousness when I broke to walk for the last stretch of the path.

  My greatest fear.

  That was, and forever had been, what I’d experienced with Charlie. And I’d faced that, head-on. The realization that he couldn’t get to me—and more than that, that I’d protected myself from him, once and for all—was bigger than anything, because I was much stronger, happier and finally, at peace with myself. That gave him no power over me, and the feeling was unreal.

  Seeing this, I sprinted up the driveway and into the house. I was breathless, sweaty and even more excited for the night ahead when I raced into Dean’s arms in the arch between the entryway and the kitchen and proceeded to layer his face with exuberant kisses.

  “Whoa. Don’t you smell yummy?” Dean growled and trailed his kiss to my neck, and after wiping a bead of sweat from my temple, he pushed my arms behind my back, indifferent to the coat of sweat that had dampened my clothes. I giggled and leaned back.

  “No way. I need a rinse-off, bad—but I’m saving my real shower till later. You know, tonight. When your big mystery thing happens.”

  I raised my eyebrows, but Dean merely pecked my lips before saying, “Smart girl.” I backed away, amused, thriving on the feelings I’d come to on my run. When I spun around to head toward the laundry room that branched off the side of the kitchen beyond the fridge, I stripped off my shirt, ready to throw my clothes directly into the washer. They were disgusting.

  “I’m going to start the laundry. Got anything that needs washing?”

  “Maybe a pair of jeans or two. And look at you go...”

  I winked over my shoulder and hooked my thumbs under my sports bra, then lifted it over my head as I reached the laundry room door. I didn’t hesitate to give a shimmy of my breasts before stepping into the alcove. “Just warming up for tonight!” I heard Dean’s chuckle and turned the knob for the warm water, and after sorting the clothes from the hamper, I threw my pants and underwear in the machine with all the other sports clothes that needed washing. Dean appeared behind me a few seconds later, two pairs of his jeans in one hand and my cell phone in the other.

  I tilted my head as he dumped the jeans on the floor to add them to the colored heap, then looked me over with a lusty grin. I was standing there naked at the edge of the kitchen, my hair loose in the tie I’d put it up in before I ran, and my skin flushed from exercise, so I guess
it made sense. But what was up with my phone?

  He didn’t say anything, instead sidling up behind me while I put the last items in the washer and shut the lid. The glide of his hand down my side and around my hip made the hairs stand up at the nape of my neck.

  “I think you got some texts while you were gone.” Dean held my phone up in front of me.

  “Okay.” I took it from him, confused, and he stayed close as I turned on the screen, his fingers lazily stroking the side of my thigh and his kisses streaking from the edge of my jaw and down the swoop of my shoulder. His T-shirt was soft on my back, his breath a whish on my skin. I peeked at the notifications on the screen.

  They happened to be for four texts received from none other than Dean.

  I peered at him out of the corner of my eye. “Missed me that much while I was running, huh?”

  “Oh, yes.” He kissed the side of my neck again. “But they serve a purpose. Read them.” I loved that he was behind me, touching me while I was supposed to read whatever he’d sent, and my heart thumped before I unlocked the phone. We texted racy things all the time, but this scene he was crafting sent anticipation through me in a wicked rush. I started to open my texts and he nudged me with his hips, wedging me between his hot body and the cold metal of the washer. As if I hadn’t been on edge all day, the slip of his fingers up the back of my thigh to tease my pussy while I opened the strand of his texts coiled sensation through my veins. The first thing I saw was a picture of me, naked, bound and positioned above the camera, with Dean’s fingers shoved up in my pussy.

  “Holy fuck,” I muttered.

  “Do you remember that?” He pressed harder against me, his words gravelly against the back of my head.