“Don’t do that. Don’t pawn your success off on someone else.”
“I’m not. I’m simply stating the truth. Had you not come into my life and done everything you had for me while I was recuperating and being an insufferable asshole-”
“Your words, not mine,” I said with a grin.
“Then none of this would be happening,” I said, chuckling. “I’d still be trapped in that headquarters telling myself I was contributing something to the world by building hotels in other countries. Who the hell cares about that?”
“People who travel.”
“Besides them,” he said. “What type of impact does it really make? I mow down trees, I dig up dirt, I put buildings up and slap four-figure prices on them. What good does that really do for people?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
But before I could take another step, I felt Hayden drop beside me. Panic rushed through my veins again. I thought he was hurt. That his hip had given out or that he was in pain. I whipped my head around as he let go of my hand and I prepared myself to carry him on my shoulders the rest of the way to his place if I had to.
However, when I saw him down on one knee, tears flooded my eyes.
“Oh my God,” I said breathlessly.
“Grace Hunter,” he said as he pulled a ring from his pocket, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I love you, without a shadow of any doubt. You mean the world to me, and it is because of you that I want to help it. To save it, in any way I can. I want to make it better for you, and us, and my family, and the children we might have someday. You came into my life and put up with the worst of me. Saw the best in me, even when I was barely living. You took care of me during the darkest moments of my life, and I want to spend the rest of my life standing by your side and taking care of you. Will you let me do that? Will you let me marry you, Grace?”
Tears rushed down my cheeks as people stopped to stare. Some were recording on their phones and others were taking pictures. They were all waiting for my response, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even see through my tears. The wedding season was upon me in the floral shop, but I never would’ve dreamed this wedding season would include my own!
“Yes,” I said breathlessly.
I nodded my head as people erupted into applause and cheers around us.
“Yes, Hayden. I’ll marry you!”
With a massive smile and a steady hand, he slipped the beautiful ring onto my finger. The glistening diamond was surrounded by yellow and aquamarine gems that reminded me of his eyes. I threw my arms around him and crashed our lips together, standing on my tiptoes as he dipped me back. Men whooped and hollered and the women sighed with romantic intent, but soon I felt my entire body being lifted into the air.
Our lips untangled and I clung tightly to Hayden’s form as he held me close to his body.
“Shall we?” Hayden asked.
“I can walk, you know,” I said.
“So can I.”
Then he continued walking us down the sidewalk to his home. His arms were strong and his leg was steady, and there wasn’t even a limp in his step. Hayden was fully recuperated, his body was strong, and I was cradled against his chest as he carried me off into the night.
“I love you,” I said into his neck.
I felt him walking up the steps to his apartment as someone opened the door for us.
“I love you too, Grace. Beyond anything words will ever give me.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hayden
“Holy fuck, Hayden. Yes.”
I slammed her naked body against the window as sweat poured down her curves. I meant what I said. I loved this woman with every fiber of my being and I wouldn’t ever stop taking care of her. Not physically. Not emotionally. Not monetarily.
And certainly not sexually.
“Harder. Harder, Hayden.”
I rolled my cock into her body as my hands pressed into the glass. Her luscious breasts jumped against my chest as her pussy clamped around my cock. I nipped her collarbone. Her neck. Her cheek. I captured her lips and slid my tongue in effortlessly. She was an open book. One that was desperate for me to read her. I raked my tongue against the roof of her mouth and felt her shiver as her nails ran down my back.
I growled into her mouth, listening as whimpers fell from her covered lips.
I’d carried her up the stairs and straight into my penthouse apartment. Then, I’d carried her to the second story and pinned her directly to the floor-length windows that adored my bedroom. The one place I found solace and beauty when all else failed.
And her imprint would be lost to the fibers of the glass forever.
Her juices dripped down my cock and slid down my balls. Her pussy clamped me in her beautiful vice grip, pulling me further the harder I pounded into her body. Her hands curled into my muscles. My skin. My scalp. Her heels pressed into the small of my back as my muscles flexed as fast as they could. She was pouring with sweat. Tortured from the foreplay and begging for the release I knew her body wanted.
But it wasn’t the only one I would give her tonight.
“Hayden! Yes! I’m cumming. I’m cumming. It’s-.”
I buried myself into her body and pressed as deeply as I could into her. I felt her curves fill each of my divots, molding to me as she came around my cock. My hands fell to her hips, massaging them as her legs pulled me closer.
Then I grabbed fistfuls of her ass and pulled her from the window that overlooked the expanse of the city I loved so much.
I rose her entire body and brought it back down onto my cock. Her hands flew around my neck as her lips sucked at patches of skin on my neck. Her hair was flying around my face as my knees bent, keeping hold of her body as I fucked my cock with her. I rose her up and slammed her back, my hips meeting her thrust for thrust. She was wrapped around me as tightly as she could get, her lips smattering me with kisses as I took in the warmth of her body.
My body ground against her clit, and every single time it happened she shivered. It was the most incredible reaction that she couldn’t control, and I lost myself in it every time. In the feeling of her pussy quenching its thirst on my cock. In the feeling of her nails leaving crescent moons behind on my skin. In the feeling of her hot breath against my neck. I stumbled, the electricity surging through my body more than I could bear.
“I love you, Grace,” I said breathlessly.
I used my hips to buck into her as our lips connected again. Suspended in midair, with nothing but my arms holding her in place. She shook and wiggled. She groaned and gasped. My cock throbbed against her walls and her clit continued to swell against my skin, and soon her head was thrown back and I was stumbling back towards the window as she clung to my hair.
“Oh fuck, Hayden. I love you. I love you. I love you.”
The whispered chants fell from her lips as her pussy milked my greedy cock. But I bit down onto my lower lip and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to cum yet. I wasn’t ready. I still had so much I wanted to do with her body. So much I hadn’t been able to do because of my recuperation.
I barreled us to my bed, her back falling and her body jumping. My cock sheathed itself into her pussy once again and I tossed her legs over my shoulders. I folded her in half and felt her hands grasp my forearms. Gripping onto any part of me she could as her sweat-glistened tits beckoned to me. I slammed into her, thrusting deeply as I rolled my hips. Grace’s voice had devolved into a monochromatic drone, with no words other than the shaking of her body to tell me how much she wanted this.
How much she loved this.
How much more she needed of this.
I grabbed her hands and pinned them above her head. My tongue slid around her lips, tasting her ecstasy-tainted sweat. I kissed down her neck and drew one of her nipples into my mouth, lapping my tongue over the engorged peak. She arched into me. So tightly I thought her back might break. She rutted against me and I pounded into her. A sensual rhythm I hadn�
��t let up on since the second I stripped her down and hoisted her into my arms.
“My Grace,” I said with a whisper. “Cum again for me.”
As if her body was programmed to listen, her pussy vibrated around me. She cried out for mercy. She cried out for me to stop. But she scooted closer. Ground her clit deeper into my trimmed coils. Curled her toes and unhinged her jaw and gasped for air as goosebumps rose upon her skin.
Her juices were spraying onto me. Coating me with her intoxicating scent as it ran down my balls and dripped down my own thighs.
Her legs slid from my shoulders and I wrapped my arms around her. I picked her up and sat on the edge of the bed, her decadent thighs straddling me. I slid my hands up her spine, watching her eyes flutter closed. She was the most beautiful creature in the world to me, and I was ready.
“You’re my muse, Grace.”
Her eyes opened and her forehead fell to me as she swiveled her hips. Her hands clamped down onto my shoulders before sliding down my arms. I loved it when she felt me. Took in the strength of my muscles and traced her warm fingertips along the lines I worked so hard to keep up for her. We breathed one another’s air and rolled together to the beat of our own drum. Our hearts were connected and nothing could separate our bodies. Her face was flushed with a red that trickled down her neck and I could feel it.
Her pussy throbbing around my cock.
“I love you so much,” she said with tears in her eyes. “So much, H-H-Hay… oh.”
I wrapped my arms around her and buried my hand into her hair. Her forehead fell to my shoulder and I held her as close as I could get her. She was weak. Tired. Spent. Her body sagging against mine as I thrusted into her tight little pussy. Swollen with need and aching from my assault, I wouldn’t torture her like this much longer. With every moan she breathed, it rattled my ribcage. With every word she uttered, it heated my core. I wanted to give her my life.
My love.
My body.
My devotion.
“Hayden, please. Have mercy on my body.”
Like a prayer to a god.
I rolled deeply into her one last time and sank my face into her soaked hair. My cock released, pumping endless threads of cum into her body as she shook in my lap. Her nails curled so deeply into me they broke the skin, and her teeth sank into my shoulder. Marking me as hers while electricity and pleasure crashed in the pit of her stomach. My toes curled into the carpet and my grip on her tightened. My cock filled her to the brim before everything started pouring from between her thighs.
“I love you,” I said breathlessly. “I love you, Grace.”
And it was the softness of her kisses against my neck that communicated everything I needed to know.
I fell back, my body hitting the mattress as Grace cloaked me with her hot curves. Sweat poured from both our bodies and I could feel our intermingled fluids dripping from her skin onto mine. Sex filled my bedroom as the stars twinkled in the New York City sky. I ran my fingers through her hair as she caught her breath in the crook of my neck. Panting. Gasping. Drawing it in as quickly as I had robbed her of it.
Then, her lips migrated to my ear as I slid from between her legs.
“I love you too, Hayden. So much.”
Epilogue
Grace
One year later
“Where’s her veil?” Emilia said.
“It was in that red box,” Ivy said. “Where’d you put it? I handed it to you this morning.”
“I put it in the trunk of the limo. Did we not get that stuff out of the limo?” Emilia asked.
“I’ll go check,” Ivy said. “But help her get into her dress. We’ve only got fifteen minutes.”
Like the calm in the middle of the storm, I stood looking at myself in the mirror. Ivy ran out of the room to go check the trunk of the limo and Emilia was unzipping the fabric lining that held my wedding dress. It had finally come. I was going to talk down the aisle towards the man I had fallen desperately in love with and take him as my husband.
Today, I would become Mrs. Hayden Lowell.
“All right. That what you’re wearing under your wedding dress?” Emilia asked.
“It is,” I said with a smile. “Do you like it?”
“I think the question is, will Hayden like it?”
I ran my hands over the silk slip that fell delicately against my body. I had on a pair of lacy underwear with stockings attached to little clips and a garter that had been slid up onto my left thigh. My hair was curled and piled high on my head, with smaller curls dangling down next to my ears and the sides of my neck. The makeup Ivy had put on me earlier was perfect. Not too much, but just enough to make him stare.
And the only jewelry besides my earrings would be my wedding rings.
“I think he’ll love it,” I said with a smile.
“Then let’s get you in this thing. Hold onto my shoulders.”
Emilia held the dress out for me as I stepped in with my heels. It was a champagne-colored dress with a beautiful strapless neckline. It clung to my bosom and dipped in at my waist. Then it flared out into this beautiful princess gown. There was a bow at the side of the dress, decorated with beautiful beading and pearls. It was simple, but elegant, with just a smidge of dreamy princess charm.
It was perfect, and I felt like the bride I’d always wanted to be.
“I found it,” Ivy said as she rushed down the hallway. “It wasn’t in the trunk. It was in my-”
She came around the corner and froze. Her lips parted as her eyes raked down my form and I gave her a little twirl. I held my arms out and came back around, my eyes connecting with hers.
And I saw them lined with tears.
“Don’t do that. You’ll make me do that,” I said.
“You have no idea how beautiful you look,” Ivy said.
“Is that the veil?” I asked.
“It is. You ready to put it on?”
“I am,” I said with a smile.
She dabbed at her tears and sniffled before taking the veil out of its box. She pinned it into the curls of my hair, then flipped it over to let it shroud my face. It fell just beyond my shoulders, covering the part of my body exposed by the dress.
I turned around and looked at myself in the mirror and I began tearing up myself.
“Don’t do that. It took me over an hour to get that makeup right,” Ivy said.
“Then you shouldn’t have started the trend,” Emilia said.
“Knock knock.”
I turned around at the sound of Clarisse’s voice. She gasped when I turned around to look at her, and she came at me with her arms open wide. I embraced my soon-to-be motherin-law and held her tightly, trying to keep my tears at bay.
“You look gorgeous, Grace.”
“Thanks. How’s everything on Hayden’s end?”
“He looks phenomenal, just like you. And he’s ready to go,” she said.
“Then we should get a move on. I’m ready for that reception,” Ivy said.
“You’re ready for the open bar,” I said.
“Same difference?”
I shook my head and giggled before I took Clarisse’s hands within mine. “And my mom?”
“She’s just outside the door fixing the flowers. Emilia, you have some competition.”
“Yeah I know, that’s why Grace was so good at it. She failed to mention her mother knows plants too. My flowers are totally safe in her hands.”
“Your dad is waiting outside the door to walk you down the aisle.”
I sighed, “Tell him I’m ready.”
Ivy handed me my bouquet and I grabbed it as Clarisse was pulling away from me.
Then she cupped my cheeks within her hands and smiled.
“It would be an honor,” she said.
I couldn’t remember the ceremony. I honestly couldn’t remember the vows, either. All I could see was Hayden’s beautiful blue eyes as they, too, misted over with happiness. He flipped my veil over after it was all said and done, th
en cupped my cheek lovingly. Tenderly. Stroking my thumb with his skin like he always did when he was losing himself in me.
Then he pressed his lips to mine and the audience erupted into applause.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you to… Mr. and Mrs. Hayden Lowell!”
Everyone at the reception clapped their hands as Hayden and I ran into the room. Our fingers were intertwined and I tossed my bouquet out into the crowd. I rejoiced when Ivy caught it, then winked at her as Hayden twirled me around on the floor.
It was time for our first dance as husband and wife.
And holy hell, was Hayden terrible.
“Ouch.”
“Sorry,” he said.
“Oof.”
“I told you this wasn’t a good idea,” he said as he wrapped his arm around my waist.
“Geez. That’s my pinky toe,” I said.
“I warned you,” he said with a grin. “I had to completely relearn how to dance just for this moment.”
“Then maybe we should’ve pushed the wedding out a couple more months,” I said with a smile.
“Ah, so you got jokes. All right. I see where this is going. You wait until it’s time to cut the cake.”
“Don’t you dare,” I said. “This makeup took a very long time to get on.”
“But it won’t take me anytime to take it off tonight,” he said with a wink.
“You’re bad.”
“And you’ve been a naughty girl. You think I don’t know you have stockings underneath that gown? And to think my best man will have to fish that garter off your leg later.”
“I still can’t believe you asked Zander to be your best man,” I said.
“He’s helped me a lot with this new foundation. When I found out his passion for helping children rehabilitate, I knew I could fuse his ideas with mine.”
“Well he seems to be getting on with Ivy. Look.”
I nodded my head over to the corner and I watched Hayden smile. Zander had his hand pressed against the wall, smiling down at Ivy. She was talking on and on about something and he seemed completely entranced with her.
It was about time she found herself a man to spend some time with.
Mr. Beast_An Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 18
