by Elise Faber
This wasn’t considering giving him a chance.
This was him having a direct path to her heart—her realizing he always had.
Pulse pounding, fear and hope, need and longing all twisted up inside her, she stepped back, spun away from him, moving as fast as she could down the hall and into the back yard.
“Fan?” He tried to catch her arm, but she dodged it, kept walking until the cool air was hitting her skin, the moon was bright overhead.
What was she doing?
She should run.
Except . . .
He’d shown up on her porch and shaken her peaceful life, rattling the branches and sending leaves scattering, shattering everything she’d thought was important into irreparable pieces.
“Fan.”
She put her hand up, not looking at him. “Please, just . . .”
He paused. She could feel his heat near her, could smell his scent, could hear the quiet rasp of his breath as he held himself back.
She needed to think, to process and—
She also didn’t.
Because when all that had been scattered had settled, the broken shards gathered—when she’d read the notebook with all of his mother’s memories of them, when he’d surprised her with the basket of gifts, with the certificate to the winery, when he’d cooked for her and offered tonight, when he’d been so gentle with her while taking off her skates, when he’d followed her home, when she remembered the hundreds of other sweet and gentle ways he’d taken care of her before—Fanny knew that irreparable didn’t mean forever broken.
She would never be the same.
Neither would he.
There were no guarantees. There never could be. Neither of them could tell the future.
The only thing she did know?
That she didn’t want to waste any more time.
Maybe the cancer would always be a frightening monster in the back of her mind.
Maybe her heart would always be the teensiest bit broken.
Maybe she would always be worried it might be taken away.
But . . . she could get mowed over by a bus tomorrow. She could get sick and die. She could lose Brandon all over again. And maybe it was the sexy underwear or the heated way Brandon looked at her, inflating her confidence, making her reckless with the urge to jump into things with him with both stilettos, but she also knew the truth.
That she was already in with him.
No matter how hard she’d fought in the beginning, she’d been sliding down this slope.
So . . . it was time to let go.
To be with the man she’d never stopped loving, even when she’d been broken into pieces by that love.
Enough time had been lost.
She didn’t need to squander any more.
And with that thought, the last remnants of indecision floated away like a balloon flying up into the sky.
“I’m not hungry for food,” she murmured.
He straightened, tilted her head back, and stared into her eyes. “What are you hungry for, baby?”
A deep breath, shoving that fear down and locking it up.
Not forever.
Because she didn’t want it bubbling back up again. She’d take it out. She’d deal with it. They would build something new, something untarnished by the past.
Something that would mean everything going forward.
So when he asked what she was hungry for, Fanny said the only thing she could,
“You.”
No hesitation. Not anymore. She was done running and hiding. She was going to grab on to her life, on to this man, and she was going to live.
Chapter Sixteen
Brandon
His heart swelled . . . along with his cock.
Every cell in his body told him to sweep her up into his arms and fuck her on the next available surface.
But—
He had to make sure.
He’d hurt her before.
He—
“Say something,” she whispered, and he’d have to be blind to miss the insecurity creeping into her eyes.
“My doctor says I’m cured.”
She rocked back on her heels, her chin jerking up, and that was most certainly the something she hadn’t wanted him to say, the one thing that could most easily douse the flames of the arousal that had been burning between them from the moment she opened her front door.
“What?” she breathed. “I—”
He’d wanted to tell her, but he shouldn’t be telling her in this moment. Fuck. Talk about ruining everything, about shoving their past in her face when she’d just finally decided to take a step forward.
“How?” she asked before he could say something, anything else.
“I . . . my doctor says that because my scans have been clear for ten years that medically I’m considered cured.” He sucked in a breath, released it slowly. “Dr. Lyon says in her professional opinion, she doesn’t think it’ll come back.”
“That’s—”
He braced himself.
But she didn’t toss words at him. Instead, she threw herself at him. “That’s amazing, babe,” she said, wrapping her arms tightly around him. “I can’t—that’s the best news.”
Absently, he hugged her back, inhaling her scent and imprinting it on his soul.
“What happened to Dr. Philips?” she asked a moment later.
“He retired and recommended Dr. Lyon. Conveniently, her practice is in San Francisco.”
She leaned back, stared at him. “Is that why you came?”
“No.” He cupped her cheeks. “I could lie and say it was about my job, my doctor. I might have even told myself that was the reason I accepted Devon’s offer. But the truth is that even though I didn’t know you were working for the Gold, I knew you were in California, and after I remembered everything, I knew I would take any chance to be closer to you, even if it was just in the same state.”
Her lips parted.
She didn’t pull away.
“I love you. I wanted to be near you, even when I didn’t see how we could have a future. I just knew . . .”
“Magnets,” she whispered.
“What?”
“We’re a pair of magnets, always drawn together, no matter what comes between us.” Half her mouth tipped up. “Cheesy.” A shrug. “But—”
“It’s the truth,” he murmured.
“Yeah.”
She fell quiet, and Brandon released her face, gripped her shoulders, and tugged her a little closer, wrapping his arms around her. They stood there holding each other. For once, the past wasn’t between them. It was just him and Fanny. She was against him, and he could stand there with her forever.
But then she shifted on her feet.
Slowly, he released her. “Should I cook you dinner now?” he asked lightly, wanting to take her mind off the conversation, off the bomb he’d dropped.
Her mouth tipped up. “Still not hungry for food.”
He waited.
“I want you.”
His cock twitched, but she shifted again, and he pushed his desire aside. “Am I hurting you?” he asked, dropping his hands and stepping back.
“No.” She closed the distance between them. Shifted again, only this time with a wince.
“You winced.”
“I did not.”
He slanted a look at her, retreated a pace, worry starting to thread its way through his mind. “I saw you. Don’t lie to me,” he said. “Did I do something—”
“It’s my shoes, Brandon. They’re sexy, but they hurt like hell.”
“Your shoes?” he asked dumbly, his gaze dropping to her feet.
“Yes, honey. They’re tall, they’re pointy, and they’re—ah!”
He swept her up into his arms, started for the stairs.
“What are you doing?” she exclaimed, her hands coming to his shoulders and holding on tight.
“Feeding you,” he said, bounding upstairs, pushing one door open and peeking inside to find an office. T
hen another to find a bathroom.
“Feeding—” She shook her head. “Bedroom is last door on the right.”
“Thank fuck,” he muttered, heading there and bypassing what felt like a hundred doors in front of him to check. It was two, two more to look beyond, but she’d saved him the trouble, so he moved straight to that last room on the right, pushed through the wooden panel, and took approximately one second to scan the space before heading directly to the bed and setting her on it. “Sexy shoes,” he said softly, kneeling in front of her and pressing a kiss to her ankle. He tugged off the first heel, rubbed her foot, noticing the red marks visible even through the stocking she wore, and ordered, “You’re never wearing these again.”
“I am,” she said. “Just next time, we’ll do a lot less standing up and talking.”
He grunted, yanking the other heel off and tossing it over his shoulder. “Fine,” he grumbled, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to say no to her. He bent and kissed the red marks, chuckling when she squirmed against his fingers slightly tickling the soles of her feet.
“Brandon?”
He was kissing his way up her calf, her knee, her thigh. “Hmm?”
“Will you come up here?”
“Yes.” He just had a pit stop to make. He inched the short skirt of her dress up, exposing . . . a narrow strip of lavender elastic, and froze. “Fanny?” he asked after a moment, leaning in to kiss the small half circle of skin on the inside of her thigh.
“Mmm?” she asked, her legs spreading as much as they were able with the tight skirt holding them close.
“Are you wearing a garter belt?” He darted his tongue out, tasted her skin, and bit back a moan.
She smelled of roses and caramel, tasted sweet and floral, and when he allowed his eyes to flick up, to glance beneath her dress, he saw that her panties were soaked, so much so that the pale purple had become nearly translucent.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, her eyes closing.
“Why?”
“Because I like them.” Her breath hissed out when he ran his tongue beneath the thin elastic, drawing it up, up, up—
Until—
He stood, yanked Fan to her feet, and took advantage of her surprise to locate the zipper—under her arm—he tugged it down, peeled the fabric away, and—
It was a miracle he even had any blood left in his body.
It felt like it was all in his dick.
Because he’d pulled back that black material, tugged it up and over her head, let it fall down to puddle on the floor, and . . .
She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Her breasts were encased in a lace bra that did absolutely nothing to hide her hardened nipples, and when he let his gaze lower over the curve of her stomach to see her hips covered in more lavender, and those black stockings . . .
“Fucking hell,” he muttered.
“Off,” Fanny ordered, reaching for the lapels of his jacket and shoving it down his arms, leaving him to wrestle with it as she started unbuttoning his shirt. They struggled with the material, and as they did so, he cursed his decision for the suit. He should have put on a T-shirt and jeans. It would have been much easier to take off.
But finally, he managed to sling his jacket across the room, and Fan finished with the shirt buttons while he stepped out of his shoes, and shoved down his pants, yanked off his socks.
Then he was just in his boxer briefs, and she was in her sexy, little outfit, and then he got back to doing what he wanted to do before.
He nudged her to sit on the edge of the bed and knelt between her thighs.
And he had his dinner.
Her panties were tugged to the side, those elastics unsnapped, and her legs spread wide. He used the flat of his tongue to lick her from bottom to top, once, twice, and when her hands flexed on the mattress, he arrowed in on her clit, sucking it deep as he slipped a finger inside.
It was new, and not.
It was familiar, and not.
His body remembered what to do, remembered what she liked, or had liked then, but she’d changed, and so had he. There was relearning to be done, things to discover, things to let go of, but it wasn’t difficult, and it didn’t take long before he’d homed in on what made her moan and writhe and eventually—when he crooked his finger just right, when he sucked her clit hard—scream.
“Brandon!”
Her fingers clenched his hair, her thighs clamped tight around him.
And then slowly, like a wave creeping up a shore, she relaxed, her shoulders slumping, hands releasing, legs spreading wide.
Desire a heavy beat in his heart, he tossed her back up on the bed, coming on top of her and taking her in his arms. He kissed her long and slow, until her relaxation turned into tension, until that tension turned into need, until that transformed into something more, into something that pushed him over the edge. He scrambled off the bed for his pants, reaching into the pocket and pulling out his wallet. He yanked out a condom, tore the package open with his teeth. A second later, he was rolling it down the hard length of his cock, climbing back on top of Fanny, spreading her thighs, and positioning himself between them. He paused, waiting until she looked at him, wanting to make sure she was ready for this, ready for him, ready for them to take this step.
Every cell in his body was screaming at him, every nerve was on fire, every muscle ached, and his control hung on a razor’s edge.
Thrust home. Take them both over the edge. It would be so easy.
But this was Fanny.
This was the woman who held his heart. There was no way that he would allow himself to take advantage of her in any way, shape, or form.
He loved her.
If she didn’t want this, he would stop.
Even if that meant he would be going home with blue balls.
But poised between her legs, his cock one inch from salvation, sweat dripping down his spine, every part of him tense and needy, he prayed she wouldn’t turn him away.
“Fanny,” he said, his voice a rasp, “look at me.”
Her eyes were closed, her head tossed back on the pillow, sweat turning her skin a golden color in the dim lights of the bedroom. “Brandon,” she begged, reaching for him, tugging at his shoulders, drawing him down toward her.
He was desperate to push home, desperate to feel her wrapped around him again.
But he wouldn’t slide inside that slick heat, not until he saw she was ready.
“Fanny,” he demanded again, “look at me.”
Her eyes peeled open; those deep brown irises met his. He saw his desperation mirrored in her own gaze, felt the need making her hands shake as she clung to his shoulders.
But he needed the words.
“Do you want this?” he asked, brushing her hair off her face. “Do you want me like this?”
Her nails dug into his skin, a sharp bite of pain that threatened to shatter his control, but he held on. He’d waited a decade for this, he could wait until she was ready.
“Brandon.” Her fingers dug in a little harder. “Look at me,” she demanded. “Really look at me. Have I given you any indication that I don’t want this? I’m naked and beneath you. I’m wet. I’m needy.”
“Baby,” he began.
“I’m still shaking from my orgasm, my legs are spread, my pussy is aching for you. I want you inside me. I want you to fuck me until we both can’t see straight. And then”—she cupped his face in her hands—“I want you to do it all over again. I want to remember you were between my legs when I’m skating tomorrow. I want to feel sore and wrung out and thoroughly used, and—”
His control snapped. He thrust home, bottoming out, feeling the liquid heat of her surround him.
She was tight. She was everything he remembered. She was so much more than he had ever hoped.
“And then I want to come home, and I want you to have missed me so much that you fuck me the moment I walk through the door,” she said, her eyes blazing, her legs wrapping around him, her hi
ps meeting his as he began to thrust. “I want everything. I want you in every room of my house. I want you in every room of yours. I want to make up for all the things that we missed out on. I want the sex. I want the fucking. I want you to make love to me.” She moaned when he thrust a little deeper, arching against him. “And I want the rest of it, too. I want the dinners together. I want to wake up with you wrapped around me. I want to watch bad TV shows together. I want to look up from a class and see you sitting in the bleachers. I want you in my life no matter what the future brings. I just want you, Brandon.”
“Fanny,” he breathed, so touched that his eyes begin to burn. He blinked back the tears but felt one escape anyway; Fanny reached up and wiped it away.
“I want it all, too,” he told her. “We missed out on so much time together, and I don’t want to waste any more. I love you, and I will love you for far longer than my body will be on this planet. I will love you like the wind caresses the shoreline, the mountains, the desert, and the sea. Always there, even though sometimes you can’t see it. I will love you with every single piece of me, whole, broken, or somewhere in between. I will—”
She sat up, wrapped her arms around him, knocking him back to his knees. “God, I love you.”
Brandon’s heart seized.
“I won’t love you like the wind,” she said. “You’ll see my love for you every single minute of the day. You’ll know that I’m here, that I fell for you when I was fourteen and that I’ve never felt the same way about anyone else.” Tears streaked down her cheeks. “I know I’m still broken. I know the pieces are duct-taped together and a bit dinged from life, from our past, from the hurt I held on to for so long.” He kissed those salty streaks of moisture away, held her tight. “But they’re all yours. They’ve always been yours, and they always will be.”
He was the luckiest fucker on the planet.
“Now,” she said, lying back and drawing him down on top of her again, “you’re naked and inside me. I’m naked and wetter than I’ve ever been in my life. Please, please fuck me.”
His throat burned. He knew he still had tears clinging to his lashes.
But his woman needed him to give her another orgasm, and frankly, he needed one, too.
It had been too fucking long.
