Nothing But Love: A Different Kind of Love Novella

by Liz Durano

  He leaves my mouth only to plant a line of kisses down my neck to my shoulder, unbuttoning my PJs and pushing it over my shoulders. He slides his tongue between my breasts before taking my breast in his mouth, swirling my nipple with his tongue. I close my eyes as I savor the sensations of his mouth and the roughness of his stubble, losing myself in the moment until he moves away.

  “Spread your legs,” he murmurs as he pulls my PJs off my legs and tosses it to the side. As I do what he tells me, Jordan settles between my legs, his breath warm on my thighs. His stubble scratch my skin as he plants a soft kiss inside one thigh and then the other. Suddenly, it’s his tongue right on my clit and I gasp. He spreads my legs wider as he sucks at my clit. I toss my head back, my hands cupping my breasts, pinching my nipples.

  No other man makes me feel so sexy.

  “That’s it,” he murmurs as he watches me. “Play with yourself, Addy.”

  Jordan’s eyes never leave me as I rub and massage my breasts, pinching the erect nipples. His tongue rolls over my clit and moves downward. He plunges it inside me and takes it back to my clit again. I moan as he repeats it, feeling his tongue flick along my folds as he slides one finger inside me and then another.

  “Jory…” I pinch my nipples, the feeling of pain mingling with the pleasure of his tongue on my clit and his fingers sliding inside me. My head is spinning, my body buzzing all over.

  With him, I hold no titles. I’m just Addison, sweet and feminine Addy behind the white doctor coat and reading glasses being dragged under the waves of pleasure as they build and build and build. I arch my back, my hips rising from the bed as Jordan grips on to me, his strong arms keeping me in place. My release comes then, hitting me hard and leaving me a crumbling mess before him.

  As I catch my breath, Jordan slides up to kiss me. I can taste my essence on his tongue, turning me on even more. “I need you to fuck me,” I whisper as I tug at his sweater, pulling it over his shoulders and tossing it to the floor. I watch him stand up and step out of his pants before returning to the bed, his body covering mine.

  He leans over me, his gorgeous cock right at my entrance. I’m so ready for him I could scream but Jordan takes his time. He rubs the head of his cock up and down my slit, teasing me as he coats himself with my juices. I reach for him, wanting to pull him to me but before I can, he pumps into me, hard, and I gasp. He slides out as I catch my breath and then slams into me again. He pauses only to lift my legs and hook my knees over his shoulders just before fucking me again and again, driving his cock so deep each time it takes my breath away.

  Our eyes meet and it’s like a baring of souls between us, vulnerability revealed and in its core, a trust that I’ve never known with anyone before. It’s sexy as hell and the biggest turn-on. When his thumb skates over my clit, I’m done. I come so hard I see stars behind my eyelids.

  With a final groan, Jordan slams into me and I can feel his cock throb inside me, pulsing as he comes. As his weight and warmth envelops me, I cling to him, kissing the side of his neck as he catches his breath. I’d never known true love until I met Jordan, even if that moment didn’t really come until a year after we first met. Like fine wine, we simply needed time, even if my time had been spent in fear of what everyone was going to think of me.

  But Jordan changed all that. With him, I’ve never felt so beautiful and so whole. With him, I know I’m enough.

  As he rolls onto his back, I cuddle next to him, laying my head on his shoulder.

  “Boy, a girl could get used to this.”

  “You’re already used to this.” Jordan chuckles. “Well, except for the vacation part, and having the monitor next to the bed that you have to keep checking in case Piper wakes up and wanders into the bedroom.”

  “Don’t remind me.” I bury my face in his shoulder. Ah yes, the joys of having sex with one eye on the monitor and the one time I didn’t check the monitor, Piper did just that—push open the door and walk in. Jordan and I almost had a heart attack but that was inconsequential. What mattered was that she didn’t see anything. She was still too sleepy, waking up to tell us she was thirsty.

  “We’ll have to move into a bigger house,” Jordan says. “I know you love the apartment but we can’t tear any more walls down to make the place any bigger.”

  “I’m open to moving.”

  Jordan looks at me. “It may not be in Manhattan. Are you okay with that?”

  “I am,” I say. “In fact, if my mom had her way, she’d be having us move in.”

  “That’s my mom, too,” he says, grinning. “But we’ll look around. There’s no rush.”

  “For now, we have to get pregnant first,” I say. “And that was just the first of many.”

  Jordan stares at me, surprised. “Excuse me. Tonight?”

  I laugh. “No! For this vacation. I’ll even pencil it in if you want. We can narrow it down to morning sessions or evening.”

  He kisses the top of my head and pulls me to him, wrapping me in his arms. “Nuh-uh. Let’s say we did but we didn’t, Dr. Rowe. Until then, there’s one prescription I’m giving you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Sleep,” he says, pulling the covers over us. “We’ve got a mountain to conquer tomorrow morning, remember?”

  7

  Dax

  “Welcome home, mi amor.”

  I kiss Harlow before she can reply, surprising her with a dip as well that has her yelping in surprise as she wraps her arms behind my neck. As I straighten up and get her back to her feet, she swats my chest playfully, laughing as she straightens her coat.

  “You almost gave me a heart attack!”

  “I’m sorry,” I say as she takes a step closer, her expression softening.

  “Why don’t we start over?” Without waiting for me to reply, Harlow kisses me softly, her lips brushing mine at first before I feel her tongue pressing against mine. I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her to me, deepening the kiss. The world could go to hell right now in a handbasket. All that matters is that Harlow is back home again. As much as the guys and I teased Sawyer for missing Alma terribly, I was in the same boat, too.

  Maybe it’s a Valentine’s thing. Maybe it’s catching.

  The sound of people approaching has Harlow pulling away, her cheeks reddening as if she’d just been caught doing something she shouldn’t be doing. Suddenly shy, she cocks her head toward the truck.

  “Maybe we should start heading to your dad’s?”

  I exhale, hating that she got me all excited like that. Now I wish I could take her straight to the Pearl and make love to her before showing up at Dad’s for lunch. That way, we’d get an early start with Valentine’s day.

  But I also know that everyone’s waiting for us to arrive before lunch starts. And even if I wanted to, I also can’t sneak Harlow to the Pearl. Not yet. She’s not supposed to see the surprise until after lunch, when we all head back to the Pearl and settle in for the rest of the evening.

  Wait. Why am I suddenly so rational?

  I pull the passenger door open and help Harlow get in. She looks amazing in her pink sweater and jeans under a down jacket. And I know for a fact that she’ll look even more amazing once she’s out of all those clothes, too.

  “What are you looking at?” Harlow asks as she buckles in.

  “Your ass.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Dax!”

  I shrug. “I can’t help it. You’ve got an awesome ass, mi amor.”

  Her cheeks redden. “Why thank you, Mr. Drexel. Do you have any idea how hard I have to work to make sure the whole thing stays where it is?” she says, laughing as I shut the door and walk around to the driver’s side.

  And boy do I know how hard she works at keeping herself fit at 45. She’s usually up before I am, already walking on the treadmill or riding her stationary bike along with hundreds of other women and men online. She also does yoga whenever Alma comes over with Tyler and Drea for their playdates and the kids even follow along. In fact, wh
en Harlow was away, Anipea reminded me we had to stick to the schedule, and I almost pulled a damn muscle just trying to touch my toes.

  You’re supposed to bend from your hips, Daddy. Like this.

  Yeah, you tell ‘em, Miss Smarty Pants.

  Thank God her twin brother is more casual about everything, more interested in building planes and ships with his Lego pieces and then taking them apart.

  Drives Harlow crazy.

  Why do kids do that? She asked the first time she spent two days assembling a Titanic Lego set only for DJ happily take it apart in fifteen minutes. I swear I’m going to super-glue the pieces next time he asks me to build him something.

  Mi amor, that’s just what kids do.

  I still don’t get it, she said as she walked away, only to yell in pain when she stepped on a stray Lego piece on the floor.

  Still, it’s heaven on earth and I couldn’t be happier. With Harlow and our two kids who keep us on our toes, life is never boring. Even my commute isn’t bad at all, giving me time to spend time with family. I still drive up to Flagstaff to oversee the remaining projects there, but not as often as I used to. It means I don’t get to spend as much time in the house Mom loved so much but such is life. You have to keep moving.

  Dad still drives up there and stays a few days, taking things she’d brought up there back to Taos with each visit. Pottery, paintings, books. Sarah and I have a feeling it’s so he can start saying goodbye to the place and move on. After all, it’s been nine years since Mom passed away and she made him promise to do things after she was gone.

  You go out there and keep busy, Daniel, okay? She told him three days before she died. And fall in love again. Please. Do it for me.

  Those words gutted me for years even though I knew it was classic Mom. She’d want Dad to move on.

  “Everything okay?”

  Harlow’s voice snaps me back to reality and I swallow, willing away my tears. Shit. Stop it, man. It’s been nine years.

  I reach for Harlow’s hand. “I love you, you know that, right?”

  “Of course,” she says, frowning. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  “Yup. Just happy you’re back. That’s all,” I reply, nodding. It’s a weak lie, but she seems to accept it as she sighs and leans back in her seat. “Learn anything new while you were in New York?” I ask, needing to lift the mood inside the cab. “Any new trivia and stuff?”

  “Did you know that in a study between men on plant-based diets and those not, those who were plant-based had harder erections? And longer, too? Like an hour?”

  Well, I didn’t expect that. “Excuse me?”

  “It was in this movie I saw at the hotel about plant-based diets,” Harlow says. “You did say you wanted to know if I learned something new, so that’s it. Apparently, these college-age guys, when they ate plant-based meals had harder erections, more erections, and erections that lasted longer than when they had meat that night.”

  “That’s a lot of erections in one sentence.”

  “I think I can see how it would make sense,” Harlow says, unperturbed. “The corpus cavernosum and corpus spongiosum–”

  “Whoa!” I hold up my hand. How many times did I have meat this week? Grilling with the guys yesterday and the day before that… forget it. “Harlow, are you trying to tell me I need to go on a plant-based diet?”

  She looks at me, horrified. “No! Not at all. It’s just something that I saw–”

  “Good.” I breathe a sigh of relief. “Because I’ve been looking forward to tasting every dish Nana made today and I know for a fact that none of them will be plant-based.”

  “You have nothing to worry about, Dax.”

  I do my best to focus on the road even though I can’t help but think about what Harlow saying. Clearly, it’s an important study and I don’t have to be a genius to know that. I mean, this is my dick we’re talking about here even if she’s still speaking in generalities like the researcher she is. “So do you think I need to go on a plant-based diet? You know, for down there? I mean, more is always better, right?”

  “Not at all. Uh-uh. You’re good…” She leans toward me and cups my balls and I almost drive off the road. Focus on the road, Dax. Focus. “In fact, you’re more than good, Mr. Drexel. So. Much. More.”

  “Thanks.” I take her hand away from between my legs and chastely rest it on her lap. The last thing I want right now is for her to inspect the quality of my erection. “Tell me about the meetings with the publishers. You didn’t talk much about that over the phone.”

  And not by choice, really. The twins took over every FaceTime conversation so they could tell her about their day. And it was perfect. After all the meetings she and Alma had to sit through, I could see her relax as she listened to Ani-pea and DJ tell her about their adventures that day. StoryTime at the library, play dates with Tyler, and hanging out with PawPaw (my dad) and Nana. Talking about the meetings would have to wait until we were alone, like right now.

  As Harlow tells me about the details of the contract they signed, I take my time driving to the family home where Dad and Nana are hosting lunch on Valentine’s Day. Funny how I used to call it Nana’s house after Mom died. While Dad and I struggled with our grief, Nana made sure it would remain the home it always was, cooking the same dishes she and Mom used to make for us and making sure we had a place to come home to whenever we needed.

  Passed from one generation to another, the family home has grown from the original two bedroom one bath adobe right smack in the middle of a huge lot. With each generation adding to it, the house now has six bedrooms and six bathrooms complete with a second wing with its own kitchenette and living room area in case my sister and her husband want their own space and a separate casita in the back of the property that Dad uses as his home office.

  “Five books?” I ask when Harlow finishes telling me about the contract she and Alma finally signed after discussing the terms with lawyers and with Dad. “And they’ll be in libraries?”

  “And translated into Spanish, too! And people can find it right here in Taos,” she says, grinning from ear to ear. “Can you believe it, Dax?”

  I bring her hand to my lips. “Never doubted it, mi amor.”

  Who knew her simplified versions of how and why we have to pee or poop would become actual picture books? Accompanied by Alma’s charming illustrations, the stories even rhyme. But just because I didn’t expect it doesn’t mean I ever doubted Harlow’s ability to make it happen.

  That’s my gorgeous wife for you. Smart, sexy as hell, and not-so-subtle when it comes to bodily functions. I just hope she doesn’t mention anything about erections during lunch.

  The twins are in the playroom when we arrive and they run screaming into Harlow’s arms the moment we walk in. Behind them, Alma’s son Tyler by her late husband Drew Thomas runs toward his Aunt Harlow like he’s the unofficial third Drexel kid. And in a way he is. Between playdates and children’s books about bodily functions, our families see each other at least three times a week. Meanwhile, the fourth unofficial Drexel, one-year-old Drea does her best to follow her older brother, scooting on her butt across the floor until Todd scoops her up.

  I bring Harlow’s luggage containing presents for the kids and set them on the living room floor. Dad joins us from the kitchen and so does Nana, who only stays for a few minutes before she returns into the kitchen where two women are helping her prepare the food. As the twins crowd around Harlow on the couch, showering her with kisses and hugs, I take a step back to admire the view.

  How did I get so lucky?

  “Hey, man, want a beer?”

  I turn to see Gabe standing next to me holding a beer in each hand. I pull him to me for a quick hug before taking one beer. “Thanks. I thought you were helping Nana in the kitchen.”

  “I was.” He gives me a look of mock disappointment. “But she kicked me out just now. Said I was taking my role of taster too seriously.”

  “I bet you were.” I chuckle
as Gabe rolls his eyes.

  Dr. Gabriel “Gabe” Vasquez has been my best friend for as long as I can remember. While I struggled in school because of dyslexia, he breezed right through because the guy’s a genius. He could have gone into Surgery or some other specialty that paid well but he didn’t. Instead, after completing his residency in family and community medicine, Gabe opened his own clinic in town. It was a family affair. I helped him build the place while his cousin Claudia worked the front office and another cousin assisted him in the back office with treatments. One of Dad’s friends who owned a medical lab gave Gabe discounts for any blood work he needed analyzed. He accepted people with no insurance, people who would have crowded the emergency room for something as simple as a cold. To cover his payroll, Gabe drove to Albuquerque once a month to do a 24-hour shift in the Emergency Room.

  Last year, he dozed off behind the wheel after a shift and drove right into a ditch. Totaled his car in the process but emerged unhurt except for a nasty bruise on his forehead. That’s when Dad told Gabe it was time he considered investors to his practice if he wanted it to expand — and not have to work for someone else just to pay the bills. Took a lot of convincing because Gabe was adamant about not wanting to receive a handout. But after Dad presented him with a five-year financial outlook and all other paperwork, Gabe accepted the offer. How can you say no to a man who invests millions of other peoples’ money and has a record of always returning a profit? My business is proof of that and Gabe knows it. I may be an award-winning woodworker but Dad is the one who made it a lucrative business, even helping me get set up with a showroom in New York City. Dad believes in hard work and he’s more than willing to support anyone who deserves it. Gabe has always been one of them.

  “Hey, taster or not, I’m glad you could make it,” I say. “You’ve been busy lately.”

  “Hey, when bigwigs from New York invest in your practice, you got to hustle harder, man.” He pauses and takes a sip of his beer. “But back to the food. I can guarantee that the adovada is amazing. As are everything that’ll be served for lunch. Just letting you know.”