My body rides toward that high. My arms and legs begin to tingle as my core tightens with every push in and pull back out.
He licks his tongue up the line of my spine. “You’re so fucking hot,” he murmurs against the back of my ear. “So. Fucking. Hot.” Each word’s accentuated with a thrust into me.
I can’t concentrate. I can’t think. It’s only him in the moment. Only the sensations. Only the pleasure.
He drags a hand back down my spine where his tongue just was, and he straightens up. I emit a garbled moan when he presses his thumb against the tight ring of muscles right above where his cock is working me so masterfully.
My hips buck against his thumb, causing him to play with me a little more. Push a little harder. Stimulate a little more.
“You like that,” he grits out. “I knew you would.”
“Ford,” I mewl as I begin to lose all control. My arms weaken. My legs tense as my body detonates into a million tiny explosions that ricochet throughout my entire body. A jolt of electricity that whips from my center out to my fingers and toes before slamming back into me again where he keeps touching and sliding and masterfully manipulating the nerves in my body.
“Ah, that’s it. Tighten around me. Fuck me, Elle,” he says as I push my ass back and forth on his cock to milk my own orgasm. To prolong it. To ride it out and absorb every ounce of pleasure from him.
“God, yes,” I moan as another orgasm slams into me completely unexpected. I collapse beneath the weight of its strength, but Ford holds my hips in the air as he drives into me over and over until it’s his guttural cry filling the room. Until it’s his release that’s owning us.
Our bodies ride the high as we come down ever so slowly. Ford releases my hips, but I’m able to keep them right where they are because I don’t want him to pull out just yet. I don’t want to lose this feeling.
He presses a tender kiss on my spine as his cock slowly softens inside of me. “God, yes?” He chuckles. “Should I take that as a yes, I’ll partner with you, Ford?”
My body shudders with the waning pleasure. I’ll give him anything he wants if I can have whatever we just did again. “Consent under duress can’t be taken seriously in a court of law.” My voice feels sex drugged. Sated.
“Duress?” He hums, and it sounds so sexy as it rumbles through the room. “Baby, that was anything but duress. But if you need me to do it again so you can contemplate the merits of yes under pressure, I’ll be more than happy to give it a go.”
“What?”
“Do you want me to fuck you again?” And in an instant, I’m on my back and his head is between my thighs. When he looks up at me with a grin on his lips, he whispers, “I dare you to tell me no.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Ford
She’s gorgeous.
I can’t sleep. My mind is reeling—too many thoughts, too many emotions to process in this early morning hour—but the one that’s constant is, she’s gorgeous.
But isn’t that what I think every time I look at her?
It is, but it never gets old. Never.
Her hair has fallen over her cheek, and I itch to push it off but don’t want to wake her just yet. I’d rather enjoy these few moments where I can study her without her being self-conscious.
Then again, how can anyone be self-conscious after how fucking hot that was earlier?
The woman is incredible. And a turn-on in every sense of the word.
And her books? Those scenes? One word. Fore-fucking-play.
My sigh is deep as I relive the fun we had. The laughter. The sex. The falling asleep sated and satisfied. The . . . asking her to be my partner.
Was that my chickenshit way of keeping her close without admitting to her I’m head over fucking heels in love with her? Without scaring her away?
Unequivocally, yes.
And I have no shame in doing so. None. I’m not ready to give her up just yet. Or to admit how I feel and have her run the other way.
Too bad life isn’t like that romance novel, right?
But she said yes.
And for now, that’ll have to be enough.
I roll onto my back, the next few weeks on my mind. What is going to happen with Ellery and me in the in-between—the end of this project and the beginning of the next one? There’s only so many bullshit meetings I can call before she’ll catch on.
Just tell her you want this to be a thing, Ford. You don’t have to tell her you’ve fallen for her. You don’t have to admit you want so much more than a fling. Just tell her you don’t know what this is between you two and you want more of it.
In the morning. It can wait till then. Until the sun has risen and she has woken up.
I’ll do it when she has that sleep-drugged voice and pillow creases on her cheek. When her lips are swollen and these thin sheets cover her body.
I give her one last look, determined and feeling slightly surer of myself.
Decided, I try to will myself back to sleep. To quiet my thoughts. To count fucking sheep. Nothing works. Insomnia is something I deal with on the regular. I thought the sexhaustion would help tonight. That the several orgasms would lull myself to sleep.
I was wrong.
Because other than the shadows dancing on the ceiling and the bathroom light we accidentally left on, it’s just me, a sleeping Ellery, and not a single Z for me in sight.
Scrolling through my cell it is then. But when I go to reach for it on the nightstand, I notice her Kindle where we left it.
That scene was hot.
I opt for the Kindle instead of my phone. For the sexy scenes in her books over the cold, hard facts of the business and stock market apps on my phone. I go to tap on the screen and practically drop it on my face—clearly, they are hazardous. In my attempt to catch it and not end up with a battle scar, I somehow push buttons or the screen or whatever and end up in her library.
Romance novel upon romance novel fill the screen. I scroll through the covers, laughing at the titles, comparing the image I have in my head of my abs with those of the men on their covers and wondering if I’m close, and then just as I’m about to click back on the book, I stop.
Maxton.
My dad’s face looks back at me. His book is in her library with a “Read” in the corner to say she’s read it in full.
What the fuck?
With a lump in my throat, I press on the cover. The book pops up to the last place she was reading, and there is one sentence highlighted on the bookmarked page and one sentence only.
“He’s . . . just Ford.”
I stare at the words colored in yellow and a myriad of emotions charge through me. Anger. Betrayal. Confusion. Hurt.
She knows? And yet, she hasn’t said a word?
“Ford?” Ellery’s sleep-drugged voice asks beside me.
I don’t respond, too involved in my head and trying to hold back from lashing out at her.
The bed dips. The covers pull some. And the hitch of her breath cuts through the room when she sees what I have in my hand. When she takes in the words and their highlights that blanket the screen.
When she reaches out and squeezes my forearm, my whole body tenses. “You wouldn’t tell me what was wrong.” She sounds like she’s talking to a wounded animal and that only makes things worse. “You’re putting a wedge between you and your brothers, and I thought if I knew what that wedge was, I might be able to help.”