Until it’s late afternoon and we’re still in bed.
“That proves I was right,” he says softly, playing with my hair.
“About what?”
“We’re perfect for each other. I knew it the minute I saw you, it happened that fast.”
I wrap my legs more tightly around him so his cock slides even deeper. “Maybe you’re right.”
He smiles. The smile. His wolfish smile with an almost-vulnerable edge to it that makes me realize: I’m his weakness. I’m his one vulnerability. “You’re mine,” he whispers. “I found you. And now that I have, I’m never letting go.”
Gage picks me up and carries me into the shower. He could lift twelve of me without breaking a sweat. I wrap my arms and legs around him. I don’t know what day it is, only that it’s evening now. The sun is starting to set outside the small etched window in my shower. He kisses me, plunging his tongue into my mouth, exploring intimate angles. There’s an edge to him, a desperation. His need has deepened into a barely-controlled frenzy. The more he gets, the more he wants. His mouth is greedy. He takes my mouth almost savagely. Water sluices across our skin, running in tickling rivulets. He grips my thighs hard, murmuring to me between long, lush kisses.
I’m fucking crazy for you. I need to be inside you right now. I need to fucking stay inside you and live inside you. I need to fuck you hard and make you come for me. Only me.
Gage leans me up against the tiled wall. The heavy bulk of him is as hot as newly-forged steel and just as hard. He slides his fingers across my slippery pussy, positioning the head of his cock between my intimate folds, forcing his way inside.
You’re so fucking tight, baby. So perfect. Let me in. That’s my girl. Fuck, I love how you feel. You’re an angel. You’re a goddess. You’re a fucking dream. That’s it, let me in. Squeeze me, come for me. Oh, fuck, you’re too beautiful.”
The insane thickness of him as he plunges deep stretches me, opening me. I’m so tight around him I can feel the ridges of veins as he drives harder. The burn is painful, star-studded with shards of hot, explosive pleasure. It’s like he’s made of pure magic. His cock, so big and so deep, rubs rhythmically against every trigger I possess, igniting shattering bursts of rapture as he thrusts into me, over and over.
I grip onto him, struggling to cope with the overload. I come in jolting bursts, each wet compression drawing him deeper, and deeper, until his massive arousal is fully rooted. It’s too much. I cry out as the stretching totality of his slick depth tips me over another crazy cliff. I come again, very, very hard. My inner muscles pull and tug, milking him with soft, clamping adoration.
Gage growls my name as his cock bucks forcefully inside me, lifting me with burst after burst of his thick, flooding warmth.
He holds me against his big frame as the water rains down on us and our breathing starts to slow.
We stare at each other through the mist, coming to terms with the connectivity of what’s taking place here. It’s heavy. Like we’ve jumped in at some ridiculously-uninhibited deep end and we’re only swimming deeper.
“Did I hurt you?” His voice is deep and raw with emotion.
“No, Gage.”
“I get carried away with you. I’m a beast and a bastard.”
I smile against his lips. I used to think of him that way. “You didn’t hurt me.”
“I was rough with you.”
“I like you rough.” With the tiniest emphasis on the you. I say it carefully. “I think you just fixed me. I think you just replaced everything I was once scared of with your crazy beauty.” He has. Just like that.
“I love you,” he whispers.
Gage’s eyelashes are black and spiked from the water that drips from his hair. As I stare into those eyes, every cell in my body sort of calms and melts with a vast, effortless craving. He’s changing me, with his powerful body and his fierce desire. I want to let him in. I want to be with him and explore all the complexities of who he is. I want to give him everything.
I don’t know what’s happening. Or why. All I know is that something is happening. A shift. A curling, rambling bond is taking hold that’s more profound than anything that’s ever happened to me. And I can recognize it for what it is.
A star-crossed lucky score.
Love.
As it turns out, Gage never did leave. We ordered food to be sent up from the restaurant and we stayed in bed for the whole week. We made love so much I could barely walk but I have never felt so beautiful and content and hopeful.
All it took was a stampede, a whiskey-assisted therapy session on a night-lit beach, a heartfelt confession and, finally, several very intense days in bed with Gage McCabe, on the receiving end of his substantial gifts—to put it mildly—to fall head over heels in love with him. I was slightly miffed by how smug he was about the fact that it happened so fast, but there was no point fighting him. Fighting only gets us even hotter for each other.
I became a prodigy under his influence, he said. I simply can’t get enough of him.
Orgasms change a person. Orgasms given by a certain well-hung investment guru transform a person. It’s empowering. I crave him with everything I have. I want to drink him in and taste him and take him inside every chance I get.
To say he feels the same way would be an understatement.
The builders and designers and architects arrived and it has been a whirlwind of activity. My apartment has become our headquarters. Gage sits with me in the meetings but leaves all the decision-making to me. Whatever I want, he says. Whatever makes me happy.
All three buildings are basically being gutted, keeping every ounce of character but refitting everything that isn’t either structural or in keeping with the design vision. The decks, the pools and the exterior spaces are all being redone. The interiors are being transformed into stylish, understated Key West décor with a modern, tropical flair. The designer, Gage’s friend from Chicago, is turning out to be a genius. His name is Felix and he comes up with ideas I never would have thought of, which I suppose is his job, but he’s incredibly good at it.
We’ve closed the restaurant for six weeks while the refurbishments are being completed. I gave all my staff a paid, much-needed vacation. We’re planning to re-open on New Year’s Eve. The Tucker Brothers Band will play at the grand opening of Luna’s.
Gage took me to New Orleans for a week. We walked the streets hand in hand, listened to music, ate amazing food, went shopping, took a ride on a Mississippi riverboat and spent a lot of time in our swanky hotel room.
Gage takes me to a place of physical enlightenment that I think must be, in itself, a rare gift. There’s nothing he won’t do. He’s dirty as hell (in the best kind of way), exceptionally thorough and absolutely relentless. From that first confession, he tells me he loves me a hundred times a day.
On our last night in New Orleans, I said it back to him. My sweet, beautiful, arrogant bastard cried when I said it. We both cried. Then we laughed because his reply was, I don’t blame you. It would be hard not to love all this.