“You… what?”
“Move in with me,” he whispered, just loud enough that I could hear him over the waves. “Let’s make a home together. Let’s make a life together. Right here, on the beach where you love to be, in a house where we make the rules.” He smoothed his thumb over my jaw, smiling. “No more driving back and forth. No more half of my stuff at your place and half of yours at mine. I want to wake up next to you every morning, Maven. I want to listen to you snore when you fall asleep.”
I swatted at his chest, but my eyes still glossed with tears, my cheeks burning from how big my smile was.
“Whatever plants you want, whatever garden you want to create — it’s yours.”
“Is there a space for your pottery wheel?”
He chuckled. “Yes. It’s ours, Maven. We can make it whatever we want.”
“Oh, does that mean we can have a kinky sex room?”
His eyebrows shot up. “If that’s what you want.”
“I mean, I have been daydreaming about that toy you used on me a few weeks ago…”
He groaned, capturing my lips as he pressed his hips against mine. I felt him growing hard already, likely at the same memory.
“Tell me that’s a yes,” he said. “So I can take you inside and christen every room of our house.”
“Our house,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck. I jumped, knowing he’d catch me, my legs winding around him next. “It does have a nice ring to it.”
“Woman,” he growled, nipping at my bottom lip.
“Yes,” I breathed, and I barely got the word out before he was hauling me inside, pressing me against the sliding glass door as soon as we shut it behind us.
I clawed at his shirt until he dropped me long enough to rid himself of it, allowing me to do the same with my dress. I peeled it overhead, making quick work of my heels, panties, and bra while Vince watched with an amused smirk at me hopping around, the layers flying like confetti in every direction.
I skipped toward the kitchen island when I was bare, hopping up and sitting my naked ass right down on the cool, brand-new granite. I slid back until my feet were propped on the counter, too, leaning on my palms and letting my legs fall open with a wicked grin.
Vince groaned, quickly finishing his disrobing before he was palming himself and stalking toward me like a predator. His fist rolled over his cock in slow pumps until he was standing at the edge of the island.
His hands wrapped around my ankles, tugging me to the edge until my ass hung off it. He spread my legs wide, kissing down the insides of my thighs until his tongue was right where I wanted it.
I arched off the granite with a moan, legs already shaking as he licked and sucked and teased. He knew me more intimately than anyone ever had, knew all the right places to touch, the right pressure to lick, the right words to say to make me come undone.
Sometimes, Vince took his time with me. I’d had mornings where he’d prayed at the altar of my body until well after noon. Some nights were nothing but hours and hours of foreplay, of kissing and touching and learning new ways to make me come.
But other times, like tonight, Vince was an impatient, starved man.
He flipped me, smacking my ass once my feet hit the floor. I was bent over the island now, breasts pressed against it, and he grabbed my wrists and held them at my lower back in a vise grip. I was already panting when he slid inside me, filling me as we both hissed out a curse. I couldn’t move, pinned by his hands and his hips, and I reveled in the surrender of control as he slid out of me and then all the way back in.
“Look at you,” he said, slowing his pace. “Dripping wet, hugging my cock like such a good girl.”
I squeezed around him with the praise, smiling over my shoulder as I did.
“This perfect pussy was made for me,” he groaned, flexing in deep with a slap of his hips against my ass. “You were made for me.”
“Yes,” I breathed, moaning as he pulled on my wrists until I had no choice but to bow off the island.
Then, something cool and hard was slipped over a very specific finger of mine.
My heart stopped, along with our lovemaking, and Vince tentatively released my hands. One palmed my breast as the other wrapped around my throat.
He held me there with the perfect pressure, somehow twisting me so he could claim my mouth while he found a toe-curling pace behind me. Each time he thrust inside, I chased the burning stars dancing at the edges of my vision.
I would never get tired of this — this man, this home, these fucking hands.
“Vince,” I said, more of a question than anything as he flexed inside me.
“It’s a ring, Maven,” he said, answering what I hadn’t yet asked. His lips were right by my ear, his breath warm against my skin. “A big, expensive, shiny fucking ring.”
“You didn’t properly ask me.”
“You want me on my knee for you?” he teased, licking the skin at the back of my neck. Then, he twisted me, my back hitting the edge of the island as he knelt before me, holding my hand in his.
My hand that now sported a very large, marquise-shaped diamond ring.
“Marry me,” he rasped, his throat bobbing with the words — as if he was actually nervous, as if I could ever say anything but yes.
“That’s not a question.”
“And I didn’t stutter, did I?”
I bit my lip against a smile, pulling him back to his feet and finding his mouth with mine. I left my answer there on his lips, kissing him so deeply he groaned before I was being carried to whatever the next room on his list was.
We fucked in every corner of that house until the sun started to rise, and then, he pulled me out onto our private beach, and we went one more round for good measure.
When we were both so exhausted and sore we could barely move, Vince wrapped me up in his arms, our eyes on the water as the sun transformed it from dark blue to a turquoise masterpiece.
With my head against his chest, I held out my hand, the diamond glittering in the light, and I laughed to myself. Flashes of the last nine months hit me like a film reel. It felt like another lifetime, that first night I met him at the gala, but I smiled at how I could still remember the way he set butterflies free in my stomach and made me mad with rage at the same time.
I could still remember how light my chest was that first morning I showed up at his place, how I felt when I saw his pottery corner, saw him drinking coffee without a shirt on. I could still close my eyes and feel the heat from when he cornered me outside Boomer’s, how he kissed me even before I could admit that was all I wanted him to do. I hoped I’d never lose those memories. I hoped I’d always remember how it felt to fall in love with Vince Tanev against my will.
“What’s got you smiling like that?” he asked, kissing behind my ear.
I turned in his arms, framing his face as he wrangled my hair in his hands.
“You know how much I hate to say this, but I think you were right.”
He bit his lip on a moan. “God, that is such a turn on. Say it again.”
I poked his ribs, and he laughed, kissing my nose before he pulled back to watch me. The blue of the water played with the green in his hazel eyes, bringing it to life more than I’d ever seen before. Those eyes were mine to stare at now for as long as I wanted.