Page 17 of The Promise Of You

“Wasn’t facts.” She needs someone to build her back up. “I can tell you this. If you were mine, and we had hit problems, I’d take you on my lap, like how you are right now, and we’d talk it out. I’d take you on a long vacation, somewhere on the beach, somewhere sunny. Somewhere we could just be us again. I’d take you to dinner more often. Or dancing. I’d send flowers to your work. And if all that wasn’t enough, I’d sign us up for couple’s therapy. I’d do something, fucking something, to save us.”

Her jaw slackens, and she arranges her body against mine, her ass flush against my raging boner.

“What if you didn’t like having sex with me anymore? What if you wanted variety?”

Variety? A deep belly laugh escapes me. I have variety more than most guys, and that doesn’t fill the void. My laugh strangles in my throat. “Douchebag didn’t see the treasure he had in his bed, in his life, he can fuck a different woman every night or more, he’s never gonna find what he needs.” I have my reasons for not wanting a relationship, and I made peace with it. It doesn’t mean I can’t understand what it’s about. What I’ll never understand, is people who selfishly hurt others just to satisfy a basic need. It’s easy enough to be forthcoming. Look at me right now. No harm.

She stays silent for a beat, and it’s almost like I can see the wheels turning in her beautiful head. “You’d make a perfect boyfriend. A perfect life partner. We’ve already established you’d make a perfect father.”

“We?” I laugh, trying to make light of what she’s saying to me.

“Royal we,” she answers without missing a beat. “We need to find you someone.”

“Is that a royal we too? Or do I get a say?”

“I suppose you get a say.”

“Then I say no. I’m fine just the way I am.”

She tilts her head sideways. “You do look fine. Just the way you are. But do you have everything you need?”

“I have everything I need,” I boop her nose, “especially right now.”

Her lips purse adorably. “That’s a cheap save. But I’ll take it.” She takes a deep breath. “I don’t think I want to stay single, long term.”

My chest tightens. “Would be a shame,” I concede.

“But I’ll choose better next time.”

“Thought we’d already established that.”

“Royal we?” she smiles.

“No. Us we.” Warmth spreads through me as I capture the recognition in her features. “Tonight, it’s just us. And from then on, you’re staying away from assholes.”

“I’ll try.”

Time to be arrogant. And truthful. “We are going to show you what a real man is like, and if you can get someone half as good, you should be all set. Royal we.”

She blinks several times and wraps the hand that was on her belly inside my shirt. “You already showed me what a real man is like. I know.”

Something stirs deep inside me. “You haven’t seen anything,” I shoot back, trying to sound playful.

“Cocky.”

“You have no idea.”

She wiggles her ass against my dick again. “I think I do.”

Then I can’t resist it. I lean into her and take her mouth, bringing her up to me, and she gives me her tongue, and her whimpers, and her heavy breathing, and both her hands tied behind my neck. I explore her slowly, commit her taste to memory, breathe her in, drink her in. Enter her slowly, then harder, then nibble her lower lip as she digs her nails into my back and lifts her body to be flush against mine.

Fuck but she feels so good. So right. All this while we still have our clothes on, sitting in an elevator.

I break the kiss slowly, letting her come down gently from it, trailing kisses down her jaw, positioning her back into the nook of my elbow, one of her hands loosely around my neck, the other limp on her stomach, my other arm back under her knees.

Cradling her.

Committing to memory the feel of her body, of her entire being, nudged against me.

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