A ghost of a smile crosses her lips, eyes still watery. “There’s always room for you at my place.” She reaches up on tiptoes to press a soft kiss to my mouth. “I love you, Gabriel.”

My grip on her tightens for a moment before I remember myself, bending down to capture her mouth in a deeper kiss. She responds greedily, unbuttoning my suit jacket to run her palms over my dress shirt, her touch hot on my pecs, lips eager under mine.

She wants me. There’s a future for us.

“I love you,” I whisper, my hands traveling over her body, needing to touch her too, to make sure this is really happening. I’ve never said those words to any other woman, but with her, they’re as natural as breathing.

“I love you,” she repeats, urging me forward until my back bumps against a shelf, twining her arms around my neck. “And I’ve missed you. It killed me to tell you no last night.”

“I understood. Even if I hated it.” My hands find her slender waist, pressing her into me, the remembered feel of her soft curves awakening my body. I kiss her again as she rubs against me, loving the way she cradles her hand around the back of my neck, my dick rising in anticipation as her movements become a touch more aggressive. I’ve missed hot and eager Mackenzie.

She snakes her other hand down between our bodies, stroking me over my pants, her kiss insistent. Warmth floods through me at her caress, my breaths shallow as she breaks away with desirous intention in her eyes, drawing my zipper down slowly.

I groan as she reaches in my boxers to grasp me, gripping me lightly as she moves up and down my length. “You gave up everything for me.”

While that’s true, I have to admit it wasn’t only for her. The notion of no longer being under my father’s thumb is incredibly liberating. I should have done it a decade ago. Besides that, Serena and I never would have meshed. I need someone with more fire.

But I’ll wait to tell her that later. Right now, I’m focused on how her soft fingers pump me, gradually increasing in speed, all my senses heightening as a rush of adrenaline courses through me.

“I didn’t think it was possible to feel this much toward another person,” she murmurs, leaning in close to press gentle kisses to my neck. “To have it… consume you.”

That’s what she does to me. My hands shape themselves over her backside, drawing her dress up, wanting her, but she shoos me away with her free hand.

“I can’t wrinkle this dress. I still need to look presentable later.”

“But I need to touch you.”

“How about I touch you more instead?” she whispers, kneeling down, carefully making sure the bottom of her dress stays in place, face eye level with my dick.

“Mackenzie,” I breathe as she slowly feeds my length in her mouth, warm and willing. “I wanted to get you off.”

She makes a noise of dismissal, freeing me just long enough to say, “It’s my turn.”

I make the mistake of glancing down, curls beginning to escape her updo, tendrils dancing round her head as she bobs up and down, her pretty pink lips wrapped tight around my cock. My hand drifts down to cup her cheek and she leans into my touch, looking up at me, her hazel eyes warm with love, the emotion so obvious now it’s a wonder I didn’t see it before.

A shiver races through me, electric with anticipation, and she seems to instinctively know, swirling her tongue around the head, bringing her hands up to grip my ass, pushing me further into her mouth.

“Oh, fuck.” My hips pump, unable to help myself, and she makes anmmmsound in the back of her throat, the vibrations spurring me on.

“I’ve imagined this so many times.” The words spill out of me, unable to hold it in. “But it was never as good as this.”

She releases me for just a moment to tell me, “The night we touched ourselves, I wanted so bad to lean over and suck you off. You were so sexy. And now I finally get to do it.”

I’m sweating, my hands reaching out to either side of me to grip the storage shelf, bracing myself as she continues her attentions. Under normal circumstances, I’d do everything in my power to hold myself at bay, draw the experience out, but we can’t be in this closet forever. For one, anyone could bust that flimsy lock if they really wanted to. And two, she has to return out there soon. She’s the wedding planner after all, despite the groom switching shenanigans.

My hips jut forward as I let myself go, spilling into her, my back bowing with the force of it. There’s something incredibly satisfying about watching her swallow me down, her expression one of pleasure. I’ve never been the kind of guy to feel a sense of possession over a woman, but the only thought running through my head right now is that she’s mine. This amazing, talented, gorgeous woman is mine. Not just for tonight. Not till the next thing sets us back. This is forever. I’m not letting anything get in our way again.

No matter what happens.

She releases me and I take a moment to calm my breathing before dropping to my knees to take her mouth in a drawn out kiss, tasting myself on her, that possession filling me once more. “You’re incredible,” I murmur, smoothing my hands down her back, heedful of keeping the fabric of her dress wrinkle-free.

She shakes her head. “I’m really not. I… There’s all this guilt inside me.”

“Over what?”

“Rejecting you yesterday,” she whispers, pressing the flat of her palms against her stomach, like the guilt is physically inside her. “It’s not that I wanted to-”

“Mackenzie.” I cup her cheeks, cutting her off. “I promise you, I don’t hold anything against you. We’ve had the odds stacked against us from the beginning, but I’m willing to push past all that. Are you?”