Page 132 of After All The Wreckage
“It’s… ours,” she said softly. “Is that okay?”
I swallowed hard, damn hope crawling through me again. “I love this house, Rory. I love the idea of building a family with you in it—my siblings, our own kids if that’s what you decide you want. All of it. I might lose my fricking mind if we got to do that here, in my family’s home, but I don’t see how it’s possible. I can’t… There’s not enough?—”
She cut me off with a kiss that was passionate and fierce just like her. But it was also telling me to shut the hell up. When she pulled back, a huge smile was on her face. “It’s ours, Gage. I already bought it.”
I stared at her, attempting to pull her words into some semblance of meaning.
She laughed. “I should have been filming this. The look on your face.” She shook her head. “My mom had a life insurance policy. There’s still a mortgage, but it’s small and I think I can handle it… or we can… together… if you want…”
As the realization settled in, my heart almost exploded.
The house was ours.
I yanked her to me, kissed the hell out of her, and then looked down into her face. “I want it all. I want the house. I want our families to eat holiday meals here. But what I want most is you.”
My tongue slipped inside the soft, heated recesses of her mouth, curling and tasting and caressing. She let out a breathy sigh. A sweet and tantalizing moan that made my dick hard and my chest ache. I tugged at her jacket, forcing it to fall to the ground, and she did the same with mine. My hands slid under her shirt and ripped it up over her head, and mine went the same way.
She was wearing a black lace bra, taut tips visible through the thin fabric. I dipped my head and sucked on one through the material. Her fingers found my hair, tugging, digging in as more sensual sounds escaped those pretty lips.
She pulled away, and I reached for her.
“Come on.” She grabbed my hand, linking our fingers and leading the way to the staircase. The only lights on in the first floor were the ones in the kitchen, but as we moved toward the stairs, I could see the rest of the house was empty. The couple who’d lived here was gone.
My free hand trailed over the smooth, glossy banister, and I was overjoyed to realize the previous owners hadn’t changed much. The wainscoting was still a beautifully stained cherry wood. The stairs were still smooth and dark. They’d painted the walls in the entry a soft green, but it wasn’t totally despicable.
At the top of the stairs, Rory led me in the direction of the main bedroom, which had once been my parents’ room.
“I know this might seem weird,” she said, pushing open the carved wooden door.
The bedroom was alight with hundreds of candles. The fake kind, but they still danced along walls someone had painted a pale blue—the color of the sky on the clearest of days. The antique chandelier wasn’t on, but its hundreds of crystals stillsparkled in the flickering candlelight. A pair of dark wooden side tables sat on either side of an enormous sleigh bed piled with linens and fabrics in shades of blue and white and yellow. Across from the bed, above the marble-pillared fireplace, was a large television. On the screen, a show had been paused.
Episode one ofVeronica Mars.
My lips curled upward.
I looked down into Rory’s face and saw excitement all but bleeding from her. “It’s all new furniture. I figured, if we wanted to make the Victorian ours, we’d have to make sure this was the one place?—”
I kissed her, lifting her up, and taking the handful of steps to the bed before tossing her on it. I yanked at her boots, stepped out of mine, and we both hurried out of our jeans. Then I joined her on the silky comforter, both of us in nothing but our underwear and smiles. She’d worn her hair down today, so it was a tangled mess from the motorcycle ride, but it looked perfectly Rory. I gently tucked a few strands behind her ear as I stared into eyes that gleamed in the twinkling lights.
“I love you,” I said, my voice deep and raw with lust and longing.
She ran her fingers over my brows and down my cheeks. “I love you too. In epic proportions.”
We got lost in each other’s eyes, and then she tugged me toward her. I kissed her briefly before sliding my mouth down her jaw, her neck, and her collarbone. Her tantalizing scent was a heady, pheromone-induced aphrodisiac. She gasped when my lips found her breasts, fingers curling into my hair, nails biting into my scalp.
God, I loved it. The sound, the smell, and the feel of her under me.
Last time we’d taken this too fast. Tonight, I wanted to take my time.
I worshipped and plundered and claimed until she was finally convulsing around my fingers and tongue. No one was ever going to see Rory this way. Completely unguarded, completely relaxed.
This moment was mine, and I was damned sure not going to be foolish enough to let it go. To let her go. Not ever again. I was the only one who would ever see the way her bright light turned into a fiery inferno as she came. The only one to see the pulse of green flame surrounding her pupils burst into existence.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” I growled as I moved up her body again to kiss her slowly, sensually.
Her nails dug into the skin at my waist, pulling so that our hips slammed together.
“Gage, I’m seriously going to lose my fricking mind if you’re not inside me in the next ten seconds.”
