She didn't feel frumpy anymore. Didn't feel ordinary or forgettable. Under his gaze, under his touch, she felt like the most beautiful woman in the world.
And when he leaned forward to press his lips to the soft skin of her stomach, murmuring words of appreciation against her skin, she felt cherished.
CHAPTER 46
Dean
Dean had never been religious,but kneeling between Fiona's legs felt like prayer.
She was beautiful like this—flushed, breathing hard, her hair spilling over her shoulders in waves he'd freed from that damn bun. He wanted to catalog every detail, burn this moment into his memory so he'd never forget the way she looked at him with trust instead of hurt.
"You have no idea," he said, his hands tracing the line of her collarbone, "how many nights I've dreamed about this. About touching you again."
Her breath hitched when he pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat, tasting the salt of her skin. She was warm and soft and perfectly Fiona—no artifice, no performance, just her.
"I used to watch you get dressed in the morning," he confessed against her skin, "and I'd think about how lucky I was. Couldn’t understand how I’d managed to get someone like you to marry me."
Fiona let out a shaky laugh, her fingers threading into his hair. "I used to think the same thing," she whispered. “About you.”
Dean stilled for a second, his breath caught somewhere between awe and regret. Her words gutted him—because they'd both spent so long feeling unworthy of each other, when all they’d needed was to believe they were enough.
His hands found the clasp of her bra, and she arched slightly to help him remove it. When it fell away, he couldn't help the groan that escaped him.
"Perfect," he breathed. "You're so perfect, Fi."
He supposed he might understand intellectually that the rest of the world might not agree with him. She wasn’t being stopped on the streets, she wasn’t being offered modeling contracts.
He’d assumed she was average-looking too, at first. Until about a minute later when she’d laughed—soft and unguarded—and said something so sincerely kind it knocked the air out of him. And just like that, something in him had shifted. Rewired. Anchored.
From then, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
And now, after years of dating, of marriage, she was almostblindingin her beauty.
He lavished attention on every inch of her he could reach—the curve of her shoulder, the soft skin beneath her breasts, the sensitive spot just below her ear that always made her shiver. She leaned back instinctively, her weight braced on her hands.
He rose from his knees, looming over her for a heartbeat before bracing his hands on either side of her and easing her gently onto the bed, her hair fanning across the pillow, her chest rising and falling with shallow, hungry breaths. He was still fullyclothed, and he pressed himself against the mattress for relief as he focused entirely on her pleasure.
"I love this,” he murmured, trailing kisses down her stomach as his hands worked at the button of her jeans. “Your skin tastes of sunshine and something sweet I can never get enough of."
When she lifted her hips to help him slide the denim down her legs, he nearly came undone. This beautiful, generous woman was letting him worship her again, despite everything he'd done.
"Dean," she whispered, her hands tangling in his hair as he kissed his way back up her thighs.
"I know, baby," he said, looking up at her. "I've got you. Let me take care of you. Please.”
He buried his face between her legs, groaning at the taste of her, at the way her body responded to his touch. This was what he'd been desperate for—not just the physical pleasure, but the chance to prove his devotion, to show her with his mouth and hands how completely she owned him.
She was everything he'd ever wanted, and he was going to spend however long she'd let him proving it.
Dean was losing his mind.
Every soft sound Fiona made, every way her body responded to his touch, was driving him closer to the edge. He was supposed to be focused on her—this was about proving how much desired she was, how beautiful she was—but fuck, he couldn't stop theway his hips were moving against the mattress, seeking friction he shouldn't need.
This was supposed to be about Fiona's pleasure, not his desperate need for her.
"Dean," she breathed, her hands tightening in his hair, and the sound nearly undid him completely.
He was going to embarrass himself. Going to come in his jeans like a teenager just from the taste of her, from the way she was falling apart under his mouth. That wasn't what this was about. This was about her, her pleasure, her needs.