Page 104 of Love At First Fright
“I should have called you. I should have told you, before I went on about the footage, and it kills me to think that my action in that one moment has fucked up the best thing I ever had.”
“Yes, you should have.” Rosemary felt a softening. Maybe she was being helped along by Dina’s magic tea, but she was tired. Tired of not being in Ellis’s arms. Tired of this fight that now felt within their capacity to fix. Of course there was a huge part of her that was worried about her life and career if the footage was released, how it would affect her family and friends. But Brody was a bully, and she was done dealing with his shit.
“I understand why you did it, Ellis. But I need you to know that I don’t care.” For a second, Ellis looked struck, anguish ripping across his face, but then she kept speaking. “I don’t care if the entire world sees me giving you head on the top of a hill, I don’t care about all the ridicule or the notoriety. I can handle all of it,wecan handle all of it, together.”
Ellis came close, a smile slowly tugging at his mouth. He wiped the tears from Rosemary’s cheeks with his thumb. She hadn’t even realised she’d been crying.
“You don’t need to, you don’t need to,” he said, “there was no footage.”
Rosemary stilled, and looked up into Ellis’s warm brown eyes. Hope fluttered in her stomach.
“It was a hoax?”
“It was blackmail. I wish I’d figured it out sooner. I thought it was weird that he never showed me the footage, or mentioned specifics, and when I ran into Jenna at an event, we talked it through. And then we went to see a lawyer. Brody confessed he never had anything, it was all a fucking bluff so that I wouldn’t fire him.”
Rosemary placed her hands on Ellis’s chest. His heart was running a mile a minute.
“I fired him. He has no leverage against me anymore. In fact, Jenna and I spoke to all of Brody’s other clients. Told them everything. They all fired him. He’ll never work in the industry again.”
“You did it.” She blinked back tears. “You’re free of him.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.” Ellis pulled her closer, brushing her nose with his. “Come back to me, love. I fucked up, but I love you, and I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you just how much.”
“Ellis—” Rosemary’s voice broke. “I love you.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, their bodies flush. The heat of his skin was a furnace burning right to her core.
“Say it again,” Ellis demanded, nipping her lip.
“I love you.”
Ellis’s arms circled her waist, kneading into the dimples of her back.
“Again.”
“I love you. I missed you like crazy.”
It felt like a dream. The smile that crinkled his beautiful eyes. Being held in his arms. She wanted to remember every detail. Ellis brought his lips to her forehead, her temple, leaving a trail of heat in his wake.
“Ellis.”
He traced the curve of her neck with his lips, reaching her collarbone. Shivers of anticipation trickled down her spine and she arched into his chest. Ellis seemed to exhale as she returned his touch, his grip on her growing more possessive.
“Missed the way you say my name.”
His hands edged around the waistband of her leggings as his lips found her ear.
“Missed the way you taste. Missed the way you take me so fucking well.” At the first feel of his fingers on the bare skin of her stomach, Rosemary let out a soft moan, and Ellis claimed her mouth with his.
It was a furious kiss, and she was in free fall. All those weeks of missing him, loving him and hating herself for it, came crashing down. Unbridled desire shot through her at every one of Ellis’s touches, but she needed to be closer, closer.
“Ellis, please,” she whimpered against his lips, giving him permission.
Grabbing her by the waist, he lifted her to the edge of the kitchen countertop.
“Off,” he commanded, pulling her leggings down her legs in one swift motion. Like a starving man at a feast, he kneeled before her, pressing his open mouth to the mound of her panties. Ellis lathered a kiss on her through the soaked material, the heat of his breath shooting pleasure right up her spine.
“Oh my god,” she cried out.
Rosemary watched, transfixed, as he tugged her underwear to the side and claimed her pussy with his tongue, lapping deep into her centre. He moved fast, as if every taste of her wasn’t enough, and when he began pumping his fingers into her, Rosemary’s head tipped back, her mind going blank, the orgasm ripping through her, as she moaned his name again and again.
