Page 29 of Valentine's Day Proposal

Her wide eyes peered up at me. She parted her lips wide enough to give me a preview of her tongue swirling around the tip. I squeezed my lips together. My breathing became more labored. My willpower dissipated by the minute. Her head bobbed back and forth. She sucked me farther in until I was fully inside of her mouth.

Good God, I thought as I tilted my head toward the ceiling. The water ran over my face providing me with a smidge of relief. She cuffed my sack with her free hand, shifting between massaging and teasing. The sensations were overwhelming. Colliding into one another like seismic plates before an eruption.

“Willow,” I belted out.

She smirked with me still nestled between her lips. Who was this woman? She was certainly full of surprises, and I was curious to learn more about her. Her thick, wet flesh drew wide circles around my bulging tip. I clawed the wall with my nails. I was nearing the end. I didn’t know how much more I could take. She moved her head at the same pace of her hand. I exhaled deeply.

Glancing down at her she gave me a possessive stare. Then she winked. I thrusted my hips forward. She accepted, swallowing more of me. I released a guttural moan. I wanted her in the worst way. She reached for my arm, and I gave it to her. This back-and-forth game of submission we tended to play turned me on. Willow placed my hand on her head.

I massaged her scalp while gently pumping her mouth. Her sporadic gagging sent my neck back again and my head toward the ceiling as she devoured me. I took control of her movements. She allowed me to guide her head to the tempo that would welcome ecstasy. I pumped harder as her lips swallowed me whole. The first tremor surfaced, and I quivered. My toes tingled as the next one crept followed. I opened my mouth and allowed the water to quench my thirst.

“Right there, that’s the spot baby,” I mumbled. “Shhhh…you feel amazing.”

She sucked harder and faster. I gripped the wall again as my toes curled beneath her. This was it. I couldn’t hold it any longer. I pulled her mouth off of my cock before I blew. I wanted her, not her mouth. She stood slowly, using my hands as support.

“Make love to me?” I asked her, not even caring that in my drunk state I probably sounded like an idiot. I wanted her, and I was sick of playing this game where we pretended we weren’t in love. She had to know how I felt. I just didn’t know how to say it.

She bit her lip and nodded and that was all the permission I needed. I dived into another kiss, tangling my tongue around hers in a forceful attack. The shower door pushed open as I leaned her against it, and she wrapped her arms around my neck. We almost toppled, me still drunk, her slippery and wet from the shower.

Stumbling through the cold hotel room, we made it to the bed, lips never leaving the passion of each other’s touch. She clawed at my skin greedily, stroking my cock and moaning into my mouth. My hands searched her body, sliding through the moisture on her back and sides until it found a different sort of dampness between her legs.

I pinned her to the bed, pushing my cock through her slit until I was buried there. She groaned beneath me, grinding her pussy upward every time I thrust. The water made our skin slide back and forth; her tits squeezed between us. I needed her, needed to feel her pussy clench around me.

“Fucking cum for me, baby. Come on…” Our bodies found a rhythm, and it was over before it started. Her body convulsing and swallowing me, and my cock dumping its load in her. It may have been the alcohol, but I swore I heard her say she loved me. And when I pulled out I didn’t even care that our sex soiled the sheets. I folded the edge of the comforter around us and held her.

I was in love with this woman who had been my only hope for a life partner for so long. The time and distance had done nothing to extinguish the flame. Here I was holding her so close to me, kissing her shoulder, almost everything else escaped my mind.

Almost.

The thought of her womb carrying my child never left. I lay there as she drifted off to sleep in my embrace wondering if she had really done it. If Mathers was right. The idea that Willow was so hurt by our breakup—by me being an asshole— that she would abort my baby just wouldn’t leave my mind. It tormented me until I almost awakened her to confront her. I hadn’t said a thing about my fears when I told her about Mathers’s smear campaign, and now I was wishing I had.

Making love to her felt so right. But not if she’d done that.

I rolled off the bed, heading straight for the mini bar. After downing several tiny liquor bottles, I dug my phone out of my pants and sat down on the couch naked. I was sweating profusely, probably from the alcohol, and needed to cool off, both physically and emotionally. No matter how much I loved her, I could never stay with her if she had done that without even talking to me. Maybe this arrangement just got a little easier to end.

26

WILLOW

Iwoke up cold, shivering. My wet hair hadn’t even been fully rinsed off the conditioner in the shower before Charles’s invasion of my privacy. Not that I’d minded one bit. The entire night I’d spent my time craving him, wishing we could transport ourselves back to the night he’d broken it off with me—undo our entire seven-year separation.

I loved him.

A lot.

I wanted to tell him too, but he kept having mini side-bar conversations with Nina all night. I hated it. He didn’t have a job that was top secret or anything, but the way he had snickering fits with Nina about things I knew nothing about made me furious. It was possible that they’d worked together for so long they had the sort of bond that would allow an open relationship, but I didn’t see that out of Nina. She was the possessive type, jealous, infuriating.

“Charles?” I rolled over in bed, unable to sleep. It was cold. He wasn’t there. I realized that I was lying on top of the comforter, the edge folded across me, which was the reason I was so cold. That and the fact that my hair was wet. “Charles?” I called again, squinting in the darkness. Light from the bathroom streamed out into the suite, but I couldn’t see him. I had a major kink in my neck, which restricted my movements to the speed of a turtle as I sat up.

I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten anything at dinner because everything made my stomach turn. Now I was regretting that decision. I stood, shivering again, and found my suitcase. I rifled through it, finding a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and putting them on. It didn’t help with the chill very much, but at least my skin was covered. I walked to the bathroom and relieved myself, half expecting to find Charles in there, but he wasn’t there either.

When I returned, I noticed a light flicker across the room. It glowed for a moment then disappeared. Tiptoeing silently in that direction, I watched the light appear then vanish once more, and as my eyes adjusted to it, I could see that it was Charles’s cell phone. He sat on the couch sleeping, naked, with his phone in his hand. My eyes adjusted further, and I saw the empty mini bottles laying around him. At least a dozen of them. He’d gotten into the mini bar after I fell asleep and drank every last bottle.

I could have smacked him, but I didn’t. I felt sorry for him. The pressure of the political world was getting to him. I could see it. He had to be perfect all the time, on his game, ready to answer stupid questions and always prepared for a TV appearance. All because at any given moment someone could be recording him and share it with the tabloids. Exhausting.

I padded over to the closet and pulled out the extra blanket stored away on the top shelf, dragging it back over to the couch to cover him. Then I picked up all the empty bottles and threw them away quietly, though I didn’t think any amount of noise I made would rouse him from his drunken slumber. He groaned a bit when I pried the remote out of his left hand. I didn’t know why he had it. He hadn’t been watching TV.

When I took his phone out of his hand, the screen lit up. He had several notifications, most of which were texts from Nina. My heart raced a little, upset that he’d be texting her in the middle of the night. I could only see previews of the messages, not the full text, but what I read was pretty damning and very hurtful.

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