Bent not Broken (316 page)

We’ll be at my house in a few seconds, so I finally muster up the courage to ask him what I’ve wondered about all night. “Adrian?” I call to get his attention.

“Right here, baby,” he grins at me and kisses the knuckles of the hand he’s been holding on his thigh.

“Will you stay with me tonight? You can park your truck in my garage?”

He grins and winks at me. “I like the way you think, but your dirty talk needs some work, sweetie.”

I gasp and jerk my hand from his while he laughs at me. “That’s not what I was talking about,” I mutter.

“I know. I’m sorry, babe. I couldn’t resist. You’re so damn cute. Now give me my hand back.”

I begrudgingly give him my hand. “I hereby rescind the offer,” I state with a glower.

“No you don’t,” he teases.

“Fine, I don’t but you’re going to have to make up for embarrassing me.”

“Don’t ever be embarrassed with me, baby.”

I melt in my seat. He’s going to have to scrape me out of his truck.

Surprisingly, I’m able to extract myself in order to open the garage. I wait for him to join me before I use the keypad to shut it. He’s still chuckling at me. I smack him before he pulls me in and kisses me deep. Finally releasing me, he pulls me by my hand toward my front porch.

We’re climbing the stairs, when I hear someone clear his throat from my porch. I try to snatch my hand from Adrian’s, but he holds me fast. “Louis,” he says evenly.

“Adrian, I sure to hell hope you know what you’re doing.”

“We do,” he replies.

When we get to the top, I take in my little brother who’s leaning on the post next to me. I give him a one-armed hug, seeing as Adrian still hasn’t let go of me. I think he must be in protective mode, but we have nothing to fear from Louis. “Louis, I’m sorry you found out this way,” I say. It seems we’re not really as stealthy as we’d like to think.

“Celeste, you know I want you to be happy, but do you know what he’s been up to?” he asks, gesturing at Adrian.

“I do, and we’re going to handle it. Sunday, as a matter of a fact. I promise you have nothing to worry about.”

Louis scrubs his hand over his dark mane. “I wish I could be as sure as you. I have nothing against the two of you being together, for the record.” He looks from me to Adrian. “I respect the hell out of you, Adrian. I know how good you’ve been for them. I just worry what they’ll do.”

“We have a plan, Louis,” Adrian tells him. “I would never go into this lightly. I’m not going to risk Celeste or the kids getting hurt.”

“I trust you two to do the right thing. I’ll be there Sunday as back up,” he assures me as he rubs my arm up and down for a moment.

“Thank you, Lou,” I whisper. “That means a lot.”

“Night, Cel. Night, Adrian,” he says as he turns to go.

“Wait! You were here for a reason. What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing that can’t wait. I’ll talk with you later.”

“Are you sure?” I feel awful. He hasn’t dropped by just to hang out in a long time.

“Yeah, we’ll talk Sunday.”

“OK,” I agree as I watch him move toward his car.

“That could’ve gone worse,” he murmurs behind me.

“Yeah, do you think we’ll actually get a chance to tell anyone or that we’ll just keep getting busted?”

He just laughs at me.

****

WE AGREE TO meet back in my room after our separate showers. I’m a ball of nerves once again. I am desperate to spend the night with him, but I’m afraid one night will never be enough for me.

After slipping on my loose fitting, deep purple, silk cami and shorts, I exit my bathroom and lose my breath at seeing him sitting on my bed. His shirt is on hiatus, and I’m thrilled to see all that skin just for me. As if pulled by an invisible string, my nerve-endings bolt upon seeing him and propel me to make my way over to him. His arms slip around my waist while I circle his shoulders with mine. I lean in and give him a chaste kiss. He mumbles something against my lips that I don’t understand.

I pull back a little. “What was that?” I ask.

“Silk—I love you in silk.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” He runs one hand under my cami and then back over the silk. “I can’t tell where the silk stops and your soft skin begins. You feel so good.” He begins caressing my skin in earnest.

“Mmm...Hold that thought, Mr. Hebert,” I say as I shake myself from his hold and his spell. “Let me dry my hair.”

He lets his arms fall dramatically to the side and falls back against the bed. “Tease,” I hear him murmur behind his hands scrubbing over his face. I laugh lightly.

Flipping my head over, I dry the underside of my hair quickly. As I flip back up, he’s standing over me and a startled shriek wrenches from me. He just laughs as he takes the blow dryer from me and motions for me to sit at my vanity. With one hand he smoothes a lock of hair while running the blow dryer down alongside his fingers. My gaze drifts from his actions to his face. The look of concentration on his face is adorable. For someone who has never been in a serious relationship, he’s surprisingly good at the wooing because I’m thoroughly wooed. His blues finally come up to meet mine in the mirror, and I give him a grin.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I say with a laugh.

“You don’t like it?”

“No, I love it and you. I love you.”

He drops the dryer for a second before bending down and running his tongue up the side of my neck to my ear where he nips a little before he says, “I love you, Celeste. Like crazy love, like I can’t sit across the room from you and watch you without wanting to be a part of what you’re doing. Does that turn you off? Am I suffocating you?”

I’m just on this side of whimpering from his beautiful confession, so I just shake my head side to side in a
no
.

He straightens up and finishes drying my hair while I ogle him. I watch his skin stretch over his taut abs and muscular chest while he moves the dryer around. I let my gaze drift over his biceps and up to his chiseled jaw that’s held tight while he concentrates. When my wandering eyes meet back up with his, those blues hold a smile.

“See something you like?” he asks as he cuts the dryer off and lays it on the counter.

Instead of answering him, I spin on my stool and grasp him by his trim hips. Looking up at him, I lean and place kisses all along his stomach, circling his belly button with my tongue. Releasing a swift rush of air, he buries his hands in my hair while I worship his body with my tongue. When neither of us can take a second more, his hands find mine, and he leads me over to my bed. Turning me so that my back is to the bed, he nudges my lips until I let him in and nudges my body until I’m scooting up on the bed. He follows me up, and I lose myself in his kiss, my nerves effectively forgotten.

Pulling back, his lips trail down my neck, over my collarbone, and down to my breasts where he suckles and nips until I’m a writhing mass. Just when I think I can’t take this build up of pressure anymore, he runs his hand up my loose-fitting shorts. His head shoots up when he realizes I don’t have anything on underneath them, his blues turning dark and turbulent.

“I want to make you feel good. Do you trust me?” he asks, his voice turned raspy. I fall into those beautiful blues and nod my agreement. He pulls me in for a mind-numbing kiss while one of his fingers finds its way to my nub of exposed nerve-endings. It takes me by such surprise that I yelp. I try to conjure up some embarrassment at my raw display of ecstasy. He doesn’t let up, though, and I can do nothing but focus on the pleasure he brings me. When he has me so worked up that I feel I’m about to explode, I feel another finger slip inside of me. This time, instead of yelping, I lean up and kiss and bite at his shoulder while my orgasm rockets through me.

“That’s it, baby. Give it all to me. Oh, you’re so wet and so eager.” I bite at him in earnest and hear him growl, but I can’t help myself because I’m riding out the tempest that’s tearing through my body.

Just when I think it can’t get any more intense, he inserts another finger and twists them simultaneously. I lose focus with what I’m doing with my mouth and I fall back. “Adrian,” I say desperately. My poor body doesn’t know if it should give in or resist.

“I’ve got you baby. Let go.”

I don’t let go so much as shatter all around him. “Mmm...” is all I can manage as I ride out wave after wave of pleasure. He slows down and strokes me languidly as my body goes soft like jelly and then removes his fingers, licking them clean before grinning at me.

He kisses my chin and rearranges my clothes before flipping on his back and pulling me in tight. “You are amazing,” he tells me as he plants kisses on the top of my head.

How am I the amazing one exactly? He made me come twice in about three minutes. I would tell him that, but that would be way too humiliating. “You’re not turned off by how, umm, easy that was?” I ask.

“Uhh...no, the exact opposite actually.”

“Oh good,” I breathe. I feel bad. He didn’t get any pleasure, and he’s nestling like he’s about to doze off. “What about you?” I blush upon asking that.

“What about me?”

“I want to make you feel good too,” I admit.

He gives me a lopsided grin. “You do?”

I bite my lip and nod.

“What do you want to do to me?”

“I want to touch you.”

“How?”

Grinning, I bite my lip harder and shake my head. Oh, he’s not going to make this easy on me. I lose the smile and tell him, “I want to wrap my hand around you and stroke you until you feel as good as I do right this very second.” I feel my cheeks burn, and it’s everything I can do to maintain eye contact with him. His grin widens, and he brings my face up to his and kisses me deeply while I trail my hand down his chest and abs.

I play a little at the edge of his shorts before diving my hand in and grasping him. Adrian releases a shaky breath into my mouth, and I feel encouraged. Running my hand over his length a few times before circling him in my grip, I begin to massage him in earnest. I run the tip of my thumb over his tip to gather the wetness and smear that to help me in my quest.

Adrian throws his head back and clenches his eyes tight as I work him with my hand. His hooded eyes open to watch me and that turns me on even more. “That feels so good, baby,” he says all gruff-like.

After only a few minutes, he strains and bucks and finds his release. I gather it and spread it over his length to finish the job while he moans under me. I lean up and capture his lips with mine and give him a long, lingering kiss while he comes back down.

I give him another couple of pecks before getting up to get a washcloth. I warm it and bring it over to clean him. “I can do that,” he says as he comes back to me.

“I want to,” I assure him.

When I climb back in bed with him, he holds the covers back for me while I nuzzle into his side.

“Adrian?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Does it worry you that I’m older than you?”

“You’re older than me?” he asks, feigning surprise.

I smack his chest playfully and grab at his chest hair a little. “Does it?”

“I never even consider it,” he assures me.

“Well, that’s actually what worries me—the fact that you’re all wrapped up and not thinking about the ramifications of our being together.” I hesitate for a second before telling him my true concern. “You’ve told me before that you want children.”

“Yeah, so?”

I lean up and prop my face in my palm before stating the obvious. “My youngest child is seven. I’m thirty-seven. I don’t know that I’ll be able to have any more children if that’s what you want. And, to be honest, I don’t know that I want any more children because of my age. It would be...difficult.”

He swipes a lock of hair from my face and rubs it between his fingers, watching the action before looking back at me. I see pure conviction steeling my beloved blues. “Baby, I only want to be with you for you. I don’t want to be with you for what you can or can’t offer me. Right now, what you’re giving me, is more than I ever dreamed possible, and it’ll be more than enough for the rest of my life.”

I smile big before I tell him of my musings from earlier. “You’re really good at this, you know?”

“Good at what?”

“Being in a relationship, the wooing.”

“The wooing?”

“I’m so wooed I can’t see straight,” I joke.

“Really?” he asks with a raised brow.

“Mmm hmm,” I confirm.

His face becomes somber again, and he grasps my neck a little as he pulls me in to him. “You and the boys are enough for me now and forever. I mean that with everything I am and everything I’ll ever be. Do you understand?”

A massive knot has lodged itself in my throat so that I’m only able to nod fervently before he kisses all thought from me once again.

****

IT HAD BEEN an eventful weekend that’s for sure. Adrian and I had spent all day Saturday ensconced in the little cocoon we’d carved out for ourselves before picking the boys up from their friend’s house that night. When we’d gotten the boys home, we played cards and games with them until they became whiny due to being overly exhausted. Adrian helped me get them tucked away before slipping away to his place.

After spending one night with him, I was already bemoaning the prospect of having to sleep without him. He must’ve sensed that because he pulled me to him on the porch before he promised, “You won’t have many more nights without me by your side.” I think I actually growled. He chuckled, kissed me, and shooed me back inside with a command to lock up.

He’d picked us up for Sunday Mass the next morning before driving us up to the country. I wondered if our family would notice that we’d driven out together. We’d never done that before.

We’d had lunch and walked the grounds a bit before the bottom fell out of the sky. Now, we are holed up in the family room because of the torrential downpour. The kids are being fabulous. The adults seem edgy. My mother, my sister-in-law, and I sit on the couch looking over some designs. My mother had never shown any interest in my work, but since the accident and our falling out, she’d seemed determined to play nice with me—a blessing in disguise. I still don’t trust her completely, though.