Falling for Fate (36 page)

F
ate sat up in bed and, realizing that she was once again alone, wanted to laugh maniacally. They might have been adults, she and Dean being twenty-two and twenty-six respectively, but when it came to relationships, they were children.

Sexually, they were each other’s perfect match, but emotionally, she was beginning to accept that they might not be what the other needed. She needed trust and physical closeness aside from sex, and Dean needed space. Always space. He was always pulling away from her when she wanted him the most.

After having made love in the bathtub—slow, unhurried love, where she’d sat astride him, riding his perfect length in the water until they’d come together—he’d washed her and dried her. She’d basked in the afterglow while he’d put one of his oversized shirts on her, barely bothering to button it.

“I love you in my shirts,” he’d said softly.

She’d done her best to ignore the strain the first three words had placed on her heart. But then he’d looked her in the eye and she’d seen something there, something real.

No matter what they kept telling themselves, she could feel something more than just sex happening. But she was inexperienced enough to wonder if maybe it was just the aftereffects of so many orgasms. Maybe they made you drunk and disoriented.

It felt like a magic trick, like maybe her body was tricking her into thinking she was falling in love and that he might be too.

“I have to make a few work calls, but then I’ll come to bed. Promise.”

He’d promised. He’d left. And she’d fallen asleep and now woken up alone.

Maybe there was simply no hope.

Fate was alerted to the full bladder that had woken her. She made her way to the bathroom by the silver slices of moonlight coming in through open plantation shutters on the balcony doors.

After emptying her bursting bladder, she glanced at her phone. More voicemail notifications—one from Gwen and two from Trevor. But there was one from a number in Dallas that she recognized as her mother’s current residence. She made a mental note to contact the facility at a more appropriate hour and see what they’d needed.

The digital numbers on her phone informed her that it was 2:26 in the a.m. Fate sighed and padded barefoot to the door. She expected to find Dean on the couch, but what she actually saw made her smile.

There he sat at the bar, eating cold pasta from a takeout box.

“Midnight snack?”

Dean looked startled and slightly sheepish. “We skipped dinner.”

“That we did.” Fate hopped onto the barstool and stole his fork.

“Help yourself.”

“I intend to.”

He looked even more appetizing than the food, sitting there in only his charcoal-colored boxer briefs.

After taking a bite of the perfectly al dente pasta with the savory cream sauce, Fate chewed and glanced at the papers Dean had in front of him.

“So you busted out the work after all, huh?”

He shrugged and slid the plate of pasta toward her. “Had to. I have a meeting with HR Monday about the new employee benefits plan, and since dear old Dad suspects I’m off my game, he’ll be there waiting for me to screw up so he can swoop in and make me look like a jackass.”

Her mother had her issues, but never in her life had she tried to do anything other than support whatever Fate wanted to do or be.

“Why is he so set on trying to tear you down? Does he not want you to be CFO?”

Dean’s dark brows dipped toward one another. He had the most expressive face. Fate took a moment to appreciate the elegant angles of it.

“Honestly? Sometimes, it seems like he’s pushing me for my own good, making sure I’m achieving at my highest potential, but other times…”

She turned on the stool and let her legs tangle with his. The fine hairs on his tickled her smooth skin. “Other times,” she prompted.

Dean’s gaze drifted then moved to their entwined legs. “Sometimes, he’s just pushing to push. Makes it hard to tell if he’s wanting me to man up or bow out.”

Fate made a soft, discontented noise in her throat. “What does your mom say about it? I assume from the way your dad’s reputation at work precedes him that they’re divorced.”

The man across from her stiffened visibly. “My mother passed away when I was fifteen. He began cheating on her long before that though.”

Fate winced. It was clear that this was the root a lot of Dean’s anger at his father grew from. She hated seeing him hurting but felt as if a window to his soul had been opened to her.

“I’m sorry—for your loss and that he behaved that way.”

The wounded man across from her swallowed and lifted his eyes to hers. “Thank you. Though neither is anything you should be sorry for.”

“I don’t have any memories of my dad. I was barely walking when he passed away. But I can say, sometimes when my mom would slip off into her addictions, it was like losing her over and over again. So, in a way, I can understand how painful that must be. Can I ask what happened to your mom?”

“Cancer,” he answered evenly. “She was sick for several years before she actually went.”

Fate took the information in. “It’s none of my business, but did your dad start messing around before or after she got sick?”

Dean paused and seemed to be contemplating her question. Fate had lost her appetite from the heavy conversation, so she pushed the plate back toward him in case he was still hungry.

“You know, I’m not sure. I was young. But after, I think.”

“Maybe that was his way of coping.” She saw the anger flare in Dean’s eyes and placed her hands up between them. “Not saying it’s okay, because it’s definitely not. Just speculating.”

His fiery glare cooled a little. “You could be right. I don’t know. I gave up trying to figure him out a long time ago.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” she offered, hoping this conversation wouldn’t take them somewhere they couldn’t return from. “Maybe you both gave up on each other.”

She was relieved that he didn’t look angry anymore, just a little defeated, when he said, “Maybe.”

“Dean?”

His eyes roamed the paperwork on the counter before returning to hers. “Yeah?”

“What will Monday be like? Aside from your meeting, I mean. What do you think it will be like for…us?”

He took a deep breath, causing his muscular shoulders to lift several inches. “I guess we won’t really know until we get there, right?”

She nodded in agreement. Even though they’d said that they might continue the physical intimacy, she still had that impending feeling of doomed trepidation that they’re time was running out.

“Done?” Fate stood and lifted the leftover box above the garbage can.

“Yeah.” Dean’s steady gaze remained on her as she walked over to him. She combined his papers into a neat stack and set them aside on a stool. “Apparently, I’m done working too.”

She nodded, slowly climbed up onto the counter, and sat facing him. He raised his eyebrows.

“I already had dessert. You promised to make me your dessert earlier. I’m ready for you to make good on that promise.”

The marble countertop was cold on her back, making her thankful for the barrier of his shirt. Dean’s capable, warm hands slid up her thighs and parted them.

“I can’t think of anything I want more than this right now.”

She trembled beneath him. “That makes two of us.”

He placed a chaste kiss on her inner thigh. “You taste so sweet, Fate. So fucking sweet and addicting. I love tasting you.”

“I love you tasting me.” She was alive with the electric current than ran beneath her skin. Each touch of his hand or lips or tongue jolted her already buzzing body.

Her hands gripped the solid edge of the countertop for stability. Lying back she couldn’t see anything other than the dim recessed lights on the ceiling.

Dean licked and sucked his way to the center of her, languidly trailing his tongue around her closed folds until she whimpered out loud.

“I’ve always had issues with patience. Did I ever mention that? I’m an impatient man who has a hard time waiting for what he wants.”

Fate made a noise of agreement. She could see that about him, but his breath between her legs made it hard to articulate much of anything in that particular moment.

“You made me wait, though, didn’t you?”

The tremble in her legs rose to her thighs. “Y-yes.”

A thick finger parted her labia and she twitched. “Be still, beautiful girl. We’re just talking right now.”

“O-okay.” The steady quiver continued higher.

Dean began unbuttoning her shirt from the bottom up until she was exposed to him fully. “Maybe I should make you wait. Maybe I should let you see how I felt those long months after you left me alone on the beach.”

“Please don’t,” she cried on a breath. “I told you that was a mistake. One I regret.”

“Where’d you go, beautiful? After you left me?”

Fate had to take a few deep breaths to gather her wits before answering. One solitary digit stroked her from opening to cleft and back again in a slow, torturous motion—making it almost impossible to speak clearly.

“I ran to a garage. Hid behind it and then walked on the road back to my hotel.”

“And what as so important at your hotel that you felt it necessary to desert me?”

The anticipation was taking hold and her teeth were trying to clench. “Nothing. Nothing was worth leaving you. It was a mistake.”

Maybe as a reward for her honesty, or just because he too was running low on restraint, Dean slipped a finger inside her throbbing opening.

“I was a fucking madman. I looked everywhere. I had so much more to show you. There was so much more I wanted to do to you.”

“Show me now,” she begged, full on panting as he let his finger sink inside and then retreat.

“You sure about that, beautiful? Because it was a long wait. I had to be very,
very
patient. And I meant what I said when we arrived yesterday.”

She tried to rack her brain to recall what he’d said specifically, but so much had happened.

“I,” Dean began, lifting one of her legs onto his shoulder. “Am,” he continued, hoisting the other leg. “Going to fuck you,” was punctuated by a firm lick of his tongue that spread her swollen lips and allowed him full access to her clit. “Every.” He paused, sinking a second finger into her pulsating pussy. “Way.” Another rough lick. “Imaginable.”

Fate’s head swam, the room around them seeming to pitch and roll before swirling into a tailspin.

“Tell me you’re ready, Fate. Tell me that I can fuck you any way I goddamn well please.”

Everything stopped. The hot moist breath against her center, the fingers, the tongue. The rotation of the Earth. All of it. He left her bereft as he waited for an answer.

She had to focus on one point on the ceiling to regain her sense in order to speak coherently. “You can. You can fuck me any way you please, Dean. I-I want you to.”

“Sit up now. Come to me.”

Her entire body quivered as she used her elbows to prop and then propel herself upright. Under the glow of the dimmed lights, a few of them gleaming against his dark hair, he looked like a fallen angel with arms extended to rescue her. But once she’d allowed him to carry her from the counter to the bedroom, a low sound from the back of his throat brought to her mind nothing but evil.

This man was no angel. And he was about to show her just how bad he could be.

“I need you on all fours for this, sweetheart.”

Her stomach tensed as if she’d done a million crunches that morning.

Dean lowered onto the bed, waiting until she’d assumed the commanded position until he crawled in behind her.

“I’m not going to lie to you. This will be painful at first. If it gets too bad, you can tell me and I’ll back it down and fuck you however you want. But I can make you come like this. That’s a promise.”

Before she could ask a follow-up question to his caveat, his hands gripped her outer thighs and eased them apart. He leaned forward to remove her—well, his—shirt from her body and tossed it aside. She didn’t know when he’d discarded his underwear, but she felt the unmistakable brush of his bare cock against her ass. He was fully hard and ready for her. She just didn’t know if she was fully ready for what she suspected he had in mind.