His for the Summer: 50 Loving States, Florida (17 page)

No more words, she decided when they were both fully naked.

She wanted to be like Gus in this moment. Take him the way he’d taken her. So without a word, she took his long, hard monument in her hand and guided it to the entrance of her burning hot core…

However, a deep groan escaped from her mouth when she sank down on top of him. Another moment of understanding. This is why he’d let her hear him groan during sex. There were some sex noises you just couldn’t contain, no matter how hard you tried.

Still, she forced herself to go slow as she began to move on top of him. Just like he would have done if he’d been the one in charge. And she was soon rewarded.

“Fuck, baby, it’s taking everything in me not to open my eyes. You feel so damn good. Please let me touch you. Please…”

Smiling, she found his hands and brought them to her breasts, granting his request like a magnanimous queen.

Leaning in, he palmed and licked her nipples like a man possessed. But soon, she regretted letting him do this. Watching the top of his dark head as he suckled her breasts sent a hot surge of lust through her, making it impossible to sustain the leisurely pace she’d purposefully set.

She whimpered, her hips sloppily rolling over his dick as a climax started overtake her.
No,
she thought.
Too soon
…

“No, baby, not yet. I’m going to help you enjoy this a little longer, okay?”

He took her by the hips, stilling them until the orgasm backed off. When it finally did, he started moving beneath her.

“So tight and wet,” he said, squeezing his eyes tighter to keep them closed. “You have no idea how good it feels inside of you, baby. Like every fantasy come true. Every single foster kid wish I ever had. To be here with you.”

His words didn’t make much sense. Yet she understood completely. Because it was the same for her. Sex with Gus was like every wish she never knew she had coming true all at once.

And for a very long time, the only sound in the room was the slapping of their bodies as he slid her up and down his cock. Both of them, she had that feeling, could have stayed here forever.

But there were some things that couldn’t be put off forever, and eventually Gus’s strokes became coarse and unmeasured beneath her.

“Baby, this is all I want,” he told her, his voice harsh with desperate arousal. “To be with you like this, it’s all I ever wanted. Got to taste you. Got to taste you.”

His mouth caught hers, devouring her lips as he pistoned into her from below. And this time the orgasm didn’t give her any warning. It crashed over her, overwhelming her with one all-consuming wave.

She couldn’t breathe in this ocean of pleasure, and she screamed into his lips, only to have the pleasure intensify when he also came. Swelling inside her and releasing with a shout.

All she knew for minutes on end was the two of them together. His cock jerking inside her as the orgasm locked them together in a rictus of unmovable pleasure.

And then it was over. And he was kissing her again, whispering, “I love you. I love you…fuck, I love you, baby.”

And this was not good. Because she’d finally conquered Gus, but she had definitely not conquered herself.

No, she wouldn’t lie to herself. Couldn’t deny the thing she’d known ever since that summer fifteen years ago, when a thin boy with an amazing smile had shown up on her doorstep, looking for her brother.

“I love you, too…” she cried against his lips. Unable to stop the words she’d been feeling inside her heart since the summer began.

They sat together like that for a long time, both shivering from the aftershocks of their combined orgasm.

But eventually she recovered enough to remind him, “You’re a liar.”

He opened his eyes then and held her in solemn regard before answering, “I didn’t lie to you, but I kept things from you. Things I knew would wreck us.”

“Yes, you kept things from me. Important things.” Her angry eyes clashed with his solemn ones then. “Just like my father did.”

She actually felt him flinch then, the same as if she’d slapped him across the face with her words.

“Yeah. I guess I did do that,” he answered, locking his gaze into her, even though a lesser man would have looked away.

“And whenever I tried to talk to you about anything real-like my sister or my struggles after you left that night…”

“I changed the subject,” he finished for her. “I couldn't bear hearing about how hard it was for you. Couldn't stand that I hadn't been there for you when you needed me. It kills me that I wasn't there to help you. To be your man.”

So many regrets passed over his face, but then his expression reset, blazing with resolve. “But I promise you this, baby. I will never do that again. If you let me back in, I will listen to anything you want to tell me, and I will treasure you like nobody ever has before and nobody else ever will.”

She cut him off with a shake of her head. “No, Gus. Don’t say that. How am I supposed to trust you? After the way we started and this summer—how could I ever trust you again?”

She started to raise up, to lift her hips, so they would no longer be joined in such an intimate way. But he stopped her, taking her face in his hands so she had no choice but to stay there.

Stay there and look at him as he said, “You’re pissed at me. I know. I get it. I’m pissed at me, too. You know why? Because you have the best heart, baby. All the shit you been through—I wouldn’t have blamed you for becoming bitter and hard. But when I watched you that day on the beach, I could see you didn’t let that happen. You were still you. Still the girl I remembered, but even better because now you’re all grown up. That is why I have never in my whole life wanted anybody the way I want you. And that is why I will never forgive myself for making you feel like you can’t trust your heart now. That’s on me. I did that to you. And I couldn’t be more sorry, baby.”

His words were doing a number on her resolve, but she felt compelled to resist him. “You’re manipulating me again,” she said beating his rock wall chest weakly with one fist. “You know I’m lonely and I don’t have much experience with love. So you’re playing on my naivety.”

“Yeah…” He drew her in then, hugging her to him tight. “Yeah, it’s going to be a long time before I’m able to forgive myself for turning you cynical. For taking that last bit of trust away. But please believe me, I will earn your trust back. I’ll make you believe in me—in
us
. Baby...”

As if the emotion had become too much to be contained by words, he began moving underneath her. Shallow circles that actually touched her even deeper this time, because of the angle.

“Gus…” she groaned, her eyes fluttering closed as a new ache began to building inside her.

“No, don’t close your eyes, baby,” he said with gruff reprimand. “Look down, baby. Watch me take you this time.”

She couldn’t deny him in this. She looked down and gasped, her whole body going tight with sexual ache at the sight of his hips circling beneath hers. His thick length going up and down her sopping wet slit. Once again, he was hard as steel, despite the fact that he just came.

And he became even harder when she moaned, “Gus…”

“Yes, baby. Say my fucking name, just like that.” He took one of her hands and laid it on his chest, right on top of his scar. “Fuck yes, baby. Touch me wherever you want now. Do you know how good it feels to have your hands on me like this?”

He let out a rough breath. “If you want me to leave you alone after this, I will. But I’ll never stop wanting you,” he growled into her ear. “Never stop loving you. Never stop missing you. Never stop wanting to make your dreams come true. Never stop…”

They once again came together. But this time the combined orgasm completely wiped her out. She collapsed against his chest, too wrecked to speak. Or to fight it when Gus wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tight, like she was something he’d lost and once again found.

“Funny you should mention making my dreams come true,” she said a very long time later. After the sun had set outside. And after Gus had repositioned them on the couch, laying her over his body like a blanket. “Because all my dreams over the past few weeks have been about you. I’ve been afraid to go to sleep and keep falling asleep at my stupid desk, because I know if I close my eyes, you’ll be there.”

He rumbled beneath her with laughter. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. Are you sure you didn’t learn any voodoo while you were living in the Lower Ninth? Because I’m pretty sure you’ve been haunting me.”

He lifted his head to kiss the tip of her nose. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been a real mess, too, baby.”

“Yes, Pru mentioned something about you falling apart. That’s a good sister-in-law you’ve got there. That woman used every tool in her basket to get me to come see you.”

“Yeah, she’s getting something extra nice for Christmas this year,” Gus said with another chuckle.

But then his face became sober. “You know that offer still stands, right? That garden estate is yours, no matter what happens after we leave this office. With no strings attached.”

“Please stop offering me things. Just...” She reached up and pushed a lock of dark hair back, so she could see fully see his face. “Just tell me this is real. That I’m not insane for feeling the way I feel about you. For loving you back the way you love me.”

“Baby, are you serious?” he asked, his voice going quiet and soft. “Because if that’s true, I will do anything it takes to prove to you this is real.”

The hope shining in his eyes was nearly her undoing, and she had to look away. “I can feel your heart beating,” she said, once again fingering his scar. “You’re really okay now? Because of my brother?”

“Yeah, like I said, it was a perfect fit. I haven’t had any heart problems whatsoever since the surgery. But it’s not mystical. I can’t feel his spirit inside me or anything like that. I’m just real grateful. Every day. Because I would have died without his heart.”

He reached down and cupped her face in one hand. “Baby, you think I saved you, but you saved me by getting him to sign that organ donor card. I never would have had the chance to love you the way you deserved to be loved if he hadn’t. But having your love is even better than getting this heart. I could seriously die happy right now, knowing you loved me, too, because that’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted more than a new heart.”

Okay, why did he have to say things like that? Things that made it impossible not to want him, despite everything that had gone down between them this summer?

She found herself blinking back tears. “I’m just trying to reconcile who you were, with who you became. How we started, with how I feel about you now. But maybe…” she sniffed and looked up at him with hope burning in her eyes, “Maybe that’s point. Maybe we were meant to make up for all the terrible things my father did. Together.”

He raised his other hand to cup her face. “I know we were, baby. If you let me, I’ll make sure you’re never alone again. I’ll be the family you lost, and we’ll make your dreams come true together. Just please…will you come back to me?”

She sniffed back more tears, already knowing the answer to that question, but feeling unable to give it.

“Take all the time you need,” Gus said, staring softly into her eyes. “I can wait a thousand years for you answer if that’s what it takes.”

But she couldn’t make him wait that long. She loved him too much.

“Okay,” she said.

And she knew it was the right answer, because the dimpled smile that took over his handsome face lit up her heart, like a million rays of sunshine hitting her all at once.

“Does this mean you’re my boyfriend now?” she asked smiling right on back at him.

He kept smiling, love shining out of his deep brown eyes like a thing alive.

But then he shook his head slowly and said, “No, baby, I’m definitely not going to be your boyfriend.”

One Year Later

Gus settled for nothing less than becoming her husband.

“This is a lot to go through just so you could get out of being my boyfriend,” Cera said as he carried her across the threshold of their spanking new penthouse.

Well, not really spanking new. But it was now fully furnished with non-white decorations and furniture. Thanks to several months of consultation with Hank’s boyfriend, Leo, Gus’s living space could no longer be mistaken for the home of the richest monk in the world.

But he made a beeline past all the new furniture and threw open the door to the white bedroom.

This room had undergone a few changes, too. No more camera on the ceiling, accent rugs now covered the marbled floor. And one of the walls had been painted red. The perfect color for an accent wall, and a bright reminder of how far they’d come as a couple.

“I would have become your husband a lot sooner if you’d let me, baby,” he said as he carried her over the second threshold.

True. He’d been after her to marry him ever since that day they reunited in August. But there’d been a charter school to found, and the Sorley Miami’s grand opening to oversee. Then they’d had to wait until the end of August, when Dana, her maid of honor, finished her run in
Chrysanthemum
at the Santa Fe Opera.