Capture (6 page)

“Stop,” I said. “I haven’t taken a shower since yesterday.”

He actually laughed, the infuriating man. “Okay,” he said and reached behind me for the faucet. He came back with a handful of water and swiped it all over my mound and through my folds. He repeated the process, this time rubbing me a little slower, a little more deliberately. “Are you satisfied?” he asked, one finger playing with my clit.

“Almost,” I said and leaned back on my hands, opening myself up for him.

He gripped my thighs and, with our eyes locked, slowly made his way down. He touched the tip of his tongue to my clit a few times, and just when I was about to cry out in frustration, he dove in and worked me in earnest. His tongue was at once rough and gentle, thick and thin, swirling and lapping. There was no finesse or tact in his movements; he was like an eager contestant at a pie-eating contest.

I watched him, finding the visual of his tongue dipping into me even more of a turn-on. Then his mouth covered my mound and he looked up at me with a raised eyebrow as he continued the assault.

The pressure built and built until I threw my head back and came with force, my insides quaking around his tongue as he continued to devour me.

A moment later his tongue was gone, replaced by the head of his cock. I reached around him and grabbed his butt, slowly pulling him towards me, filling me up again after all this time.

I remembered his words on the tape, when he’d said being inside me was like coming home. At that moment, I knew exactly what he meant.

He held still, lodged completely inside me, as his eyes locked onto mine. “Els,” he breathed when I squeezed his cock. “Do it again.” I don’t know how he held still, but he didn’t move a muscle when my vaginal walls squeezed him over and over, though the expression on his face was euphoric torment.

Then he started to move a bit at a time until he was pulling almost all the way out and thrusting back in. His eyes held mine the entire time and the intimacy spurred on my building orgasm.

Just as I was getting close, he pulled out.

I gave him a disgruntled look. “Why are you stopping?”

“Time for a shower.” His chest was heaving as he helped me down from the counter.

“Why are we stopping?” I insisted as we stepped into the bathtub and turned on the water.

The water hit his back, shielding me from the initial temperature change. “I want to make this last,” he said, running his fingers along my lower lip.

I bit him. “You’re just trying to torture me.”

He grinned. “Hey, you’ve already come once, remember?”

“I guess so.” I spun us around so that the water was hitting my back and reached for the body wash. I poured some into my hand and rubbed it onto the wide expanse of his chest, soaping his dark hair. My hands ventured down, rubbing along the deep ridges of his six-pack.

“Mmm, go lower,” he said. “I’m really, really dirty down there.”

I held his thick cock in my hand and used the body wash to stroke him from the base to the tip and back down again. He groaned as the water washed away the soap and created more friction.

“My turn,” he said and soaped me up, spending extra time on each of my breasts, massaging them tenderly. He lifted my leg so that my foot lay on the side of the tub and got on his knees to wash between my legs, running his fingers to the crease of my ass, the tip of his finger pausing at my anus, then sliding back to the front. When the soap had all washed off, he dipped his head and flicked his tongue on my clit.

Then he stood up, towering over me, and swiveled me around so that my back was to the cool wall. He held my wrists above my head with one hand while the other lifted my thigh. He thrust his cock into me as we kissed, holding me in place with his entire body. His shaft rubbed my clit as it slid in and out, creating the most delicious sensation. He let my wrists go and hooked both hands under my knees, lifting me up and bearing all of my weight as he pounded into me.

“God, you feel so good,” he said between his teeth.

My lips traveled all over his face, kissing the cleft on his chin and along the stubble of his square jaw. He was everything and everywhere and I loved him and cradled him like we had no tomorrow.

When I felt his muscles tightening, I squeezed harder and sped up my own impending orgasm. He was breathing hard, continuing to plunge into me even as he came. “I love you so damn much, Elsie,” he rasped and I climaxed with his words, my insides trembling as intensely as the emotions roiling through me.

I laid my head on his shoulder, overwhelmed with love for the man. He was my beginning, my middle, and my end.

We made love on my bed once more before we fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. My body was tired but it was my heart that bore the most fatigue. I was glad that sleep stole me away because I was sure I’d have stayed awake the entire night, trying to second-guess my decision to move.

In the morning I woke to soft kisses traveling across my shoulder. When I opened my eyes, I found Henry clamping his mouth around my breast and laving it with his tongue. “Morning,” he said against my skin with a sexy grin, his hair messy from sleep.

“Morning.” I arched my back and stretched, and he continued his adoration of my body, moving his attention to the other breast. He slipped his arms under my back, kissing along my neck as he pulled me up to sitting position.

I wrapped my arms around his shoulder and ran my fingernails on the back of his head, moaning as he nipped his teeth along my jaw.

We didn’t talk about the fact that he was leaving today to drive the truck back to Oklahoma. We didn’t talk about what the future held for us. We only held each other tight as he slipped into me and we made love for the last time.

I began to move, rising and falling onto him, but it wasn’t nearly enough; I needed all of Henry. I bobbed faster, squeezed harder, my fingers digging into his shoulders as I pushed my leg muscles—and in turn, my heart—past the burning point.

Henry’s hot palms caressed my back then slid down to grip my ass. “Slow down, Els,” he whispered. “We’ve got time.”

My legs gave out, and I collapsed onto him in frustration. I buried my face in his neck and cried, unable to stave off the sadness any longer. My tears rolled off my cheek and onto his back as I clung to him, held him so close I imagined us melding together; maybe then neither of us could ever leave the other.

His eyes were red when he pulled away. He cradled my neck in his hands and rubbed my face with his thumbs as the grief creased his face. “This isn’t over,” he said, his nose flaring. “Nothing will keep me from you.” He kissed me tenderly as he started driving his hips up, moving us along when I was paralyzed from grief.

“I love you, Henry,” I said over and over against his mouth.

I came first, my entire body trembling as I kissed him with desperation. Then he, too, was climaxing, holding me down onto him like an anchor, keeping me from drifting away.

The time came to say goodbye. We tried to put it off with an elaborate breakfast (which of course, necessitated hunting through boxes while I went to the store for groceries), but after our second cups of coffee, we knew we couldn’t put it off any longer.

It was raining when we walked out the front door and down the concrete pathway towards the parking lot. I was glued to his side as we huddled under my sad little umbrella, limp and battered from years of use.

“Drive safe,” I said to fill the silence. “Thank you for helping me move.”

He kissed the top of my head. “Anything for you.”

We reached the truck and faced each other. My nerves were all shot and I could tell he was anxious as he fidgeted with the keys in his jeans pocket.

“Henry?” I started, afraid of his answer but needing it anyway. “Why haven’t you asked to move with me?”

His lips formed a thin line as he gazed at me. “Because what I want might confuse what you want. You need to make decisions that are in your best interest.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, even if deep down I wanted him to fight for me.

“Before I go, I have to give you something,” he said, his hand still in his pocket.

My heart skipped a beat. “What is it?”

He held out his hand, his fingers closed around the object. “Something that belongs to you.” He unfurled his fingers to reveal not a diamond ring but a different kind of rock, one that was in the shape of a wonky star.

I didn’t know until then how much I wanted Henry to stay, how much I wanted to marry him and grow old together. “I don’t want it,” I said but he pressed it into my hand anyway.

“This is just temporary, Els,” he said, bringing my knuckles up to his lips. “When you’re ready, you let me know.”

I nodded and reached up to kiss him, committing to memory every taste, every feeling, creating memories to hold close in the coming weeks.

His jaw muscles were jumping when he pulled away. He kissed my forehead one last time. “Don’t forget me,” he said and got into the truck.

With a breaking heart, I watched him back out of the space and drive out of the parking lot and out of my life. The world closed in around me, suffocating me until I was gasping for breath.

I turned my back and closed the umbrella, allowing the rain to pelt my face to keep my tears company. I looked down at that stupid rock in my hand, and even though I wanted nothing more than to hurl it into the bushes, I knew I would never be able to let it go.

I couldn’t hear anything beyond the rain and the pounding of my heart, so when I heard my name being called, I thought I was hallucinating.

“Elsie,” the voice shouted.

I turned around in time to see Henry jump out of the truck he’d parked on the curb and run towards me. He nearly bowled me over when we collided, but his arms kept me from falling.

“I couldn’t do it,” he said, raining kisses all over my face. “I got to the stop sign at the end of the parking lot and I froze. I decided I wasn’t going to be the guy who left you twice.

“I love you, Elsie. I want you to be happy and to live your dream, but I can’t pretend that I don’t want to be by your side throughout all of that. I want to be part of it, of everything about you.”

I reveled in the warmth of his kisses and in the power of second chances. “I want that too. I want you here with me.”

“Do you really?” he asked. “Are you sure?"

“More than anything,” I said with a happy sob.

He reached into his pocket again. “I don’t want to live another day without you, Els,” he said, grasping my left hand. “I’ve made some huge mistakes but I know, I
know
, that if I drive away right now without asking you this question, I will regret it for the rest of my life.”

He got down on his knee, on the wet ground and all, and slipped the ring on my finger. “I know I broke your trust in me, but if you let me, I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you. Just… marry me?”

I fell to my knees in front of him and kissed every inch of his face. “Okay,” I said through a smile that was breaking my face wide open. “I’ll marry you, Henry.”

My vision of Henry may have been blurry from the tears and the rain, but what I felt for him was crystal clear. The years apart—the hurt and the anger—all of that washed away until only the two of us remained.

6  |  THE HAPPY EVER AFTER

“You ready?” Henry asked, coming around behind me and resting his chin on my head.

“Hold on, one more thing,” I said, finishing with Photoshop and saving the image file. As I was getting ready to email the file to the junior designer on my team, I glanced down at my ring again, at the princess-cut diamond on a simple platinum band. “Tell me again about this ring,” I said, a little embarrassed to say that four months had passed and I was still mesmerized by it and what it symbolized.

“You’ve already heard that story,” he said.

“I’d like to hear it again,” I said, leaning back in the computer chair to look up at him.

“After you issued the three-date challenge, I went to BC Clark the next day and bought it. The woman who helped me asked about you so she could help me find the right ring.”

“And what did you tell her about me?”

He spun the office chair so I could face him and bent down, his hands on the armrests. “That you’re a brat,” he said, pinching my nose. “And that you wear simple and classic jewelry.”

“What else?” I urged with a smile. I’d heard the story several times before, but didn’t think I’d ever tire of hearing it.

“I told her about the challenge, that you’d given me something nearly impossible to accomplish. She told me that this ring, this expensive bauble, was sure to make you forgive me and I shook my head and told her that I wasn’t trying to buy your forgiveness or your love. I was getting the ring as an alternative to that other rock.”

He looked into my eyes and gave a rueful smile. “The day I was getting ready to leave you in Denver, I had both of those items in my pockets and I kept touching them both, wondering which one to give you. I wanted to give you the ring but I thought giving you the rock was what I
should
do,” he said. “Turns out, giving you that ring was the one thing I
needed
to do.”

I kissed him tenderly. Four months had passed since that rain-soaked proposal, four months since Henry gave me the ring and delayed going home by a day. He had stayed in Oklahoma for a few more weeks to give me some space to think clearly, to get situated with work and my new life. As it turned out, taking that job was one of the best decisions of my career. I was able to live in both design worlds as an art director and a senior designer. Some days I was even able to work from home.

 Henry got his affairs in order back in Oklahoma before moving to Colorado for good. He had given up the deposit on the house he was renting, sold most of his stuff, and had cancelled his application at the Oklahoma PD, starting the entire process over in Denver.

For now, we lived in my apartment and it was almost like old times, except I no longer had a room to escape to whenever things got too stifling. Luckily, I’d only signed a six-month lease so we would be able to find a larger place fairly soon.