Spiral of Bliss 03 Awaken (26 page)

She’s trembling. Her heart beats against my chest in rhythm with mine. She rubs her damp face against my shoulder. My entire being fills again with the need to give her everything, to take care of her forever, to always prove how much I love her.

“Okay, beauty.” I press my lips to her temple, tightening my arms around her. “Let’s see what finds us.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Olivia

wake with a start, my heart pounding. For a second, I can’t remember why my body is pulsing, almost sore, why the sheets are twisted around my legs. Then I hear the sound of the coffee grinder, and suddenly it’s a year ago, and I’m waking to the sound of my husband making coffee after we indulged in a night of hot, sweet sex.

I’ll stumble to the kitchen where Dean will be dressed in a tailored suit with a gray shirt and striped tie, all distinguished-professor handsome as he gets ready for a day of lecturing about concentric castle architecture…

Then reality breaks into my almost desperate wish. With a soft groan, I roll over and press my face into Dean’s pillow. Breathe him in. Try not to think about the world encroaching into our space. Like weeds choking a garden of sunflowers.

No. I won’t let them in. Not here. I can still feel Dean on top of me, his weight between my legs, his deep voice against my ear.

“I want to come inside you.”

My inner thighs are still damp. I shiver. A million tangled emotions rise to the surface of my heart, but they are all eclipsed by pure, bright love.

I pull myself out of bed, heading into the bathroom to brush my teeth and splash water on my face. I shrug into my robe and go to the kitchen. Dean is leaning against the counter reading the paper, dressed only in his pajama bottoms, his hair messy and jaw unshaven.

I pause in the doorway to admire him, heat cascading through me as I gaze at his chest, his powerful arms corded with muscle, the hard slopes of his pecs, the ridges of his torso that I love to trace with my fingers.

His pants are slipping just enough to reveal the incredible V of his abdominal muscles arrowing toward his groin, and I imagine pressing my lips over them, following the path lower and lower…

“Ah, my marshmallow beauty.”

I jerk my eyes up to his, my breathing a little short. “Um, what?”

Amused, he nods toward my heavily padded bathrobe.

Well, crap.

I finally own several lacy nighties and a matching silk robe, but instead of slipping into one of those and strutting out here all sexy-like, I shuffled out in my old padded robe with my hair a flyaway mess.

I give Dean a mild glare and try to pat my hair into place. Of course
he
gets to look all deliciously rumpled and effortlessly sexy.

He puts the paper down and approaches me, sliding his arms around my waist and pulling me against him. He pats his hands all over my thick robe.

“I know you’re in here somewhere,” he mutters with a frown.

I poke him in the chest. “You know, I might be naked under this robe.”

“Yeah?” Intrigued, he looks me over. “Then let’s see if I can figure out how to liberate your gorgeous nakedness from such confinement.”

He presses his hips against me as his patting grows more aggressive, his hands moving down to tug at the belt of my robe. I consider maintaining my indignation over his teasing, then quickly dismiss the idea when he pulls the knot out of the belt and opens my robe.

He exhales a long breath of appreciation as he gazes at my naked body. That look alone makes my skin tingle and my nipples tighten.

“I could just lick you from head to toe,” Dean says, his voice a throaty growl that ratchets my arousal up.

“I wish you would.” I reach down to palm his groin, a thrill racing through me when his cock swells against my hand. The air between us charges with sparks as he lowers his head and captures my mouth in a kiss.

A moan escapes me as my body, still primed and hot from last night, responds with a surge of pleasure. Tension shudders through Dean, his cock pushing against my belly. He slides his hands up to my breasts, his lips locked to mine.

I fall into the whirlwind without hesitation, winding my arms around his neck and opening my mouth to his. I’m still wearing my open robe, and the contrast between the warm padding and the cool air coursing over the front of my body is wildly arousing.

Dean backs me up a few steps, then grips my ass and hauls me up onto the kitchen counter. I open my legs as he moves between them, his breath rasping against my neck. Heat flares. I push forward to rub my cleft against the hard bulge in his pajama pants, wrapping my legs around his hips.

A sudden fever lights the air. With another growl, he bites down on my lower lip, one hand holding me steady at the small of my back as he unfastens the drawstring of his pants and pushes them down.

I break away from him with a gasp, wanting to see the thick, rigid length of his erection. My heart hammers when he takes hold of the pulsing shaft and strokes from base to tip, rubbing his thumb over the damp head. My sex throbs in response to the quick movements of his hand, the rigidity of his muscles, the heat of his skin.

“God, Dean, now,” I whisper, pulsing from the inside out.

He positions himself and pushes inside me, both of us staring down as his cock sinks into me, filling me, stretching me. I clutch him to steady myself, unable to move in my precarious position as he begins to thrust.

He grabs my ass and pulls me forward as he fucks me. I dig my fingers into his broad shoulders and hold on, thrilling in the sensations sparking through my blood. Our lips collide, his tongue pushing into my mouth, everything in me opening, surrendering to him.

He reaches down to spread his fingers over my clit, his shaft pulsing against my inner flesh, thrusting into me, and then I feel it again, the surge of semen as he shoots deep inside me. I press my face to his shoulder. He strokes me harder, his other hand spread over my back as pleasure erupts inside me.

Still quivering, I twine my arms and legs around him and hold on. I close my eyes and absorb the feeling of him still inside me, the semen dripping between my legs, the strain of my thighs around his hips. We slowly separate. I reach down and touch his slick cock, spreading the sticky fluid onto my fingers, over my belly.

As the sensations ease, Dean lifts me off the counter, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against him. I press my face to his chest, inhaling the scent of his skin.

“Damn, woman,” Dean mutters, sliding his lips down to my cheek. “Now my coffee’s cold.”

“Cold coffee, hot wife.” I smile and give him a little pinch on the butt. “Told you this robe drives you wild with lust.”

“What’s
in
that robe drives me wild with lust,” he responds, squeezing my breasts before easing away to tug my robe closed.

I fasten the belt, feeling all warm and loose as we heat up the coffee and get breakfast together. I sit at the table with a bowl of cereal, my gaze falling on the airline receipt he’d left for me yesterday with his flight information.

A chill prickles my skin suddenly. I put down my spoon, watching Dean as he approaches with his coffee and a plate of toast.

“So… how did it go yesterday?” I ask, trying to keep my voice casual even though my stomach is knotting up with anxiety.

He doesn’t respond. He pulls out a chair and sits down, his muscles rippling with tension. He doesn’t look at me.

That scares me more than anything.

“Dean?”

“Later.” He looks up, his eyes tender as he reaches across the table to rub his finger over my lower lip. “We’ll talk about it later, okay? Right now, I just want… this.”

I nod, needing to give him what he wants, even though my fear takes root. After breakfast, Dean goes into his office, and I let myself believe what I did first thing this morning—that it’s just us, going through our day together, happy and content.

Rain begins to splash against the windows. Dean comes out of his office close to noon. I’m sitting on the sofa beneath my ragged quilt, reading a biography about a medieval author I found on one of his bookshelves. I set the book aside and look at him. Lines are etched around his eyes. A strain fills the air.

I push the quilt away so he can sit beside me. The sensation of his strong, muscular body next to mine is a comfort.

He leans forward, his elbows on his knees, his head bent. I can only stare at him, dread spreading black tendrils into my heart, my chest so tense that I struggle to pull in my next breath. I get to my knees on the sofa and put my hand on his thigh.

“Dean?”

“When we first met, I felt like I’d woken up,” he says, his gaze on the floor. “Like everything before you had just been the prologue to my real life. I’d spent all those years waiting for you, not even knowing I was waiting, and then you were
there.
The second I saw you, I knew I’d do whatever it took to make you mine. But even when I did… it scared the hell out of me, being with you.”

His confession from our first year together echoes in my head.
“You’re the first woman who’s ever made me afraid. Afraid of how good this is. Afraid it won’t last. Scared to death of losing you.”

An ache of love spreads through my own apprehension. I turn my palm upward so we can twine our fingers together.

“I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” Dean says.

“You don’t have to be,” I tell him. “Not with me. You know how nervous I was when we first met, how I flinched when you touched me, how I ran from you when I realized how badly I wanted you. But you were so gentle, Dean, so warm and inviting, like this big, comfy quilt that I wanted to burrow into forever. And you wrapped yourself around me so tightly that you made my fear go away. I want to do that for you.”

Dean tightens his hand on mine. I feel his wedding band pressing against my fingers. I stare at the lines of his profile, the way his hair tumbles over his forehead, the column of his throat.

“I resigned, Liv.”

Not until he says the words do I realize I’d been half-expecting them. And yet they sear into me like a burn, filling my entire body with pain.

“No.” My voice cracks.

Dean turns to face me, his eyes dark. “I know. I didn’t tell you before I did it. Exactly what you’ve been asking me not to do. But this time, keeping it from you wasn’t just my way of protecting you.”

“Why… why didn’t you tell me, then?”

“Because I wouldn’t have been able to go through with it if I had.” He pushes to his feet and crosses to the window, staring out at the wet, gray light. “I wouldn’t have been able to stand the look in your eyes. Knowing how much it would hurt you. I was… in a way, I was trying to protect myself. I couldn’t weaken. Couldn’t make it harder than it was.”

I press my hands to my face. Anger and sorrow boil inside me. This can’t happen to him. Not Dean. He’s worked so hard. It’ll kill him to lose the solid ground of academia and scholarship. It can’t all crash down like this.

I try to stem the tears flooding my eyes as I cross the room and slip my arms around him from behind, fitting myself against him. Then I let the tears fall, soaking into his shirt, my body trembling against his.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

I shake my head, swiping at my damp face. “I don’t care that you didn’t tell me, Dean. But I don’t understand why you did this
now.
You don’t even know yet if Stafford is going to pursue the case. And there’s no evidence against you so how…”

My words fall away as the truth strikes me.