asking his next question. “How long are you here for?”
She rolled over to look at him and replied with a gentle whisper, “As long as you need me.”
The silence in the room was deafening. Her heart pounded so hard, she felt it in her ears.
“Fuck, Dena,” he whispered coarsely. “I’ll always need you.”
Her answer was just as rough. “Then take me.”
He didn’t pause to ask questions or to make sure she meant it. Her statement was all the encouragement he seemed to need, and he rolled her over to her back, coming with her, so he rested hard and heavy on top of her.
Fuck, it feels so good to be under him. She shifted her hips, trying to ease him closer, but he resisted and nipped her ear instead.
She yelped, and he covered her mouth with his hand. “You have to be quiet. The night nurse is in the living room.” He rocked his hips. “Unless you want her to hear all those pretty little sounds you make when I fuck you.”
“I’ll be quiet,” she said against his skin, running her hands down his back and grabbing his ass, pulling his shorts away. “Now. Please. In me.”
He pushed her pajama pants down and shoved his free hand between her legs. “Already so wet. Do you have any idea what it does to me, feeling how your body reacts to mine?”
While he whispered, he worked his fingers along her entrance, brushing and teasing until she shook with need. She squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to hold off until he was inside her. He removed his hand from her mouth and, taking hers, placed it on his cock.
She wrapped her fingers around his base, stifling a moan when he continued whispering. “I’ve been in this bed alone for the last few weeks, imagining what I’d do to you if you were here. All the positions I’d fuck you in, how many ways I’d make you take my cock, and the number of times I’d let you come before I gave in and rode you as hard as I could for my own pleasure.”
She wiggled under him. “Please.”
“Show me. Take my cock and put it where you want it.”
Right at that moment, she’d have taken it anywhere. But she loved the feel of him on top of her, so she spread her legs and placed him at her entrance. “Here. Hard, fast, and deep. Give in and ride me for your own pleasure, because I’ll fucking explode with you inside me.”
He pulled back and entered her with a hard thrust, covering her mouth with his and swallowing her groan at the feel of him. She clawed at his back, urging him deeper, harder. She was already so close. She worked her hips, meeting him thrust for thrust and getting lost in the feel of him filling her over and over.
Her release bubbled low in her belly and spread outward, touching every part of her body until she was coming around him. Her response only made him move faster and harder, until he jerked inside her and dropped to the bed, panting.
Neither one of them said anything. He simply pulled her into his arms, and within minutes, they were both asleep.
The next morning after breakfast, Dena joined Jeff in his father’s office to go over the notes he had on her stalker. He knew he was overlooking something key, and he wouldn’t feel at ease until he figured out what.
“I need you to go over this list,” he said, handing her the paper with the people he thought he could rule out. “I don’t think the guy is on here, but look over this and see if there’s a name I’m missing. Or if it triggers something.”
She scanned the list, her forehead wrinkled and her lips pressed together. “The thing is, it could be anybody: someone’s uncle’s cousin’s son-in-law.”
“Right, but you recognized the voice.”
“I think I recognized the voice.”
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I think the best thing to do is bring in the police. They have resources I don’t.”
“Fine. I’ll do it. When we get back home.”
His head shot up from the computer screen. “What?”
“If it’ll bring back the easy-going Jeff of last night or the Jeff who actually smiled while he made breakfast? I’ll do it.” Her own smile faltered for a brief moment. “It’s almost like you’re more at home in Colorado.”
“No. That’s not it. I wasn’t like this before you showed up. It helps, having you here,” he confessed. “Keeps the past at bay.”
“You never talked much about your childhood,” she whispered.
“It’s not a topic I enjoy.” He remembered coming home from school and finding his mother drunk and passed out. His father was never home, preferring to work instead of coming home to a kid and an alcoholic wife.
“I’m a good listener,” she said. “I’m sure being here has brought back memories. Maybe it would help to talk about it.”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s probably about the same as how the house felt to you … after.”
Her breath caught as if she hadn’t expected his discussion of her to be so blunt. “I wasn’t … I didn’t …”
“We’ve got to talk about it sometime.”
“I know.” She looked down and brushed her hands against the papers in her lap. “I just wasn’t expecting it to be quite so soon.”
“It’s been years.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“My childhood was mostly horrible. I hope you can’t say the same for our life together.”
Her head shot up. “You know that’s not the case.”
He needed the truth. After all they’d been through, all they’d meant to each other, surely she owed him that much. “Then why did you leave me?” he asked.
“For a hundred reasons at the time, and now it’s hard to remember just one.”
“Why did you leave me, Dena?” he asked again.
She closed her eyes tight. He knew it wasn’t a time she wanted to relive, but if they were to have any hope of anything in the future, they had to be honest. “I thought,” she started and then stopped. “I thought you hated me.”
“How could I have hated you for what happened?” he asked, pained to think she honestly felt that. “It was a miscarriage. Nothing you did caused it, and nothing you could have done would have prevented it.”
“You can’t say that. You don’t know.”
“Then tell me. Tell me why you’ve carried the guilt for this all these years.”
“That day, the day it happened, I didn’t feel her move. I realized it about the time you made it home from your office.” She paused, bit her lip, and looked away.
Jeff didn’t say anything. He simply waited, knowing his silence would persuade her more than words.
“I was thinking about how long it’d been since we’d played. Since we’d been in the playroom,” she said. “I wanted you to take me there. I thought we could discuss it over lunch. So instead of seeing if I could feel her move, I made sandwiches. Don’t you see?” She looked him square in the face. “I decided sex was more important. If I’d just checked it out, maybe she wouldn’t—”
“Stop.” He knew where she was going, and he couldn’t let her think it anymore.
She took a deep shuddering breath and glanced out the window.
“You’ve thought all these years it was somehow your fault because you didn’t check for movement? You think you could have prevented it?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Dena, look at me. You didn’t do anything wrong. By the time you realized what was happening, she was already gone.”
“You don’t know that, and even if it’s true, if I’d been paying closer attention—”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything. It was nothing you did. Nothing.” His voice was soft but firm. “I was living with you, remember? You did everything right. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
“It’s so much easier to blame myself.”
“That’s because you want there to be a reason for everything, and in the absence of finding one, you make one up. The fact is, sometimes there’s not a reason. Sometimes things just are what they are.”
She blinked tears away. A faint glimmer of hope da
nced in her eyes, showing him how much she wanted to believe his words.
“Every time I saw you after it happened,” she said, “I’d remember how I’d pushed my concerns away and I’d hate myself more.”
“I thought you blamed me.”
“You?” She wrinkled her forehead. “Why would I have blamed you?”
“Because of the way I acted when I found out you were pregnant.” He frowned, remembering his reaction at finding the pregnancy test in the scattered garbage.
“You were surprised, and it wasn’t something we’d planned. I didn’t expect you to turn cartwheels.”
“And then, when you suggested that maybe you should move out, I thought it was because you couldn’t stand to be around me.”
“Only because it reminded me of my guilt,” she replied softly.
Silence fell over the room as each of them thought through the other’s words.
“That day in the bathroom,” he said, shaking his head. “I’d never felt so damn useless. You were sitting there in pain, going through hell, and I couldn’t do a thing.”
“You were there. That’s what I needed. Even though I told you I didn’t want you in the bathroom, deep down it comforted me to know you were with me.”
“I’m a man,” he said with a small smile. “I thought I should be able to do more. I like to fix things.”
She snorted. “Don’t I know? And you get all pissy when you can’t.”
“I take offense at the word ‘pissy.’”
“That doesn’t make it untrue.”
Their gazes caught, and the lighthearted moment turned serious.
“What happened to us, Dena?” He reached across the desk and stroked her cheek. “How did we go from what we were to where we are now?”
Her skin was soft under his fingers. He wanted to pull her close and never let go. To somehow shelter her from the ghosts of their past. No matter what happened between them, whether they were able to start again or not, no one else would ever make him feel the way she did.
“I ask myself that all the time,” she said.
“Have you ever found an answer?”
“No.”
“Then the question becomes how do we move ahead?”
She took the hand he had on her face and laced her fingers through his. “I don’t know the answer to that one either, but I think we’re making a good start.”
Falling into a routine was as easy as breathing. In the mornings Dena would keep Jeff’s father occupied while he cooked. After breakfast his father would nap and either Jeff would work on getting the insurance business taken care of or he would look over the notes he had on Dena’s stalker.
She joined him in the kitchen while he cooked lunch and dinner, taking a break from her laptop and the remote casework she was doing. He remembered how much she used to enjoy being in the kitchen while he prepared a meal. Before they’d met, he had been used to cooking alone, and it took time to grow accustomed to having her there after she moved in. Eventually, he not only got used to it, but he got to count on it. Their talks during that part of the day became something he looked forward to. And something he’d missed horribly after she left.
The Friday night following her arrival, though, he decided to change their routine. He made alternate arrangements with the nurse on duty and waited in the kitchen. When she came in to chat while he cooked, she raised an eyebrow at the sight of him standing and doing nothing.
“I have a change of plans for us this evening.”
“Oh?” A playful light glimmered in her eyes. “This doesn’t involve me cooking, does it?”
“No. Will you go to dinner with me?”
“Like a date?”
“Yes, like a date.”
She smiled that smile that never ceased to stop his heart. “I’d love to have a dinner date with you.”
He’d made reservations at a nearby steakhouse that had recently opened. The afternoon nurse had gone on and on about it when he’d asked for a place to take a date. The truth was, he didn’t care where they ate; he simply wanted some alone time with Dena, away from the house. Sure they talked, but part of his attention had to be on his father. He wanted time to focus on her.
“If I’d known we were going out, I’d have worn something else,” she said, frowning at her jeans and sweater.
He bit back his laugh. She would always be the daughter of a senator, would always feel the need to look picture-perfect. Which meant he would be the one who had to talk sense into her.
“Look at me,” he said, lifting her chin. He smiled when their eyes met. “You are beautiful. Don’t worry about your clothes. The restaurant’s casual.”
Even so, she didn’t seem relaxed until they stepped inside the restaurant and she took note of the casual way the other diners were dressed. The building was an old restored warehouse, and echoes of its former life were evident in the brick walls and overhead wooden beams.
They were soon seated at a secluded booth in the back corner. Dena picked up her menu and peered at him over the top of it. “Did you request this booth?”
“No. Why?”
“No reason,” she said, and dropped her eyes to read the menu. “I just remember you did request a certain table in the back corner of a darkened restaurant once. Or twice.”
His cock grew hard as memories of one of the nights in question flooded his mind, and he swore softly.
“Sorry,” she said, still reading the menu. “I probably shouldn’t have brought it up.” The tone of her voice indicated she wasn’t sorry in the least. “But just to make sure, I am allowed to speak to people other than you, right?”
One of their favorite things to do when she wore his collar was to subtly play in public. He often instructed her not to speak to anyone other than him. She usually messed up. For someone with a vivacious personality like hers, it was difficult to curtail the chatter.
Though he suspected she often messed up on purpose.
“Yes,” he said through clenched teeth. “Of course.”
“Mmmm.” She went back to looking over the menu.
He tried to focus on his own menu, but since she’d brought up the past, the only thing he could focus on were memories.
Telling her to go to the bathroom and remove her panties.
Having her masturbate at the table and to come with no one noticing.
Playing with her under the table and having her suck his fingers clean when he finished.
“Remember the restaurant with the long tablecloth?” she asked after they ordered drinks. She sat back in her seat and appeared to be enjoying watching him sweat. “You had your hand under the table, your fingers inside me, when that client of yours came up to the table and wanted to shake your hand.”
That memory hadn’t been one of the more erotic ones. Instead, it had been awkward and embarrassing. The client had been excited to see him and had wanted to introduce him to his dinner companion. Jeff had been coaxing Dena through an orgasm when he walked up.
Not wanting to shake the guy’s hand with Dena’s arousal on his fingers, he’d pled messy hands as a result of dinner and excused himself to the bathroom to wash them.
“Not that one either,” he said. “That one’s just downright embarrassing.”
She laughed. “It was that way for me, too. You left and went to wash your hands. I was alone at the table, highly aroused, and had to make small talk like everything was normal.”
“I’d apologize,” he said, “but if I remember, I more than made it up to you once we got home.”
Her eyes darkened as she remembered. “You did. Definitely.”
He was uncomfortably hard. “Let’s talk about something else.” Before I fuck you on the table, he almost added.
“Just as well,” she said. “I need to decide what I want to eat.”
They silently studied their menus until the waitress came by for their order. After she left, Dena looked at him with a familiar naughty look in her eyes, and he knew he was in t
rouble unless he took control back.
She started to speak, but he stopped her by placing his finger over her lips. “Shhh. This table has some pretty long tablecloths, too. Typically, we talk before dinner, but tonight you’ll use your mouth for a different purpose. Namely, you can’t eat until you’ve sucked me off.”