Beautiful Beloved

  I rose to my knees and slid my fingers into her, watching from above as I pumped them, fucking her. I’d seen her naked in every conceivable way—spread wide beneath me like this, or showering alone, begging for more pleasure or less pain, absorbed in my touch and oblivious to my proximity—and there was something so intimate, so safe, about sharing this sight of her but being the only one who could ever touch her, who would ever know each of those quieter moments. No one else would ever see her give birth to our child or bend and shave her legs in the bath. No one else would ever see her sleeping, curled around a pillow in our bed or nursing our daughter at four in the morning. So the owners of each set of eyes out there watching her come apart under my touch would never, not in a million years, be able to give her what I gave her. For Sara, nothing turned her on more profoundly than my total, obliterating adoration.

  Every second that I loved her—a love story for the ages condensed into not even two years—coalesced into this single fucking touch. My hand slowed, fingers carefully pulling from her as I bent and covered her body with mine, covered her lips with mine. I was nearly hard enough again, and pushed into her, wanting to be inside when she completely shattered.

  Her legs wound around my hips, hands slid down my back and she pressed her perfect, soft sounds right into my ear, telling me she was close, to move faster, to suck her, harder, and harder.

  She was sticky with my orgasm and her milk, with sweat and scotch. Pleasure built brick by brick until it tripped that feeling that was too intense to simply be called pleasure anymore and was nearly painful with how good it was. I kissed her one more time, a gentle growl and the tiny press of teeth before my restraint crumpled and I turned wild, fucking her in a flurry of thrusts, messy and wet.

  I ground against her, the tension in me building until it snapped and jerked above, coming with a sharp groan. Beneath me, Sara let out hoarse, moaning cries that broke with very rhythmic clenching around me.

  “Max,” she whispered and pulled me close, the movement grating me against her sensitive skin so she shuddered at the friction. I began to pull back but she stopped me with her hands sliding down my sweaty back. “Stay in me.”

  I caught my breath in the soft space beside her neck, halfheartedly working to keep my weight off her. Her nails scratched lightly up and down my back, legs still curled around my hips.

  “All right?”

  Beside me, she nodded.

  “That was fun,” I whispered playfully, and felt her smile when she kissed my cheek.

  “Welcome back, Mr. and Mrs. Stella,” she said.

  * * *

  We rode together in the back of the car, with Scott up front, navigating us through the streets of Manhattan. I felt uncorked, able to release pressure for the first time in months, and it occurred to me only now that I’d been rather terrified: I hadn’t known whether Sara and I would ever find our way back directly to each other, or if from now on there would forever be something else—children, careers, the gradual bricklaying of life itself—bridging us.

  I would have been all right if it had gone that way, if the secret we had and shared had faded away and we had to learn to find our intimacy in other ways. But knowing how easily we could go back to that, and anytime, relieved something a bit guilty and dark inside.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked, as she always did, right when I wanted to admit my thoughts the least.

  “Something rather dickish.”

  “Ooh, then you have to tell me.”

  I turned to her, took her hand in both of mine. “I was thinking that I’m relieved we still have this. That if it had gone away, I would have been okay, but I think I would have been a bit devastated at first, too. I can share you with any number of kids, as long as there is a piece there that remains only mine.”

  “There’s more than one piece that is only yours,” she said, looking mildly surprised. “That’s what our marriage is. It’s the thing between us that we take care of, knowing that someday it will only be us in that enormous apartment again.”

  “If you want more kids, you know we can’t stay in Manhattan forever,” I told her.

  She put her fingers over my lips, saying, “Shh. Let’s enjoy this new baseline for a bit.”

  We both straightened, seeming to realize in unison that we hadn’t heard our phones go off the entire time we’d been at the club.

  “Shit,” she whispered, digging in her purse. “Did I turn it off?”

  “I know I didn’t,” I said, pulling mine from my pocket. It was just that there were no texts, no missed calls, nothing.

  I quickly typed a message to Niall: All good? We’re headed home.

  His reply came almost immediately. Everything is fine. Anna is asleep. See you soon.

  * * *

  Niall was stretched out on the leather couch in the living room, watching John Oliver on the telly. Anna was asleep on his long legs, one fist in her mouth and the other curled around her lion blanket.

  “Good night out then?” he asked quietly, watching as we hung our coats up in the closet.

  “The best,” I told him, taking in the scene in front of me. “Are you sure you don’t want to move in across the hall? There’s a flat for sale. This would be very convenient for us.”

  He laughed. “It’s tempting. Your building is rather posh, and this little one is brilliant, yeah?”

  “Cheers, mate,” I said quietly. “You let us forget to be worried.”

  He smiled up at me, giving me that look that told me he thought I was a sentimental wanker, and then rested his hand on Anna’s belly. “It was really nice. Perhaps you can return the favor someday.” His smile straightened for the span of a heartbeat, and in that tiny flicker in his expression, I felt the full weight of his disappointment in his marriage.

  “Without a doubt,” I reassured him.

  Sara went to change out of her dress and I reached for Anna, picking her up with the confidence of a father who expects the child to remain sleeping. Except she didn’t; for once she woke when jostled, and her sweet little face screwed up in frustration as she began to cry.

  “Ah, sorry, sorry,” I whispered, bouncing her gently. “Just a minute, little miss, your mum’s almost done.”

  Anna didn’t want to be held and rocked, she wanted Sara, and the sound of her angry cry pushed an ache into my chest. But it didn’t bother me the way it would have only days ago. I felt recharged like a battery, full of patience and calm and the quiet that comes from genuine contentment.

  Sara came into the hall, taking the baby from me, and I followed them both into the nursery, watching them settle into the rocking chair.

  “You’re a lovely sight, my two girls.”

  “She’s probably the cutest baby on the planet,” Sara said, grinning up at me. So relaxed, so fucking giddy. It was as if she knew all along we would end up right here, in this night.

  I bent down, kissed Annabel’s soft cheek as she calmed down and began to nurse. “You got your sensitive side from your daddy,” I whispered. “Sorry about that, baby girl. But you also got your mum’s steel, so you’ll be okay.”

  And up next in the Beautiful series, see what happens when Niall returns to the Big Apple in

  BEAUTIFUL SECRET

  Starring Niall alongside all the characters from

  Beautiful Bastard, Beautiful Stranger, Beautiful Player . . .

  and one from Christina Lauren’s

  Wild Seasons series.

  “I’m not saying I bet his cock is massive, but I’m not not saying it, either.”

  “Pippa,” I groaned, covering my face in horror. It was 7:30 on a Thursday morning, for God’s sake. She could not possibly be drunk already.

  I aimed an apologetic smile at the wide-eyed man standing across from us and wondered if I could speed up the elevator with the powers of my mind.

  When I glared at her across the lift, Pippa mouthed, “What?” and then held her index fingers up about a foot apart. She whispered, “Hung l
ike a bloody horse.”

  I was saved from having to apologize again when we stopped on the third floor and the doors opened.

  “You realize we weren’t alone in there, right?” I hissed, following her down the hall and around a corner, stopping at a set of wide doors with Richardson-Corbett engraved into the frosted glass.

  She looked up from where she was digging through her enormous purse, the bracelets on her right forearm clinking like wind chimes while she searched for keys. Her bag was huge and bright yellow and covered in glittering metal studs. Under the brash, fluorescent lights, her long red hair looked practically neon.

  I was dark blonde and carrying a beige crossbody purse; I felt like a vanilla wafer standing next to her.

  “We weren’t?”

  “No! That guy from accounting was standing right across from you. I have to go up there later and, thanks to you, I’ll take one look at his face and remember you saying the word cock.”

  “I also said ‘hung like a bloody horse.’” She looked momentarily guilty before turning her attention back to her bag. “Guys in accounting need to loosen up, anyway.” Then, motioning dramatically to the still-dark office in front of us, she looked up and said, “I assume we’re acceptably alone for you?”

  I gave Pippa a playful curtsey. “Please. Go ahead.”

  She nodded, brows drawn in concentration. “I mean, logically it’s got to be huge.”

  “Logically,” I repeated, biting back my grin. My heart was doing that flip-tumble thing it always did when we talked about him. Adding in the current speculation about his size might be my undoing.

  With a victorious thrust of her arm into the air, Pippa brandished the keys to the offices before fitting the longest of the set into the lock. “Ruby, have you seen his fingers? His feet? Not to mention the fact that he’s about eight feet tall.”

  “Six foot seven,” I said under my breath. “Hand size doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” We closed the door behind us and flipped on the main office lights. “Lots of guys have big hands and aren’t especially gifted in the man parts department.”

  Our interns’ office was near the back of Richardson-Corbett Consulting, one of the largest and most successful engineering consulting firms in all of Europe. I spent more time here at work than at my new, tiny rented flat in London. And the effort was paying off: after completing the first ninety days of my internship, an actual metal nameplate had replaced the piece of masking tape with the name Ruby Miller scribbled across it, and I’d been relocated from a tiny office on the fourth floor to one of the larger joint offices here on the third.

  School had always come easily to me. I’d breezed through high school and survived undergrad with only the occasional freak out. But moving halfway across the world and rubbing elbows with some of the finest engineering minds in the UK? I’d never worked so hard for anything in my life. If I managed to finish this internship as well as I’d started it, a spot at Oxford in the graduate program of my dreams would be mine. Of course, finishing it well most likely involved not talking about executives’ cocks in the elevator at work . . .

  But Pippa wasn’t even done yet.

  “I remember reading that it was wrist to the tip of the middle finger,” she added, and used her fingers to measure the length of her own hand, and then held them up as an example. “If that’s true, your dream man is packing.”

  I hummed, hanging my purse and coat on the back of the door. “I guess.”

  Pippa dropped her bag to her chair and leveled me with a knowing look. “I love how you try and look all disinterested. Like you’re not staring at his junk whenever it’s within a ten-foot radius of you.”

  I tried to look indignant.

  I tried to look horrified and come up with some sort of argument.

  I had nothing. In the past six months, I’d logged so many covert glances in Niall Stella’s direction that if anyone was a qualified expert in the topography of his crotch, it would be me.

  I tucked my purse in the bottom drawer of my desk, and pushed it closed with a resigned sigh. Apparently my covert glances hadn’t been quite as covert as I’d thought. “Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure his junk hasn’t ever, and won’t ever be that close to me.”

  “It won’t if you never speak to the man. I mean, look, as soon as I get the chance, I’ll snog that ginger in PR till he cries. You should at least talk to Mr. Stella, Ruby.” But I was already shaking my head and she snapped me with the end of her scarf. “Consider it research for your Structural Integrity class. Tell him you need to test the tensile strength of his steel girder.”

  I laughed-groaned. “Great plan.”

  “Okay, then someone else. The blond chap in the mailroom. Always has his eye on you.”

  I made a face. “Not interested.”

  “Ethan in contracts, then. He’s short, all right, but he’s fit. And have you seen him do that tongue trick at the pub?”

  “God, no.” I sat down, slumping under the weight of her inspection. “Are we really having this conversation now? Can’t we just pretend my enormous crush is not a thing? I date.”

  She sighed. “Don’t get me wrong. Stella’s fit as fuck, but he’s a bit on the prim side, wouldn’t you say?” she asked, cringing a little.

  I ran a nail along the edge of my desk. “I sort of like that about him,” I said. “He’s steady.”

  “Stodgy,” she countered.

  “Restrained,” I insisted. “It’s like he’s stepped right out of an Austen novel. He’s Mr. Darcy.” I hoped that would help her understand.

  “I don’t get that. Mr. Darcy is short with Elizabeth to the point of rudeness. Why would you want someone who’s so much work?”

  “How is that more work?” I asked. “Darcy doesn’t lavish her with false praise or compliments that mean nothing. When he says he loves her it’s because he does.”

  Pippa plopped down on her chair and turned on her computer. “Maybe I like a flirt.”

  “But a flirt is that way with everyone,” I argued. “Darcy is awkward and hard to read. But when you have his heart, it’s yours. Maybe chipping away at that exterior could be half the fun.” I’m sure I was a little breathy when I added, “That kind of gentleman—strong but silent—seems to be a dying breed,” but the fantasy of seeing the restrained hero unleashed in a way no one else did—uninhibited, hungry, seductive—made it hard for me to think about anything else when he was within a four-foot radius.

  “Then I say you go for it. Objectively he’s gorgeous and I guess I can believe he’s got something brewing under the surface. Talk to him, crack that shell. You have months before you start school again. Life is short, live a little.”

  “The problem is I become genuinely stupid when he’s around,” I reminded her. It actually felt good to finally talk about this with someone who knew him, someone other than London and Lola, who were half the world away. “How could I ever hope to have an actual conversation? You know, one where we both know we’re having the conversation? During last week’s meeting, Anthony asked me if I could present some data he’d had me organize from the Diamond Square project, and I was kicking ass until I looked up, and saw the man of the hour standing behind Anthony. Do you know how hard I worked on that? Weeks. Then one look from Niall Stella and my concentration was shot.”

  For some reason I was unable to call him by only his given name. Niall Stella was a two-name honor, like Prince Harry or Jesus Christ. “I stopped speaking midsentence,” I continued. “When he’s near me, either I blurt out ridiculous things, or I turn into a mute.”

  Pippa laughed before her eyes narrowed and she looked me up and down. “You look especially pretty today,” she said, and let the bait hang in the air between us. “Any particular reason?”

  “Nope,” I said, and busied myself checking the cords attached to my monitor.

  Pippa picked up the calendar and pretended to scrutinize it. “You know, I just realized it’s Thursday,” she sang. “You’re a little lia
r, and that explains why your hair looks particularly feisty, and you’re wearing that minxy little skirt.”

  “Shorter hair always looks Sunday School Teacher or Feisty,” I deflected. “It’s not like I have a world of options.” In truth, I’d spent way too long getting ready this morning.

  When I graduated and decided to make the leap of a lifetime and accept the internship in London and—hopefully—a spot in the graduate program at Oxford, I’d decided I needed to simplify. That week, I went with Lorelei to the salon, and while she was being shampooed, I had them cut off all my hair: short in the back and over the ears, with an exaggerated part and full, swept-to-the-side bangs. It’s strange that a haircut could give someone such a boost of confidence, but that’s exactly what it did.

  I’d felt like a sex bomb mixed with a side of badass.

  Which was exactly what I needed today. Because just like Pippa said, today was Thursday, my favorite day of the week. On Thursdays I got to see him.

  In most respects, Thursday’s shouldn’t have been anything to get excited about. That particular Thursday’s to-do list included such mundane chores as watering the sad little ficus Lola insisted I smuggle the 5,400 miles separating San Diego from London, typing up a bid proposal and sending it out in the post, and putting the recycling out on the curb. A life of glamour. But pinned to the top of my Outlook every Thursday was also Anthony Smith’s engineering group meeting, where, for one hour every week I had an unobstructed view of Niall Stella, Vice President, Director of Planning, and Holy Hell, the Hottest Man Alive.

  If only I could add him to my to-do list, too.

  An hour of prime Niall Stella time was both a blessing and a curse, because I was interested in what was happening in our firm, and found most of the discussions that took place between the senior partners to be absolutely fascinating. I was twenty-three, not twelve. I had a degree in engineering and would be their boss one day, if I had anything to say about it. That a single individual had the power to hijack my attention was beyond mortifying. I wasn’t usually flighty or awkward and I did date. In fact, I’d dated more since moving to London than I had back home because, well, English Boys. Enough said.