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He watched her, his head tilted, uncombed hair falling over his bare shoulder. Following her desires, she picked up her brush and lifted it to his head. Agreeably, he propped his hips against the cabinets, bringing his height down a few inches. He stretched out his legs on either side of her so she could stand closer and brush his hair back from his face.
He didn't say anything, just watched her, so she indulged herself fully. She brushed through the thick locks, her fingers following her strokes, working until the strands became smooth and gleaming again. As she did it, he stroked her hips, her ass, her breasts, her abdomen. His fingers slid beneath the T-shirt along her navel, exploring and learning even more about her responses. Where she was ticklish, where he could make her tremble, what he could make coil with desire.
When she pulled a band from the several she had on her wrist, her fingers were trembling, but she gathered his hair into a tail and looped the band around it twice. She had to move closer to do it and, as she did, he wrapped both arms around her. When she finished, he was holding her in a full embrace, her head on his shoulder and her arms gripping him as much as he was holding her. He brushed his jaw over her hair.
"I'm in love with you, too, Julie."
She closed her eyes. Later today he would drop her off and go to work. She'd review Harris's stage manager report on the opening night and address a bunch of other details necessary to handle before the next showing. She'd call Madison about some of that, and maybe give herself the post-opening reward of an afternoon nap.
All normal things, and yet he'd just said something to her no man ever had. Not and meant it the way he did.
"What?" He had his strong fingers buried in her hair, stroking her scalp, the two tendons of her neck. His touch was easy, casual, yet made her feel just as he'd reinforced, a couple times now, though she couldn't see herself getting tired of the message. She was the center of his world, his anchor, his tether to what mattered. She also imagined he was even now deciding how he next wanted to tie her up, play with her, because they were still at that point where desire was a constant strong surf washing through all the other emotions. She lifted her head, trying to blink back the tears. She didn't want him to think she was a constantly weepy female.
He wouldn't let her get away with it, though. He cradled her face. "What, love?" he repeated.
She traced the dragon's body
on his biceps where it transitioned into rope. "I just thought it would be more difficult. After all this time, the heartache, the waiting, the despairing and giving up, the pure pissed-offness of dealing with near misses..." She blew out a breath. "And there it is. With you, easy as breathing. 'I'm in love with you.' You said it and meant it. It changes the universe, but the way throwing a stone in a pond does. All those ripples. It's...amazing."
She frowned and cocked her head. "There should at least be dramatic music."
"I can retract it if you want. Brood for a while, play commitment paranoia games, alienate you so we break up, sort of, and then I chase you down before you make some monumental decision, like moving back to New York, or signing up for a three year stint in the merchant marines. Then we can have a big makeup scene."
She pursed her lips. "Complete with dramatic music."
"Absolutely. If I could afford it, I'd hire John Williams to come up with the score."
"You'd do all that for me?"
"Hell, no." He snorted, puffing a short, playful breath against her. "I'd tie you up and keep you in my basement until you contracted Stockholm syndrome and couldn't breathe without me."
She tipped her head back, sobering. "Sometimes, it feels like I can't. Crazy, right?"
He put his mouth on hers and took her air in the best kind of way, all while giving it back to her.
"You don't have a basement," she pointed out when he lifted his head. He smiled at her, boyishly appealing, but then sobered.
"We're normal, extraordinary people," he said. "It took us a while, but we always knew what it would look like when it happened. The simplicity of it is what makes it extraordinary. A tadpole gets legs and walks on land, and evolution begins. All in a simple blink, the whole world changes."
Maybe his intuition and articulateness was a Dom thing. Or spending so much time by himself as a boy, something about his history she'd deduced on her own. She thought of the first time she'd seen him. His dark hair fluttering over his shoulder and his loose-hipped stride like a rock star roadie. Something in her had felt and registered all he'd just said then. At an unconscious level, but that didn't make it less true.
God, he was going to destroy her. But maybe for the first time in her life, she'd found a man worth shattering for.
Chapter Eleven
Having a lover again was...well, it was a good feeling. The toe-curling, silly smiles at odd moments kind of good feeling. She told herself to settle down, slow down, but the truth was she couldn't do it. Especially when Des seemed just as eager to be around her. Hell, she'd waited decades to find someone like him. If all his wonderfulness was a precursor to a crash and burn, she had nothing to lose by getting the most out of it now. And if he ended up being the unicorn...well, life was always too short, so the same answer applied.
He'd talked her into not leaving his house at all that day. He'd put in his half day of work and, when he returned, they spent the evening together, doing dinner, surfing TV together, talking, making love. No Dom/sub stuff this time. Just playful, enjoyable sex with lots of exploration and quiet pillow talk. When they both had to go to work the next day, he'd dropped her off at the theater and kissed her like he was going off to war. She had held onto him the same way, feeling as if some magic spell was about to be broken.
Which was why work was a very good thing, a reminder that she was a mature adult. Every mature adult knew that falling-in-love feeling was an illusion. Well, illusion wasn't the right word. It was wonderfully real, but it required pacing oneself. Which kind of contradicted her unicorn versus crash-and-burn theory, but there could be moderation in overindulgence.
She could just imagine Des chuckling at the inconsistencies in that statement, but he'd totally get it. His mind worked as weirdly as hers did.
A few days later she didn't feel as fond about work's balancing properties. Tying up loose ends on the Consent opener, getting ready for the showings they'd scheduled the following week, staying on top of social media and other promotional outlets, and working with Harris on planning the next production, the play Madison had mentioned at the reception, took up all her time.
For Des's part, he had several jobs to juggle, and one of them took him a couple hours outside the city limits, requiring him to stay overnight to meet a developer's deadline.
So that going off to war kiss hadn't been misplaced, because after only a day she missed him intensely, though they exchanged some texts. He called her one night at bedtime and, while she loved hearing his voice, she could hear how tired he was and hadn't made him stay on the phone too long.
