Page 101 of Sterling Clay

I dive into her. She takes me deeper. We move together and we love each other with her arms wrapped around my neck and mine around her lower back.

The water is a tidal wave within the tub as our bodies rock. Mavis’s breath starts to catch, hitching higher and higher.

“That’s it, baby. Let me take care of you.” Let me be her fairy tale come true.

“Always,” she whimpers, dragging up and down my dick, pistoning herself, until she stills, and tips back her head. “Oh, Clay.”

The cry sets me loose, and I move her up and down a few more times, drawing out her release before tugging her down and going off inside her, filling her more ways than one.

Like she has filled me.

With her love and her trust and her commitment.

To stay mine.

Chapter 36

[Mavis]

When we finally collapse in bed, after a check on Dutton, Clay holds me against his side, stroking down my hair and over my shoulders. I’m sleepy and warm, and so unbelievably content. I don’t want to close my eyes, afraid I’ll miss a second of this bliss.

I’ve been thinking about what Clay said about fairy tales and how they live in the cracks and corners of our lives. For some reason, my mind leaps to the book Dutton and I were reading together some months back, about the princess who collected sand in a jar, thinking it was magical and could save her kingdom.

Clay was filling in the cracks and corners of my life. He wasn’t fairy dust, but those magical grains of sand. And our kingdom was us, saved by our love.

“When I was ten,” Clay interjects on my thoughts. “I found my mother bent over beside my parents’ bed. The pain unbearable for her.”

“Clay,” I murmur, attempting to sit upright, but he tugs me tighter to his side.

“She died in childbirth, something practically unheard of in the modern era, and yet not as uncommon as one might think. Pre-eclampsia.”

Oh my God. How awful for him.

“I watched as my father fell apart. The love of his life gone. A new baby in her place.”

I hear Clay swallow.

“And I was afraid to love.” His voice isn’t more than a rough whisper. “Afraid of the pain it causes when you lose that someone you love more than anyone else.”

He clears his voice, but the volume doesn’t rise. “I’ve never been afraid to help someone or save a hurt creature. But I’ve been terrified to make someone mine.”

I remain quiet, sensing Clay has something more he wants to say, something he needs to get off his chest.

“Before I was into girls or understood that love was what my parents had. Before my mom’s death, my mom once said, find your person, Clay.” He pauses. “Love her hard. Let her love you hard, too.”

He’s quiet again, his fingers tickling down my arm in a lulling motion. “I don’t think I understood what she meant until now.”

He kisses my head and I shift so I can look at him better, but he isn’t looking at me. He’s staring off at the opposite wall.

“Did you know that each of us were named after something related to the earth?” He softly chuckles. “Stone and Clay are probably obvious. Our father’s name was Flint. Mom said he was a hard man to love at first, but when he gave in, when he embraced the love he was given . . . Then she’d just deeply sigh like it was the best feeling.”

I smile, pressing a kiss to his bare chest.

“You’re my deep sigh, Mavis.”

I press up on his chest, so I can look directly at him, and he’ll look at me. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And I meant what I said earlier. I want a fairy tale, too, Mavis. Let us have that wedding.”