Page 93 of Fake It For Him

“Good to hear it.” We strode down the darkened hallway toward the glow of lights that were still on in the master bedroom.

After we’d left to go to the wedding the first time, the staff must’ve come in and switched on some of the lamps because the main lights were off in all the rooms and we hadn’t bothered with them earlier. I was happy for that now.

Less so when I saw my dress still neatly draped over the bed where I’d left it after hurriedly changing into Kara’s clothes. Calan tensed a bit behind me when he saw it, then ran his hands down my sides and hooked his fingers into the hem of the hoodie, pulling it up and off me.

Kara’s shirt underneath went next. Then he pushed off the sweats, nudging the backs of my knees to step out of them. Left only in my bra and panties, I stood there, staring at the dress and remembering just how close we’d come to losing each other tonight.

Calan’s thoughts seemed to be on the same page as my own. He finally let go of me to step around me to the bed and sweep the dress off. Then he sat down on the edge of the mattress, faced me, and held out his hands.

I took them, stepped between his spread knees, and looked down into those dark eyes, more expressive now than ever before. At least, they were expressive if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, which was a healthy dose of fear mixed in with a little bit of hope.

His black hair was tousled after the night, messier than usual and still slightly damp from our walk back through the snow. As I stared at him, he seemed to be drinking me in, waiting for me to either tell him what I was thinking or to make the first move if I wanted to.

Releasing his hands, I ran my fingers up his strong arms to his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders and letting it lie on the mattress behind him. After that, I undid the buttons of his shirt, tugging the hem out of his pants and then getting rid of that too.

He kicked off his shoes and lay back, hooking his hands behind his head. I climbed into his lap. Pressing my hands to his chest, I focused on the steady beat of his heart under one of my palms and took a deep breath.

“Does this really belong to me?” I murmured, not wanting to speak too loudly for fear of breaking the little love bubble we seemed to have entered once we’d walked into the room.

The atmosphere between us right now was gentle and loving, the air itself feeling almost soft against my skin. Calan slid his hands over my own as he nodded. “My heart, my body, and everything I have is yours, Ella. I didn’t plan for it to happen this way and I’ll understand if you⁠—”

“I love you.” I leaned forward and tucked my hair behind my ears before flattening my torso against his to speak against his lips. “I didn’t plan for it to happen either, but you don’t have anything to worry about, Calan. I feel exactly the same way you do.”

“So what happens now?” he asked as he stared into my eyes from less than an inch away. “I don’t know what’s supposed to happen now.”

“Neither do I,” I admitted. “I don’t think we have to have it all figured out right now, though. I suppose the only thing we really need to decide is whether we’re going to keep living together. If you want, I can move back to Kara’s⁠—”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he practically growled and his arms banded around my hips. “I realize that it’s not conventional to live together from the beginning, but we’re already doing it, and it’s working, so unless you decide you’d rather move out, you’re staying.”

I smiled against his lips. “There’s no place else I’d rather be.”

The statement seemed to give him pause. He stilled underneath me, his eyes taking on a contemplative distance before he focused on me again. “Is that true? I know you were willing to give up your dreams of traveling before and I don’t want you to feel like you have to do that for me. Joe can manage the day-to-day of my business and I can oversee it from anywhere. If you want to travel or if you have to for work, I could be right there with you.”

I pushed my fingers into his hair and breathed him in, unable to believe that such a good heart had been buried under all those spikes of his all this time. “I’m not saying that I never want to travel again, but for now, I’ve got enough material I can use to write pieces I’ve always wanted to write but never got around to.”

“What about what you want, though? Regardless of all the material you’ve gathered to keep writing, do you want to take off again?”

Instead of answering right away, I took a minute to really think about it. Here was a man I loved, who was offering me everything I’d ever wanted on a silver platter. If I told him I wanted to be on a plane by tomorrow night, I knew he would make it happen without breaking a sweat.

All I’d have to do was say the word, and yet, I couldn’t find a single trace of desire within me to be anywhere else right now. It was so strange, but after all these years of feeling that constant itch to go, to keep moving, to see more, do more, and to never stop skipping from one place to the next, I finally felt at peace.

I finally felt like I’d found a place to belong. A home. A place I wanted to come back to even if I did leave.

It felt like I’d finally found what I’d been searching for all my life and all over the world, and I hadn’t even realized that was what it was. Even when I’d been with Spencer, I’d felt that urge, but now, I truly believed that it was because, deep down inside, I’d always known he wasn’t the one for me.

“What I want is you,” I said eventually, tearing up as I spoke the most honest truth I ever had. “I don’t want to go anywhere right now, except maybe home tomorrow morning, but I don’t want to take off. If I ever see the inside of another airplane, I want you to be with me. I want it to be on a trip we planned to take together and I want to get homesick with you.”

Those deep brown eyes slowly moved from one of mine to the other, and he smiled against my lips and spoke between kisses. “As long as you don’t get sick of me, I’m in.”

“Never,” I promised, tightening my grip on his hair. I moaned into his mouth as he kissed me senseless.

With his arms around my hips, he rolled us over, his weight pressing me into the mattress, and he devoured my mouth like he could never get enough. I took everything he offered and I returned it with my own, writhing underneath him as he rocked his hips against mine.

We made out like excited teenagers who were just happy to have the chance to be together without anything holding us back, and by the time I stripped off his pants and underwear, I was so turned on I might’ve been glowing.

Calan kept kissing me, his mouth trailing along my throat and to my chest. I arched off the bed as he sealed his mouth over one of my nipples, and I reached for him, wrapping my fingers around his long, thick shaft.

He groaned against my skin, his mouth traveling further down to lavish every inch of me with loving, tender, but hot, open-mouthed kisses. I squirmed, my legs spreading wider to make space for his head as he descended between them.