Page 157 of The Wrong Groom

He seals his lips around my clit and sucks, no slow build to it, as if he’s as done waiting as I am. His mouth on my pussy is even more overwhelming than I remember—maybe because of pregnancy hormones, or maybe just because it’s been so long—and pleasure rises fast, like steam filling up a pot.

My head drops back against the window as a cry spills out of me, loud and unabashed. There was a time I’d have been mortified to be this loud, but not anymore. Gabriel taught me that. I love what he does to me, and I don’t hide any of it from him.

He keeps going, hungry and determined, and it would be impossible to hold off my orgasm even if I tried. When it breaks over me, I grip his hair and grind against his face, letting out little mewling gasps and whimpers.

“I’m not even close to finished with you.” He slides two fingers into me while I’m still fluttering, curling them against the spot that lights me up, and my hips buck toward his hand. “Never will be. Ever.”

His thumb finds my clit, and I gasp as I realize he means it literally. I’ve barely come down from the first climax and he’s already pushing me toward a second, the sensations rolling into something bigger and bigger, like a snowball hurtling down a hill. I roll my hips against his hand, chasing it, taking what I want.

Gabriel makes a guttural sound, and then his mouth is back on me, his fingers driving deep, and there’s nothing patient about it now. He works me with his tongue and his hand at the same time, an onslaught of pleasure that doesn’t let up until I’m arching off the glass.

My heart is thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings, so fast I can’t even distinguish each beat anymore.

He’s always made me feel beautiful. Sexy. But he’s never made me feel quite like this.

It’s more than what his mouth is doing to me. This isn’t just sex, not for either of us. It’s everything we are right now, the promise we’re making each other, the family we’re starting together. One of my hands finds his where it rests on my thigh, and he threads his fingers through mine tightly, as if he’s silently telling me I’ll always have him to hold on to when the ground shifts under me.

The words I’ve kept locked inside all this time rise along with the tidal wave of feelings spreading through me, the tension winding tighter and tighter the closer I get, until there’s no holding them in. As I come hard for a second time, the words break past my lips, because I can’t keep them from him for one more second.

“I love you!”

It comes out on a scream, as if I want the whole world to hear.

Chapter 50

Gabriel

I look up at Alexis as her words echo through me on a loop.

She loves me.

This goddess of a woman fucking loves me.

I’m already addicted to those three words she just cried out. I’ll never get tired of hearing them, never get tired of making her feel like the center of my world, my anchor, my haven—because that’s exactly what she is. Now and always.

Still on my knees in front of the window, I press one last kiss to the inside of her thigh, then rise to my feet and take her hands, drawing her up off the windowsill. She stands on unsteady legs and sways into me, and I catch her around the waist and hold her until she’s got her footing.

“Say it again,” I murmur, my lips a millimeter from hers. “I need to hear it, sunshine. Please.”

She smiles, color rising in her cheeks, and slides her hands up my chest until they rest over my heart. “I love you.”

The words light a fire in my veins, and my mouth comes down on hers, hard and hungry. She moans and arches into me, her fingers curling into my shirt to pull us closer.

“God, I missed you,” she breathes when we separate. “You have no idea.”

“I do.” I cradle her face in both hands, my thumbs tracing her jaw, and catch the tear that slips down her cheek before it can fall. “Believe me, I do.”

“I love you, Gabriel Thorne.” Her voice wavers. “So much it hurts.”

“Then let me make it better.”

The words are out before my brain catches up, but I mean every one. My hands find the hem of her top and start drawing it up, baring her stomach, her ribs, inch by inch, my pulse climbing the whole way. I can barely breathe with my heart slamming this hard.

She lifts her arms for me, and I pull the top off over her head and let it fall. I take in the sight of her—flushed, her breasts shifting with every breath under the lace of her bra—and swallow hard.

“I don’t deserve you,” I murmur, reaching around her to unhook the clasp and draw the straps down her shoulders until the bra falls away too. I spread my palm over the swell of her breast.

She really is perfect, every part of her, and after what I did—even knowing I did it to keep her safe—I wouldn’t have blamed her for never speaking to me again.