“Braden!” I screamed, looking at him helplessly as I came.
“So beautiful,” he gasped. Through the haze something surprising registered. Braden was still moving. He had never finished with me on top before but I could see that’s where he was headed very quickly. He kept thrusting hard for another minute or so and I could see in his eyes he was right on the edge.
“Gabrielle! Oh yeah! I’m going to come! Oh f**k! Baby, I’m going to come so hard!” He thrust up deeply into me one last time, shuddered, groaned and went still, his muscles tensing and then immediately releasing as he spilled himself into me.
“I guess I showed you who was boss,” I said, staring into his gorgeous blue eyes.
“Kiss me,” he said, still sounding out of breath. I leaned in and gave him a very warm tender kiss and then I gently eased off of him and he laid back down and cuddled me into his arms. I loved cuddling as much as nestling. I looked over to Bruno’s doggie bed and saw that he had fallen asleep despite all the noise. We had trained our dog to sleep through rowdy sex.
“You’re not mad at me for teasing you?” I asked, rubbing my hand over the sprinkling of hair on his chest and trailing gentle kisses there.
“No. You drive me crazy but in a good way. Are you mad at me for spanking you? Do you need me to get you any aspirin or ice or anything?” he asked in a concerned voice as he gently caressed my bottom.
“No, baby.” I laughed softly. “You didn’t spank me that hard and you were right. I liked it and I thought it was really hot. Don’t think I’m going to let you get all Marquis de Sade on me though.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t flog you,” he said moving his hand back up and stroking my hair as we caught our breath. “I think I really would like to tie you to the bed though. Just playfully.”
“With something soft?”
“No. With cable ties. I said just playfully!” He laughed.
“Well, it depends on how rough you play. I think that I would let you as long as you promised to let me go if I wanted and to not go hang out with the guys and leave me there.”
“Of course I would let you go if you wanted! I’m not talking serious BDSM stuff. Just fooling around. And for the record, Adam and Mark are great guys but I’m pretty sure I would choose you naked and tied to a bed over hanging out with them. I would choose being with you even if you weren’t naked and tied to a bed.”
“Now that’s really romantic! Let’s put that one in our vows. Would you Braden, choose Gabrielle, even if she were not naked and tied to a bed?” I teased, leaning up to kiss him softly on the lips. He hugged me close and gently rubbed my back. He made me feel so loved and cared for. No other guy had ever made me feel like that.
“So, when do you want to get married?” he asked softly.
“You haven’t even officially proposed yet,” I replied, running a finger over his biceps.
“I will soon and I’ll make it special. I promise.”
“It would be special no matter what.”
“Do you mind if I borrow one of your rings? I need to know your size and what you like. I want it to be perfect for you.”
“Of course you can. And you can look at all my jewelry if you want. Most of it came from my parents but they know my taste.”
“I think I’m starting to get to know it pretty well myself already,” he replied.
“How long have we known each other altogether?”
“Seven and a half months. It feels like longer though.”
“What did you think the first time you met me?” I asked curiously.
“I thought ‘I’d like to hit that’.” I jabbed him in the ribs. “Hey! I’m a guy.” He laughed. “But right after that I thought ‘wow, she’s really intelligent too and she’s a damned good lawyer.’ What did you think when you first met me?”
“I thought ‘wow, he’s so confident and in control. I’m going to have to be on my game if I want to hold my own with him’.”
“Really?”
“That and ‘I totally want to have hot sweaty monkey sex with him’.”
“I love that!” He laughed. “In fact, I think you had me at the hot sweaty monkey sex comment on our first date.”
“I think you had me way before that. I had such a huge crush on you and all kinds of naughty fantasies about you. I named my vibrator Mr. Pierce Junior.”
“Well, I’m flattered!” He laughed. “I had a big crush on you for a long time too, and trust me, you were the regular star of my dreams and sexual fantasies,” he admitted. “I think I engaged in more self-love in the months just before we started dating than I had since I was thirteen.”
“I didn’t know you had a crush on me.”
“Couldn’t you tell?”
“Jess thought so. It seemed too good to be true, though, and besides I had heard that you were a player.”
“I was,” he said, sounding amused, “before I met you, but I had definitely slowed down a lot by the time we started dating. I really didn’t have much interest in that anymore.”
“If I hadn’t flirted with you, would you have ever asked me out?”
“I wanted to. I had finally figured out that you were interested in me too, when you told me I could comfort you after that shoplifting trial you did.” He laughed. “I was trying to figure out how to go about it, though. Your flirting that night was very helpful! Negotiating with you was a lot of fun too, not to mention a really huge turn-on.”
“I love you Braden. I was going to tell you that when you got back from Pittsburgh but you told me first.”
“I was going to wait until we were together again too but at that moment I missed you so much, and I just felt like I had to let you know. Now let’s go to sleep and dream about each other some more.” He kissed the top of my head and cuddled me closer.
CHAPTER FIVE
Monday
The Defender Association of Philadelphia
When I got into the office the next morning, Cameron was there working, but Jess was out. I glided in, tossed my bag onto the floor and plopped down into my desk chair, which promptly tilted backwards, nearly causing me to splatter my extra grande cup of doubly caffeinated coffee all over me. I put it down before I injured myself.
“Where’s our office mate?” I asked, settling in at my desk. As usual there was a pile of files waiting that could probably kill me if it fell on me. No matter how many times I worked my way through the pile it would always be rebuilt when I came in each morning. Like magic.