***
“This is some swanky place,” Dex commented, looking mildly around the hotel room as I closed the door behind us. “Where’s the bottles of Cristal?”
“Actually,” I told him, throwing my duffel bag on a pink leather chair, “the closest thing to Cristal is Prosecco. It’s in the mini-fridge and costs forty dollars for a mouthful.”
“Forty dollars for a mouthful? You could get more from a cheap hooker.”
I gave him a look but he just grinned at me playfully. I didn’t want to know but his comment meant he was feeling better and that made my shoulders relax a little.
He walked over to the window and peered outside, at the roar of upper Broadway below. He seemed to lapse into deep thought. I could only imagine what he was thinking.
“It must be strange,” I said. “To be here.”
He nodded slowly, biting his lip for a moment. “Uh huh. You could say that.”
I came up behind him, placing my head on his shoulder, my gaze following his down to the passing cars, metal garbage cans on the sidewalk glinting in the sun.
We stood there for a few moments, in silence. I expected his arm to go around me but it didn’t. He stood like a statue, immovable, untouchable.
After a while he said, “I’m sorry.”
I tilted my head toward him, my cheek on his shoulder. “About what?”
“About this,” he said. “About you being here. I don’t know why I walked off with Michael, why I wouldn’t have checked with you first, why I just left with Ada unconscious. That’s not like me. You know that.”
I straightened up, squeezing his forearm. “Dex. I know that, we all know that. That’s why it was so fucking scary. You obviously were going either against your will or under false pretenses.”
He didn’t react. “Or I was just so happy to see my brother again, I would have done anything he said.”
I frowned, studying him. I hated how blank and mask-like his face was looking all of a sudden. “I thought things with your brother never ended very well.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, going back to biting his lip. “They didn’t.” He closed his eyes, almost wincing. “Perry,” he said gently. “I don’t know what any of this means. Why would my brother take me here? Why would he do that to you, to Ada? What’s the point of all this?”
I didn’t say anything. He knew everything that Pippa had told me. That, and Michael’s actions were all there really were to go on.
Finally he looked at me, his eyes watering. “Baby.”
And that’s all he said. That’s all he needed to say. I placed my hands on either side of his face and leaned over to kiss him lightly on the lips. I wanted more but more than that, he needed comfort.
He kissed me back and pulled away slightly, staring at my eyes, my nose, my lips. He looked so lost, desolate, but his carnality leaked back into his features. He placed his hands at back of my head, holding me steady.
“Perry, I love you,” he said, voice gruff and full of conviction. “I love you absolutely, resolutely. There is no question, no doubt. This love just is. It exists and because it exists, I exist.” He brought his face closer so that the tipoff his nose grazed mine. “When you’re my wife, I know I’ll be a good husband so as long as I never let you forget that, that you, only you, just as you are, are my reason for being.”
I swallowed hard, my heart tumbling over itself at his beautiful words. Why was he telling me this? It sounded like he was about to go off to war, it sounded like we were parting, not coming together.
But before I could say anything, his lips were on mine and he was kissing me, hard. His passion surprised me, stole my breath straight out from my lungs. His tongue didn’t need to coax me for long. Soon my surprise was melting away into want and need and feverish lust.
I had almost lost this man. I wanted, needed, to fuck him hard enough to make up for that. I know he was planning on doing the same for me.
In seconds he was pushing me back onto the bed and my shirt was being ripped over my head. He deftly got my bra off with what felt like just a snap of his fingers, his mouth and tongue knowing just how to tease and lick my nipples to make my thighs squeeze together in beautiful agony.
We made love as we always did but there was more urgency and desperation than there was tenderness. I didn’t mind. I felt like I couldn’t get him close enough. I brought him in so deep, my nails sinking into the hard curve of his ass that I was sure he’d never be able to pull away.
He seemed to feel the same. He thrust into me, hard enough that the back of my head bounced against the mattress and he moaned, long and rich. In and out he slid, his cock feeling like hard velvet inside me. His tongue was in a frenzy, fucking the inside of my mouth with wild intensity. I closed my eyes as he licked and kissed down my neck, indulging in the feeling of him wanting me, of his carnal desire and masculine strength.
“Don’t ever leave me again, baby,” I groaned as his fingers rubbed at my clit, causing the heat to build in my core like a water brought to a rolling boil.
“I won’t,” he murmured, taking my hard nipple into his teeth and tugging. God, I wasn’t going to last much longer. “I can’t. You feel so fucking good all the time, all the fucking time.”
I stared up at his hard chest, the strain of his sculpted muscles as he continued to drive into me, bringing us both home. We came at the same time, as we usually did thanks to his stamina and patient fingers, and my eyes rolled back as my body was carried away, somewhere warm and beautiful. I didn’t want it to end. I never wanted him to leave me.
Eventually though, he did and we both rolled over on our backs, breathless and sweaty in the hot Manhattan evening. While my body rode the softening waves of orgasm, I felt that warmth tingle within my chest, the one that made me feel like everything was going to be all right now. It’s funny how so much strife and distance could disintegrate after sex. It was cliché to say I always felt closer to Dex after he had been inside me, but of course it was true.
We lay there for some time, his strong, muscled arm around my shoulders, my head buried into his chest. His heartbeat was steady, telling me I was safe and that I was his.
“Perry,” he whispered, his voice throaty.
“Mmhmmm,” I said, my fingers dancing over his And With Madness tattoo on his chest.
“I’m also sorry I didn’t tell you about Maximus.”
My fingers paused for a moment, then resumed their dance, tracing the cursive road.
“That’s okay,” I said. I wasn’t lying. It wasn’t quite okay, but I also understood that Maximus’s secrets weren’t necessarily his to share.
“It isn’t,” he said. “I don’t like keeping things from you. When I found out in New Orleans, it blew my mind. At the same time, I wasn’t surprised. Maryse, you remember the haggard voodoo lady, she had called me the exception.”
I rolled over onto my stomach and rested my chin on his pec, staring up at him. “The exception?” He certainly was exceptional to me but I had a feeling that in the sack wasn’t counting for this one.
He nodded sharply. “That’s what she said. I can tell you that neither Maximus nor I agreed with that statement. From what I got out of the whole deal was that Maximus turned into a petty douchebag. But also my sleeping with his girl might have helped to soil the whole thing. But what I’m an exception for, I don’t know…”
I didn’t want to think about this stuff. I wanted my brain to remain floaty and sluggish on endorphins. I was partly tempted to put my hand under the soft sheets and bring Dex back to life again but I could also tell he wanted to talk, even though I couldn’t do anything but listen.
“Maybe that’s why your brother sought you out,” I offered quietly. “If you’re an exception, then I guess that means you’re special in a way.”
I thought he’d laugh at the word but he seemed to mull it over. “Special,” he repeated slowly, as if he was weighing it on his tongue. “But what does that mean? And what did Michael want?”
“Maybe we’ll never find out. Perhaps he wanted something with you and he’s already taken it or figured out that you’re not as special as he thought. Maybe he just wanted to talk to you, discuss family matters, I don’t know. If he thought you wouldn’t go with him willingly, if he thought maybe we would have interfered, maybe that’s why he acted the way he did.”
He crooked his head and peered down at me through his long lashes. “Is that what you believe? That he just wanted to talk?”
I gave him an uneasy smile. “No. I looked into his eyes, Dex. He meant me harm. He meant you harm. And why you’re here in this bed with me, I don’t know. In some ways…”
“What?”