Me, I was just happy to have Dex back. I didn’t dare think about what else could be lurking around the bend.
***
“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.