Page 135 of Legally Yours
I was interrupted from my brooding by a pair of large hands sliding around my waist. I twisted around with a start and found Brandon completely naked with a hungry, searching look in his eyes. He took up most of the room in the small space and pushed me against the wall, so that the water streaming from the rain nozzle poured over his face, coating his long lashes and face with water.
I had been so lost in thought, I hadn’t even heard the bathroom door open and close, hadn’t registered the slide of the shower curtain when he’d stepped in. But now he had my attention—one hundred percent.
He said nothing at first, just let his gaze rove over my body, followed by his hands. His finger trailed from my hips up the sides of my ribs, cupping my breasts briefly while he drifted his thumbs over my nipples.
“So beautiful,” he murmured.
My breath caught in my throat as he bent down reverentially to kiss one nipple, then the other, which he sucked between his teeth before releasing it with a small pop. His lips slid up my chest, tracing my collarbone and up my neck, where his tongue twirled around my pulse with maddening circles.
“Brandon…” I groaned, slipping as my legs started to lose their ability to bear my weight.
His hands immediately cupped my ass, holding me up.
“I got you, baby,” he rumbled before taking my mouth in a gentle, thorough kiss that seared more than the hot water.
All of my previous reservations melted completely away under his touch; the only thing I could think of was how badly I wanted him yet again.
“Do you feel it?” Brandon asked against my neck. “Do you feel how perfectly we fit? Your body was made for me, Skylar, just like mine was made for you.”
He pressed the entire length of his muscular torso up against me as if to illustrate the point, eliciting a further groan from the back of my throat as I pawed desperately at his shoulders for him to come even closer.
“Please,” I panted into his slick skin. It was the only thing I could say.
But instead of pounding into me with the ferocity I craved, Brandon gripped me tighter and entered at an agonizingly slow pace, forcing me to feel every bit of his length, inch by terrible, wonderful inch. Still holding me up, his flexed biceps the only sign of effort, he watched as he moved in and out with the same unbearably slow cadence.
“Look at me, Skylar,” he commanded, and my eyes, which were squeezed shut, opened to find his bright blue pools blazing with love and passion.
“Touch yourself, baby,” he commanded softly. “Make yourself come.”
Without breaking our eye contact, I slipped two fingers down to massage that sensitive spot. The combination of his slow, forceful movements with the flutter of my fingers was instantaneous.
“Aaah!” I cried out, unable to keep my eyes open any more. “Brandon!”
“Not yet, baby,” he cooed. “Hold it, just a little bit more.” He started to pick up the pace, just slightly, and I could tell by the minor shaking of his body he was having just as hard of a time holding back. “Just. A little. Bit. More.”
I moaned even louder, pushing off the wall behind me to meet his thrusts. Unable to control myself any longer, I tightened suddenly around him, which ultimately was both our undoing as he lost his control and started to move faster and more erratically. My hand fell away, but I didn’t need it anymore. I was lost.
“Oh fuck, Skylar!” Brandon groaned, an animal in the throes of pain and pleasure, slamming back into me against the wall, where my head banged with a satisfying clunk. I couldn’t have cared less.
We fell apart together, biting hard into each other’s shoulders as we quaked through muscle and bone. Brandon’s powerful legs finally buckled, and as we came down from our mutual high, he slid down to his knees, keeping me securely wrapping around his waist while the water poured over us.
“Please,” he croaked through long, drawn breaths. He kissed me, so tenderly it almost hurt. It seemed I wasn’t the only one still reeling from our conversation. “All I have...all I have...it’s yours, I promise. Just let me...let me try. Let me love you the way you deserve.”
I gripped him tightly and threaded my fingers through the wet curls gathering at the nape of his neck. Even under running water, he smelled so good. How could someone who felt so good be wrong for me?
“Please,” Brandon whispered again huskily. His arms were still wrapped around my waist, holding me in a viselike grip. He was scared, I realized, to let me go like he knew all the doubt that I’d been feeling.
In my heart, I knew I was never going to leave him anyway. I whispered back: “Okay.”
Forty
Jane’s absence allowed Brandon and me to share a bottle of cheap wine and greasy Chinese food in between two more bouts of cathartic, soul-searing sex. He didn’t try to convince me to go back to Beacon Street although I imagined he missed his bed. His feet hung at least six inches off my college-issued double mattress. But whether it was because Miranda was still there or because he knew it would just make me uncomfortable, the question of leaving never once came up. There was no checking his messages, no conference calls. For the first time since we’d become involved, Brandon’s undivided attention was focused only on me.
Sometime just past 6 a.m., I slipped my robe back on and left Brandon again snoring in my bed, a pillow clutched endearingly over his stomach like an oversized teddy bear. But I had to get up. My stomach was still in knots that no boring deposition would be able to untie. I brewed a cup of tea and sat quietly on the couch.
I wanted things to be resolved quickly, but that definitely wasn’t in the cards. Brandon’s divorce papers still lay crumpled on the coffee table. I set my mug and reached for the wrinkled pages. It was time to face what I was getting into.
They were standard court documents, one packet laying out the terms of the separation and the official filing for divorce. Miranda had been given a princely monthly maintenance, along with the residencies of their New York apartment and a different house in Cape Cod. The other packet was a copy of the most recent terms, which, I noted, Brandon had signed, but Miranda had not. I wasn’t sure why he had brought them—perhaps to prove to me how close he really was to being finished with the whole tawdry business.