Page 135

"You're close," he says against my neck.

"Yes but this is for you. I want you to come."

"I will, after you. It's my birthday and you asked me what I want. What I really want is to watch my wife get off on my cock first. That will make me come harder than anything else."

His thumb finds my clit. Presses. Circles.

I shatter.

The orgasm rolls through me in waves, my hips stuttering, my hands fisting in his shirt, my whole body clenching around him so tight he groans against my throat. I ride it out—keep moving through the aftershocks because I'm not done. Because this is for him and I want to feel him come apart underneath me.

His arms lock around me. His hips drive up one final time—deep, hard, burying himself completely—and he comes with his face pressed into my neck and a sound that breaks out of him like he didn't mean to let it.

I hold him through it.

My fingers in his hair. My lips against his temple. His body shaking underneath mine while the jet carries us south through the dark.

For a long time after, we don't move.

Just breathe.

His arms stay wrapped around me. My face stays against his hair. The cabin is dim and warm and suspended thirty thousand feet above a country that has slowly, irrevocably, changed both of us.

Eventually, he pulls back enough to look at me.

His expression is open in a way I've never seen.

Not the Tin Man. Not the CEO. Not the man behind the glass doors.

Just Everett.

Looking at me like I've done something he doesn't know how to repay and isn't sure he deserves.

He gets up and walks to the jet’s bathroom, coming back with a wet towel for me. He helps to clean me up and then he lays back down, pulling me back against his chest.

We lay there for a second until I can’t fight the question that I’ve been dying to know since we left dinner.

"What deal did you make with to secure the museum?" I ask.

"He wants me to keep the administration staff on a limit restructuring to none personnel. At least for the first few years."

"Did Phil ask you to do the same? Keep me on for six months? Is that why you didn’t fire me when you first took over?"

He looks at me for a long moment as if he’s trying to decide if I can handle the truth. Right now, being in his arms, I’m not sure if I could handle hearing him say that I’ve been a charity case for those six months that he wished he could have gotten rid of sooner.

"Phil asked me to keep you on in some capacity but it was only a request. That’s not why I did it."

"Then why? Why not fire me right when you started?"

"I think you already know why."

Then his eyes dip down to my lips and he kisses me again.

"Happy birthday," I say softly against his lips, between the next kiss.

He lets out a breath that's almost a laugh.

Then he kisses me—slow, deep, his hand cupping the back of my head—and doesn't say thank you because he doesn't need to.