Chapter 227 FIVE YEARS
Chapter 227 FIVE YEARS
ELLE’S POV
I woke up and Kai wasn’t in the bed.
Two options. Something went wrong and he had to deal with it. Or he was downstairs making breakfast.
I smelled eggs.
Breakfast then.
I stayed there five more minutes doing nothing. I almost never get that. Maybe three times a year if I’m lucky. No phone. No list. Just the ceiling and eggs and the house quiet.
Then I got up.
The kitchen looked like a mess in the way it only looks when Kai decides breakfast is a project. Too many pans. He’s like that when he cares. He won’t just scramble two eggs and be done.
The twins were already eating.
Aria talking a mile a minute like Luca needed the information right now or the world would end.
Luca eating, nodding, the nod that means I hear you, wait, I’m still chewing.
“Mama,” Aria said. “Papa made eggs three ways.”
“Three ways.”
“Scrambled, fried, and an omelette. He said you get to choose.”
I looked at Kai.
He looked back from the stove.
“Happy anniversary.”
“We don’t do anniversaries.”
“We do now. Eggs.”
“Three ways,” Aria said. “It’s very extra.”
“Aria.”
“I’m just saying.”
Luca looked up.
“It’s romantic.”
Aria thought about it.
“Okay. Romantically extra.”
I sat down and he put all three on my plate because he knows I can’t pick one. That’s the whole thing with him. He already knows.
Five years.
This man made me three kinds of eggs on a Tuesday.
KAI’S POV
They left for school at 7:45.
Aria loud.
Luca with a book under his arm.
Same door. Same corner. Still gets me every time.
We watched until they turned.
Elle looked at me.
“What are we doing today.”
“Nothing.”
She stared at me.
“Nothing. Morrison knows not to call. Sarah’s on the firm. Thomas has the board. All day. Nothing.”
She kept looking at me.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t know how to do nothing.”
“I know. I’ll show you.”
ELLE’S POV
Nothing still turned into stuff. Just not work stuff.
We walked. No point to it. Around the neighborhood. Stopped at the coffee place and sat there forty minutes drinking coffee and looking at people. Kai watching the street like it was a job. I read three pages of the same book I’ve been stuck on for six weeks and didn’t even try to do more.
Then we walked again.
Went into a bookshop because it was there. An hour. He bought two boring community development books. I bought a novel and a cookbook I’m never cooking from.
“You never cook.”
“I might.”
He looked at the book. Then at me.
“You might.”
KAI’S POV
We went home after that.
House quiet. Kids at school. Work off. Nobody needing anything.
Elle sat on the couch and looked around like she forgot rooms could just sit there.
“I forgot what this feels like.”
“What.”
“Being still. Being here and it not being for something.”
I sat next to her.
“How’s it feel.”
She thought.
“Strange good.”
“Yeah.”
She leaned on me. I put my arm around her. We just sat. Tuesday. Nothing happening. I liked it more than I knew how to say.
She kissed me first.
Not hungry. Not in a rush. Just turned and kissed me like we actually had hours.
I kissed her back. Her mouth still tasted like coffee. Her hand on my chest, not pulling yet. I put my thumb on her jaw and she made that little sound she always makes. Five years. Still does me in.
“Upstairs,” she said against my mouth.
“Yeah.”
ELLE’S POV
We had hours.
Kids not back till later. Phone downstairs. Nobody calling.
He closed the bedroom door anyway.
I pulled his shirt off. Put my hands on him. Warm. Solid. I know this body and I still stood there for a second just feeling it.
He took my shirt off slow. Bra next. Kissed my shoulder, then down, mouth on my chest, on my tit, sucking a little, not rushing it. I held his head there. My fingers in his hair.
“Kai.”
He made a noise against my skin.
He sat me on the bed and got on his knees. Undid my jeans. Pulled them down with my underwear. I lifted my hips. Then his hands on my thighs, opening me.
He looked up.
I nodded.
Then his mouth was on my pussy.
God.
Not showing off. He just knows me. Tongue flat first, then right on my clit like he never forgot where it was. I fell back on the bed. One hand in his hair, the other grabbing the sheet.
I was already wet from the kissing downstairs. He made it worse. Licking me slow, then sucking, then that rhythm he does when he wants me shaking. I moved against his mouth. He put his arm over my stomach so I couldn’t get away from it.
“Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
He didn’t.
I came with my thighs tight around his head and a sound I would never make if the kids were home. It went through me hard. Legs shaking. I had to pull his hair because it got too much.
He kissed my thigh. Then my hip. Stood up and took his jeans off. He was so hard it looked like it hurt.
I sat up and took him in my hand. His cock was hot, heavy, already wet at the tip. I stroked him and he dropped his forehead on mine.
“Elle.”
“Come here.”
He laid me down and got between my legs. I felt him right there, pushing against me, and I pulled him in with my heels.
He went in slow.
I still close my eyes for that first bit. He’s a lot. I get tight and then I take him and it’s that full feeling all the way up. He stayed still once he was in. Breathing on my face. My legs around him.
“You good?”
“Yes. Move. Just… slow.”
He did.
Deep. Unhurried. Pulling almost out and sliding back in until I was making noise on every stroke. Wet. Messy. The sound of it in the quiet room. His mouth on mine, then my neck, then that spot under my ear that makes me grab his back too hard.
“Look at me.”
I did.
That’s the part. His face. The way he looks at me when he’s inside me and he’s not thinking about anything else.
I hooked my legs higher and he went deeper and swore under his breath. His hips stuttered. Harder for a few seconds. I liked that. I told him so.
“Like that. Yeah. Just like that.”
He caught himself and slowed down again on purpose. Kept me right there. Full of him. Clit aching. I was saying please and I didn’t even care how it sounded.
He put his hand between us and rubbed me while he fucked me slow.
That finished me.
I came around his cock so hard I couldn’t breathe right. Squeezing him. Pulling him in. He buried his face in my hair and came with me, hips tight, a broken sound in my neck, filling me up while I was still shaking.
We stayed like that.
Him still inside me. Both of us sweaty. My hands on his back. His heart going under my cheek once he rolled a little so he wouldn’t crush me.
After a minute he pulled out and I made a stupid small sound because I didn’t want him gone yet. He kissed my mouth for it. Pulled the sheet over us.
I put my head on his chest. His hand going up and down my arm. Slow.
The light on the floor had moved.
Neither of us talked for a while.
KAI’S POV
She was warm and sticky against me. Hair damp. Leg over mine like I might get up, which I wasn’t.
I could still feel her. How wet she was. How she said please. How she looked at me when she came.
I kissed her hair.
She made a noise that meant I’m awake, don’t start talking yet.
Fine by me.
ELLE’S POV
“Five years,” I said after a while.
“Five years.”
“From the Velvet Room to this.”
“Long way.”
“Very long way.”
“Worth it.”
“Every bit of it.”
We lay there. I still felt him between my legs. That good used feeling. His fingers on my arm like he was just checking I was still there.
Then he said, “Dinner.”
“Where.”
“Somewhere good.”
“Somewhere you have to book.”
“Morrison booked it three weeks ago.”
I lifted my head.
“Morrison booked a restaurant three weeks ago.”
“She said I’d forget.”
“She was right.”
“She’s always right.”
I put my head back down.
“Which place.”
“The one you mentioned six months ago and never went to.”
“I said that once. I barely even meant it.”
“Morrison was in the room.”
“Morrison remembers everything.”
“Yeah.”
I smiled at the ceiling.
Three kinds of eggs.
A cookbook I’m never using.
His mouth between my legs in the middle of a Tuesday.
Morrison booking a table because Kai would forget.
“Kai.”
“Yeah.”
“This is a good anniversary.”
“It is.”
“Next year we do it again.”
“Next year. And the one after.”
“And the one after that.”
“Every year, as long as we get.”
I moved closer, light almost gone.
Kids coming home soon and dinner later.
All of this from a club and a rainy night and me walking out with no umbrella.
Strange good, both words.
And all of it ours.