Chapter 24 Bride to be
MALLORCA, the morning after, 7:42 a.m.
Sunlight poured through the open shutters in thick gold bars, striping the white sheets and their tangled bodies.
Justin woke first, the way he always did when the light hit the sea just right. He lay on his side, head propped on one hand, watching Sofia sleep.
Her lips were swollen from last night’s kisses, hair a wild dark-blonde halo against the pillow, the sheet riding low enough to show the faint red marks his mouth had left along her collarbone.
He couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his face..Leaning in, he brushed his lips to hers.
“Morning, my fiancée,” he whispered against her mouth.
Sofia made a low, sleepy sound, eyes still closed.
“Ehmmm… baby…”
The word came out husky, drugged with dreams and the ache of being thoroughly loved all night.
He kissed her again, slower this time, coaxing her lips apart, tongue sliding lazily against hers.
She answered without waking fully, arching into him, one leg hooking over his hip, pulling him closer.
His hand slipped under the sheet, palm gliding up the warm curve of her waist, thumb brushing the underside of her breast.
She shivered, finally blinking those storm-grey eyes open.
“Justin…” It was half protest, half plea.
He smiled against her neck, teeth grazing the spot that always made her melt.
“Say it again,” he murmured.
She threaded her fingers into his hair, tugged just hard enough to sting.
“Fiancée,” she whispered, tasting the word like new wine. “God, I love how that sounds.”
He rolled her beneath him in one smooth motion, settling between her thighs, already hard against her.
“Good,” he growled, voice rough with morning and want. “Because I’m planning on waking you up exactly like this for the next sixty years.”
He slid into her in one long, deliberate stroke, no barrier, nothing between them anymore, just heat and homecoming.
Sofia gasped, back bowing, nails digging into his shoulders.
When she came the first time, she bit his shoulder to muffle the cry.
When he followed seconds later, he buried his face in her hair and whispered it over and over like a vow.
“My wife. My wife. My wife.”
After, they lay wrecked and laughing softly, sunlight painting them gold, the ring on her finger catching fire with every tiny movement.
Sofia traced the freckles across his nose, smiling slowly and wickedly.
“Better get used to burnt garlic, Maxwell,” she teased. “You just signed up for a lifetime of it.”
Justin kissed the tip of her nose, then her mouth, then the exact spot on her throat where her pulse still raced.
“Bring it on, Vale,” he said. “I’ve never been happier to lose a fight.”
He wasn’t done.
Justin’s mouth curved into a slow, dangerous smile against her throat, teeth scraping the frantic beat of her pulse.
“Round two, fiancée,” he rasped, voice gravel and sin.
Before she could answer, he hooked an arm under her knees and flipped her onto her stomach in one fluid move.
Sofia let out a startled, delighted laugh that turned into a moan when he dragged her hips up, pressing her chest to the mattress, ass in the air.
His palms spread over her back, tracing every vertebra like he was memorising scripture.
Then lower (thumbs parting her, opening her, exposing how wet she still was, how ready).
“Look at you,” he breathed, reverent and filthy. “Still dripping with me.”
He leaned over her, chest to her back, lips at her ear.
“Tell me you want it,” he demanded, the head of his cock nudging her entrance, teasing, not giving.
Sofia pushed back, desperate, voice wrecked.
“I want you. Always you. Please—”
He slammed home in one brutal thrust.
The sound she made was pure animal (raw, broken, perfect).
He didn’t give her time to adjust; just set a punishing rhythm, hips snapping, balls slapping against her clit with every stroke.
The bedframe rattled against the stone wall, headboard banging in time with their bodies.
One hand fisted in her hair, arching her neck back so he could bite down on the juncture of shoulder and throat (marking her again, claiming her again).
The other slid beneath her, fingers finding her swollen clit, rubbing tight, merciless circles.
“Come for me again,” he growled against her skin. “I want to feel you milk me dry while I fill you up.”
She shattered instantly (harder than before), walls clamping down in violent pulses, a scream muffled into the pillow.
He followed with a guttural curse, hips stuttering as he emptied himself inside her in thick, endless waves, grinding deep like he wanted to brand her from the inside out.
They collapsed sideways, still joined, his chest heaving against her back, arms banded around her waist like he’d never let go.
Minutes (or hours) later, when breathing finally slowed, he pressed open-mouthed kisses along her spine, tasting salt and them.
Sofia turned in his arms, straddled him again, hair wild, lips swollen, eyes glittering with leftover lust and brand-new forever.
“My turn,” she whispered.
She sank down onto him in one slick, deliberate slide (taking him to the root, rolling her hips slow and filthy).
His head fell back against the pillow, a broken groan tearing from his throat.
She rode him like that (unhurried, devastating), hands braced on his chest, watching every flicker of pleasure cross his face.
“Look at me,” she ordered, echoing him from earlier.
His eyes snapped open (green and wrecked and so in love it hurt to witness).
She leaned down, lips brushing as she clenched deliberately around him.
“I’m going to spend the next sixty years ruining you for anyone else,” she breathed. “Every morning. Every night. Every time you even think about looking at another woman, you’ll remember exactly who you belong to.”
He surged up, kissing her hard, hands gripping her ass as he thrust up to meet her.
“Already ruined,” he panted against her mouth. “Completely fucking destroyed. And I’ve never been happier.”
They came together this time (her crying out his name, him spilling inside her again with a hoarse, reverent curse), bodies locked, souls tangled, sunlight pouring over them like liquid gold.
After, they lay boneless and laughing, limbs entwined, the sheets long since lost to the floor.
Justin traced the ring on her finger, then pressed a kiss to her palm.
“Sixty years starts now,” he murmured.
Sofia smiled, wicked
and soft and utterly his.
“Then don’t you dare stop,” she whispered back.
And he didn’t. Not that morning. Not ever.