Brothers of Paradise Series

I tug at his shirt, my hands fumbling with the buttons. It doesn’t take long until Hayden catches on. He murmurs a protest against my lips, something about slow and regrets, but I’ll have none of that.

He groans when my hand strokes along the bulge in his jeans. “Too tight,” he murmurs, a sigh of relief escaping him when he finally tugs his jeans off.

My heart is beating so fast I’m sure he can hear it. There’s an urgency to this, but it’s not like the greenhouse, when all I needed was fusion.

This time I want him undone and broken in my arms. I want to watch where we join, and when I whisper it to him, Hayden lowers his forehead to my shoulder and mutters a string of curses.

“What?” I whisper, wrapping my arms around him. He’s on top of me, the heavy weight of his arousal resting against my stomach.

“You’ll be the death of me, Lily.”

I hug him tighter, until his face is buried against my breasts. “I don’t want that.”

There’s a faint laugh. “I’d die happy, babygirl.”

He lifts himself up on strong arms and kisses me. It’s deep and invasive, warning me about what’s to come. If we had our guards up before, they’re completely down now. There’s absolute surrender with Hayden.

I should have realized that before, when I pushed and pushed for him to take me to bed properly-not the wild, emotional coupling in the greenhouse. I should have realized that once we did it slowly, I’d lose all semblance of control, both of my emotions and the situation.

This will change things. If he leaves again, I don’t know if I’ll emerge unscathed.

But he’s worth the risk.

I kiss him back, letting his tongue sweep in and leave a trail of hot fire in its wake. His muscled back is hard under my hands, and I run my fingers along the deep grooves. I want to touch him everywhere-to relearn his body and have him catalogue mine in turn.

Hayden spreads my thighs without stopping the kisses, settling between my legs with a low groan. He rests his forehead against mine. I can feel him shaking with the effort to go slow, running the head of his hardness along me, teasing.

I put a hand on his chest to feel the beat of his heart, fast and racing. My own is doing the same.

“Feel that?” he murmurs. “All for you, Lils.”

I kiss him, pouring all my longing and need and despair into it. All the years we’ve been apart and the nights without him.

He groans when he finally pushes into me, inch by inch, until he’s buried to the hilt. It feels so unbearably right to have our bodies intertwined like this again-my legs around his waist, his arms around me, our bodies moving in tandem.

I don’t know how long we move like that, with him inside me, both of us gasping, before release finally overtakes us. It starts deep within me first. Hayden has a hand between my legs and he’s circling, voice imploring in my ear.

“Again, Lily,” he murmurs, and I can’t hold back, breaking around him like a wave against the shore for the second time.

Hayden groans and follows me into release. I hold him, our bodies shaking with the force of it. For a long time we stay like that, wrapped around one another.

I run a hand over his back, stroking the muscled skin. He’s warm and faintly sweaty. “Will you stay the night?”

There’s a faint, noncommittal grunt against my neck. “I don’t think I can move.”

Hayden

I’m on a video call with Finn when I get Lily’s excited text. She’s written it in all-caps. I GOT THE ART GALLERY!

Finn is suspicious immediately.

“What are you smiling about, man?”

“Sorry. Got to reply to something urgent.”

I type a quick congrats to her before I flip my phone over, screen down. It only took her about a week to draw up all the paperwork-courtesy of Harris Development.

Finn isn’t convinced. “I know urgent, and that’s not it. Does she have a name?”

I glare at him through the monitor, but my only reward is his wry laughter.

“Fine, man. Play it close to the vest.”

“You should try socializing some time,” I suggest, knowing it’ll needle him. “I know it’s shocking, but computers can’t keep you warm at night.”

He rolls his eyes at me. “I don’t need socializing. Besides, computers generate heat, so they actually can.”

“Just saying. I’m sure Boston has at least a few good women.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he says, his tone surly, and I drop the topic.

We return to the planning of our West Coast expansion-and our plan to hire a consultant or two of our own. The business is expanding faster than either of us had anticipated.

I’ve been pushing for us to reach higher and higher numbers, but it still feels unreal that it’s actually going as well as it is. Gary’s words ring in my head. You’re rich.

It would be hard to believe if I didn’t know the ins and outs of my own finances. If this continues, I’ll be able to hold my own with old Michael Marchand. Not best him, sure, but certainly be regarded as an equal.

But I’m not sure money is all it takes.

I drive over to Lily’s new gallery that evening, stopping on the way to pick up a few things. She’s already there-has been since she finished work.

Anticipation runs through my body as I park outside. Knowing she’s close, and that I’ll see her soon, never fails to put me on edge.Material © of NôvelDrama.Org.

The front door is ajar and the wood has deep gashes from disrepair. It’ll need to be sanded down and repainted entirely.

Old-school jazz hits me as I walk in. A lady croons about respect, filling the space with her voice. Lily is standing in the middle of the gallery-to-be, her back to me.

Her hair is up in a messy bun, and she has a pencil stuck behind her ear. I can see her frantically scribbling notes on a legal pad. I’m sure she sees something very different from what I do-yellowed walls in desperate need of new sheetrock, old linoleum floors. She’s always been the one with the vision.

I wrap my arms around her waist and she leans into me, a small sigh escaping her. Her scent is as intoxicating as usual.

“Hey, you.”

“Hey,” I say. “How did you know it was me? The front door was unlocked.”

“Who else could it be?” She runs a hand over my forearm absently, holding up her notes. She’s sketched out an entirely different interior design. The odd half-wall is gone, as are the popcorn ceilings. “What do you think?”

It looks like a professional art studio.