Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
In her heart, Erin knew it was a vow he intended to keep. She’d never felt happier.
Then Jay smiled sheepishly and swept out his arm, gesturing at the room. “You know, I said I bought this place so friends and clients could stay, and that’s still true. But deep down it was also because I’m ready for a family.” He chuckled. “A big one, clearly.”
Erin’s eyebrows shot up in a mild pang of alarm. “How big?”
“As big as you want it to be,” he said. “But I do have six bedrooms, and I’d love a big family like yours. And, as soon as you’re ready, I hope you’ll consider calling this place home.”
Erin was speechless. Everything was moving so fast and yet it felt so right. Gently, she moved the computer off her lap and kissed him. And then they were moving instinctively, their bodies taking over. Jay took the lead this time and she was happy for him to do it. She could barely contain herself as he spent what felt like hours caressing her, kissing her breasts and her belly. He discovered how aroused she became when he licked around her navel and once he found that tender spot, he lingered there until she couldn’t take it anymore. She let herself melt into his arms and moaned as he loved each part of her body with his tongue, gently licking, making his way down farther and farther until she was trembling all over, feeling worshiped and adored.
As much as she loved the attention he was lavishing on her, she wanted to do the same for him. She took his head in her hands, pulling him back up to eye level, before rolling them over so that she was on top.
“Hey,” he moaned into her mouth, “I was enjoying myself down there.”
“Me too,” she murmured back, “but it’s your turn now.”
She felt his excitement swell against her leg and decided that he too needed teasing right to the very edge. So she took her time exploring him, allowing herself the pleasure of feeling his pleasure. His body was divine. Tanned and sculpted and oh so manly. She loved the shape of him. He smelled clean and fresh, a subtle whisper of the sea-salt air and sun in his warm skin. When he cried out that he couldn’t take it anymore, he needed to be inside her, she straddled him and guided him into her, and together they rocked to a mutual climax, hands entwined, sticky with sweat, completely and utterly spent.
* * *
The next morning, Jay left Erin sleeping in what he was coming to think of as their bed. He walked Buzzy and Nelson on the beach, which was already becoming a routine, as though it was his morning job, along with making the coffee and usually breakfast. Erin needed more sleep than he did; besides which, she had developed her own routines and roles. She was, he had to admit, much better at tidying things away and making the house look prettier. A carefully arranged vase of flowers she’d picked from the garden, a bowl of enticing-looking fresh fruit on the kitchen counter—small touches he’d never have thought of, but that made the house feel more like a home.
Most of all, it felt like home because she was in it.
Out on the beach, with the ocean air blowing away the cobwebs, he cringed to remember that he’d even admitted to her last night that he had bought a house to fill it with children. She hadn’t exactly looked thrilled at the idea. She’d brought it up again after they’d made love, her eyes wide. “Six children? You’re really planning to have six children?”
“Well, not all right away,” he’d replied and then laughed. “Okay, I could compromise. How do you feel about five?”
“That’s your idea of a compromise? I was thinking two.”
“How about we split the difference and call it four.”
“How is splitting the difference between two and five four?” She was quite irate. “Isn’t the compromise between two and five more like three?”
He laughed and pulled her to him. “You know what I love about this conversation? We’re not arguing about whether we’re going to have children together, but how many.”
She twinkled at him. “That’s true.”
But, he hadn’t made his living brokering great deals for his clients for nothing. “I’d just like to remind you that your parents have six, and it’s worked out pretty well for them.”
She kissed him on the nose. “To be negotiated.”
He had been itching to leap out of bed, drop to one knee, and ask her to marry him right there, but something stopped him. The time wasn’t right. When he and Erin announced their engagement, he wanted every single person in the Davenport family thumping him on the back and offering congratulations. He definitely did not want her brothers glaring at him the way they had at breakfast last week. Not only for his sake, but for Erin’s. She was the nicest person he’d ever known and she deserved the full support of her family when she took that momentous step.