Page 383 of Double or Nothing

I can’t hold back any longer. I don’t want to. My lips press to hers, emotions twisting and turning.

I kiss the beautiful angel before me like she’s light itself, my arms around her in protection. I know this woman so well, that I can hear the way the cogs are churning, bound in emotion, but there’s only one emotion she needs to feel right now, and that’s love. Pure, unfiltered love. Unconditional and solid. All for her.

Alice Rose. Soul Girl.

The beauty beneath the chains of such an expensive surname.

Base instinct has its place. I want to tear her flowery dress off and get to her skin, to her flesh, to her divine body and make the union complete, but now isn’t the time. Her lips are my focus. Her tongue the only closeness that matters. Her slowing breaths against my mouth the language that matters.

I brush her hair away from her face and stare into her eyes between kisses. The warmth radiates between us. Alive and beating. Tangible as she knots her fingers with mine.

“You’re home,” I say. “And I’m never letting you go again. Not in this lifetime.”

“Please don’t.”

“Neither will Jack,” I tell her, with a smile. “You’ve tamed the wild boy as far as he’s concerned.”

She lets out a gentle laugh.

“I think that’s a two person effort. You’d have tamed him without me.”

“We’ll never know. We won’t need to.”

She kisses me again. Pulls me down onto the sofa with her. But I don’t grind or push it forwards. There is no need. We have days, weeks, months, years.

She’s mine – ours – just like she always was.

Her hands rove up and down my back, both of us lost in the moment. Caught up in togetherness that knows no bounds.

My phone starts up from the coffee table, but I’m not interested in answering it. Her mouth is an angelic pull that won’t let go. I wouldn’t want it to.

Kisses. So deep. So true.

Lips that mean love.

Breaths that slow and deepen.

Longing of the soul.

When my phone starts up again, it jars me. Fucking thing. I reach for it, patting the table next to my discarded book until I find it.

And then I see his name. Jack.

I show Alice the screen.

“Let’s tell him,” I say. “Together. He’ll love hearing your voice. Who knows? Maybe he’ll even come home early.”

She laughs and takes the phone from me, pressing the answer button and setting it to speaker.

“Hey there, Jack. I’m home.”

“She’s here,” I add. “She did it. She came back.”

He clears his throat, and there’s something about it that tears through my senses.

“I know,” he says. “I have the delightful Mr Parker standing right in front of me, and the piss poor fiancé she just walked away from. I’ve already told the cunts that they can fuck off, but they want to hear it from Rapunzel herself.”

Fucking hell. Bill is at The Argent. With Christopher.