My Jade. My beautiful dream came true.
“Life before you was so complicated and cloudy, but my love for you isn’t, it never was. I love you with everything I am. I’ll protect you with all the power I have. And I’ll love you with every fiber of me, forever. Please know that.” I caressed the dark locks of hair at her temple, her soft, ruby lips parted as she breathed quietly.
“I love you with my entire heart. You’re right where I need to be,” she finished, placing a soft kiss on my lips.
My beautiful, sweet stranger, stuck in an elevator.
Second Epilogue
Jade – ten years later
The Clifton became our special home away from home over the last ten years. Every moment we had to escape the three beautiful little monsters we’d created to love each other, we did. When I first broke the news to Maverick that we were expecting, he’d cried tears of joy and then promptly told me he wanted me to quit my job. I laughed him off, but he was serious, so finally, we compromised on just forty hours a week through the pregnancy, and only twenty the first few years–and while most wives would maybe have been upset that he was trying to control them, I knew he wasn’t at all–he was watching out for me, and it was good he did, because my first pregnancy was so hard, with complications every trimester, I needed the time off. By the last month I was bedridden and working only a few hours a day from home, but when tiny Ryan Mason Cooper was born, I’d known it was all worth it.
He was healthy and happy and all ours, a perfect angel. And then we’d been blessed with twin girls that had Mav wrapped around all of their sweet little fingers and toes. Maverick was the strongest, most loyal man I’d ever known, and watching him become the best father in the world only made me love him more.
And crave him more.
We’d made date nights at The Clifton a regular occurrence, so many of our memories soaked into the worn wooden walls. We celebrated all of the major events in our family there–which is why we’d found ourselves here tonight.
Our wedding anniversary.
Warmth bloomed in my chest as I checked in under the name I usually used when we met here: Sasha Sloane. Only the valet, who’d been there since the beginning, remembered when the EMT rescued the lawyer in the elevator and they fell in love.
I nodded at the hotel clerk in thanks as she slipped my key across the counter. I backed away, eager to make my way upstairs, when I felt strong arms circle my waist.
His powerful masculine scent overwhelmed me and made my knees weak in the same moment.
“Evenin’, Ms. Sloane.” Maverick’s voice washed through me in heated waves.
“EMT Cooper, the elevator isn’t broken, is it?” He spun me in his arms, eyes rippling with silent mischief.
“I’m happy to do a very thorough check.” His palms roamed up my torso as he guided me away from the quiet lobby and to the bank of elevators.
He punched the button just as his lips met mine. “Missed you like crazy today.”
He nipped at the corner of my lip as the doors dinged open and we slipped inside. As soon as the doors were firmly closed, his palm hitched my thigh around his waist and he pressed into me, the thick girth of his hardness pressing against my hip and making my mouth water, and every erogenous zone of my body tingle.
“Happy anniversary, beautiful.” He hummed when his fingertips made contact with my satin panties and slipped beneath the elastic. I moved against him and arched my neck against the wall of the elevator as we rose to the top floor.
“Oh God, I love you so much.” My words came out breathy as my orgasm built.
“What are you doing to me, kitten?” Maverick’s palm slid down the front of his pants, and I watched in lustful fascination as he squeezed his thick length through the fabric.
“Oh my,” a moan slipped out as I clutched at his shoulders. Maverick’s eyes flared as his gaze trailed up and down my body.
“You’re so beautiful. Everything about you makes me want to cover you with my lips. I want to be buried inside you until it feels so good that neither one of us can think straight.”
Just then, the elevator doors slid open and he carried me out onto the penthouse floor, aiming straight for the king bed in the corner.
He deposited me swiftly and yanked down his dark pants. He grunted and lifted his hips from the bed. I licked my lips and crawled to him, finding the crisp white hem of his shirt, fingering the buttons and popping them one by one until his rigid, washboard stomach was on display. Tearing the cotton from his shoulders, I tossed it to the floor. I straddled his thighs and rubbed the silky cotton of my panties against his length until his eyes fell back, his fists clenching the pillows around him. I dove in, attacking his strained neck with my lips and tongue, rubbing and grinding against his length until I felt my arousal and beads of precum mixing and dampening my panties.