Legacy (30 page)

Whatever rational part of his brain that still worked urged him to help her, so he released the nipple from his mouth long enough to pluck the shirt over his head before claiming her again.

She peeled herself out of her robe so that bare arms wrapped around his neck when her fingers wove into his hair.

And his hands found a new life. Touching Corinne was all that mattered from now on.

He ran his hands along her waist, feeling the taut obliques under impossibly soft skin.

“You feel incredible,” he murmured, his lips moving from her breasts to kiss her mouth again.

“You feel like a god,” she said, kissing in return. Her hands skated down his back and slipped beneath the band of his shorts. When she grabbed his ass, he thought he’d lose his mind.

“Take these off,” Corinne begged, staring up at him with the sexiest look of desire in her eyes. “I want to see all of you.”

“I’m yours,” he said, jerking down the unwanted shorts and tossing them to the floor. Wes watched Corinne take in his nakedness and his undeniable attraction to her. He was proud of his body, and he worked hard to be in competitive form, but in the long moment that Corinne ran her eyes over his flesh, he felt that none of it mattered if she didn’t like what she saw.

She brought her fingertips to his stomach, and his cock jumped.

“Promise me something,” she said, a smile lighting her eyes.

“Anything,” he breathed, meaning it. Her fingertips stroked an inch lower and ran back up. He closed his eyes.

“I get to paint you one day like this.”

It was his turn to laugh, loud and grateful. But when her hand closed around the length of him, his laughter morphed into the pull of a deep, shaking breath.

“Oh, God, C…”

The sensation—the amazing, freaking awesome sensation—was too dangerous, so with one hand, he took her wrist and gently drew it from him and up to his lips. With the other, he found her.

And such a discovery.

Corinne threw back her head and shut her eyes when he touched her, and his fingers were immediately slick with her wetness. He knew to be gentle, but not too gentle. To be slow, but deliberate. To use his thumb on her clit when he let two fingers find their way inside, Corinne’s breath quickening at their arrival.

He watched her in awe.

“You’re so beautiful, C,” he whispered, leaning down to capture her mouth again.

She moved against his hand and panted against his mouth.

“Wes…”

The word was almost a plea. Almost.

“Not yet, love,” he told her.

And he watched the frown mark her flushed face as he slid down her body and spread open her legs.

“Oh my God...Oh my God,” she cried when his mouth met her pussy.

Wes moaned at the thrill of her scent. She tasted like desire. And love. And sacred vows.

He gave her his fingers as his tongue coaxed her clit. And when he sucked the sweet knot of nerves once, Corinne started coming.

“Oh God, Wes!”

Corinne’s heels dug into his back, her hips left the mattress, and her muscles clenched around his fingers, making him damn proud and even harder if it were possible.

As she came down and caught her breath, she reached for him.

“Come here. I want you inside me.”

In an instant he was above her, kissing her again, and she reached down between them to take hold of him.

“Condom...condom,” he stammered, dragging himself to the edge of the bed and reaching for his nightstand.

He’d always been careful with other women, and he hoped he was clean, but Wes wasn’t taking any chances with Corinne until he knew for sure.

Love changes everything.

Wrapped up tight and looking down at Corinne, the thought kept a beat in his head. Wes felt like a virgin. He’d had sex countless times. This was the first time he would make love.

He could feel the difference, and the difference humbled him.

Chapter 35

“A
re you sure, Corinne? We can wait if you’re not ready for this,” Wes said above her, peering into her with such tenderness it made her eyes water.

Corinne brought her hands to his face and brushed her thumbs over his cheeks. He was so, so beautiful. Now that she could look all she wanted, she couldn’t get enough.

“I love you, Wes,” she reminded him. “I’m so ready for this.”

Her words must have eased his doubt because she felt him against her, right against her, and their eyes locked.

“I just want to look at you,” Wes whispered, softly, reverently.

She held his gaze until he pushed inside of her, and the feeling broke her down. Dismantled her. One minute she was Corinne, a woman in bed with the man who’d claimed her heart while she wasn’t looking, and the next, she was—

Nothing.

And everything.

All at once.

Fusing with Wes, his flesh entering hers, dissolved her boundaries. Self vanished. Because the look of startled ecstasy on his face the instant they came together mirrored exactly what she felt. And the love in his eyes was her love. She didn’t know where she ended and he began, and what did it matter anyway?

Until he moved deeper.

“
Holymotherofgod!”
she gasped, clinging to his shoulders and wrapping her legs around the back of his thighs.

“Oh, C,” Wes moaned, his eyes going half-closed. He gripped her by the hips and drove them harder, bringing her effortlessly up to meet him again and again.

Corinne felt as though they had been moving slowly toward each other for months, and, finally, the distance between them closed. And being with him was right where she needed to be. Right where she wanted to be.

“At last,” she whispered before the second orgasm took her under. And as her universe folded in on itself and narrowed down to the point of their joined bodies and hearts, she watched Wes succumb to his own tortured bliss. His body tightened above her, within her, sending wave after wave of rapture through her core.

Witnessing him arrive was one of the most beautiful sights she’d ever seen. She could think of nothing else as they caught their breath and came back to themselves.

“You’re gorgeous,” she told him, kissing his face as he rested above her. “Did you know that?”

Wes gave a little shake of his head as he brushed his fingers up and down her arm and dotted her face with kisses.

“All that matters now is that you think so.”

This made her laugh.

“Well, I
do
think so.” She smiled up at him and brought her fingers to the mussed waves of his hair.

Wes looked down at her with the softest smile as though he couldn’t believe what they had just shared. That they were here. Together. Now.

“Don’t move. Just stay right here,” he said, slipping out of her but planting kisses along her shoulder and down her sternum as though he regretted their separation. When he rose from the bed and walked out of the room, Corinne was granted the sight of his perfect ass, and even though he’d just satisfied her—twice—she doubted she would ever get enough of him.

She heard water running in the bathroom, and then she heard him pad into the kitchen. Would this be what life was like now? A naked Wes stalking through the house in the middle of the afternoon? Corinne decided she could get used to that.

He returned in all his glory, carrying a glass of water, which he handed to her.

“Drink up,” he said, climbing in next to her again. “We both need to rehydrate.”

Corinne laughed, but she tipped back the glass and drank.

“Wes, you are the biggest surprise of my life,” she told him honestly.

He took the glass from her, drained it, and set it on the nightstand before snaking a leg between hers and drawing her against him. Skin on skin, surrounded by his heat, Corinne could not imagine that anything felt more soothing.

“You are the best surprise of mine,” he said before placing those perfect lips on hers.

He kissed her until she felt dazed. She half-wondered if he’d be shocked if she attacked him for another round, but when she pulled back to take in his eyes, she saw a hint of shadow in them.

“What is it?” she asked, instantly on alert. She placed her palm against his chest and felt his strong and steady heartbeat.

“I just want you to know…” he started, seeming to grasp for his way. “To know…that I can live with Michael’s ghost…that I’d never ask you to stop loving him or to love me more. I’m happy to be second in your heart—just as long as I’m in there.”

Corinne’s mouth fell open. To be second in her heart? As if she could only love him with just a small piece of herself? Hell, no.

“Wes, you could never be second,” she said, shaking her head, and she felt her eyes well. “Love’s not like that…at least, not for me.”

Wes’s frown deepened as he read her distress, and he pulled her tighter against him.

“I’ll always love Michael and be grateful for our time together,” she plunged on, wanting him to understand. “But Wes, I love you with my whole heart, and I plan to love you for the rest of my life.”

She watched Wes’s eyes soften before she nailed him with her kiss, locking her hands behind his neck, and she felt his smile against her lips. When they had thoroughly tasted and reassured each other, she drew back again.

“Besides,” she said, panting slightly. “Somehow, I think he’d approve.”

Wes’s eyes widened slightly.

“Why do you say that?” he asked, settling his arms around her waist and cinching her tighter against him.

Corinne gently shook her head, almost dismissing her words as she said them.

“Just a dream I had once,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s silly.”

She felt the tiny hairs at the nape of his neck stand at attention and tickle her wrists.

“What dream?” he pressed, looking suddenly intent on hearing about it.

Corinne shrugged, but she kept her eyes on his.

“It was just before the gallery opening—when you were avoiding me,” she added with a remorseful dip of her chin. Wes’s body responded on its own, his thighs tightening against hers, seeming to remind her that they were past that. She ran her hand down his back, a kind of acceptance that,
yes
, they
were
past that.

“Anyway,...I dreamed that I was showing him the gallery, and he told me that your portrait wasn’t finished,” she said, watching his reaction. Was it weird for her to tell him all of this?

But Wes just cracked a smile.

“Go on,” he said.

“Well, when I argued that it
was
finished, he told me I was stubborn and…”

She paused, her eyes cataloguing his, hesitant to say the rest.

“Tell me,” he whispered, dipping down to nip her mouth. “You can say anything to me. About Michael. About anything.”

He met her lips again, and Corinne accepted his kiss, its slowness, its openness. It felt like the end of loneliness.

When they broke apart, she drew a long breath before finishing.

“He said that I was stubborn, and that’s why he had to give me to you.”

Corinne suddenly felt as vulnerable as if she had just been handed to him, as if he might reject her now at this revelation.

But the look on his face said something else entirely.

“Corinne, he did give you to me,” Wes said, the conviction in his voice stilling her nerves, even as his words boggled her. “And he gave me to you.”

“What do you mean?”

She saw that her question drew up a memory, and the memory drew up pain. The now familiar inking darkened his eyes, and she touched his face on impulse. If it were up to her, he’d never bear his sadness alone again.

“It was in the hospital...the last time we were alone…” Wes said, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. “He asked me to take care of you, Corinne...He knew he wouldn’t be able to do it himself, to look after you...and he asked me to do it instead.”

The tears in her eyes spilled over. What had she ever done to deserve them both?

Oh, Michael, thank you.

“I didn’t know then that I’d fall in love with you,” Wes added, quickly, squeezing her in his arms again. “But I’ve wondered for a while now if he did…Somehow, I think he knew we needed each other.”

Laughter bubbled up through the knot in her throat. She’d thought the same thing more than once.

“Yes, that sounds about right,” she said, nodding, but she felt she had to confess the truth. “I’m glad to hear that you need me...that it’s not just one-sided.”

Now Wes laughed. His eyes went wide, but they were lit with joy.

“God, woman, I so need you.” Wes brought a finger to her lips and traced her mouth gently, lovingly. “I’m a better person because of you...a better man.”

His words touched her, and she hoped that they were true, that he was better off because she was in his life.

“I’m alive because of you,” she said, meaning it.

Wes’s face darkened in an instant, and he gave a sharp shake of his head.

“Don’t say that, C,” Wes said with a shudder. Corinne knew he was picturing her OD-ing on ZzzQuil or dead in a dumpster behind City Bar.

She brought a hand to his face to soothe him.

“What I mean is that you brought me back to life,” she explained. “Yes, you kept me from going over the edge, but you made me want to live a real life again.”

She leaned in to kiss him, her mouth asking his to open. Her tongue seeking his. When she drew back a moment later, she saw that she had managed to chase the shadows from his eyes.

Corinne hoped that she’d always be able to do that.

“You brought me back to life, Wes,” she said, again. “And it’s a damn good life.”