Yours, For Good (Cozy Latine Billionaires #4)

43. Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Javier

We returned to my home in the Upper East Side and fell into a routine— we stretched time and avoided looking at the unanswered questions. All the while, I tormented myself with the plan I prepared for, and begged the powers that be that I made the right decisions.

It was easy to press pause on those doubts when I pushed deep into her.

Nora bent over the reading sofa in my library office, nails digging into the cushions. I lost myself in the ecstasy of her body. She crossed her legs at the ankles, squeezing me tighter, and I choked on my own breathing.

Half the sounds I made were out of despair, that Nora's train left for Connecticut the next day.

I retreated and thrust into her again, allowing her whimper to carve itself into my bones.

The last few days had been damn near normal. Which meant damn near perfect. Something big had happened while she spoke to Lina, Vi, and Eva, but Nora hadn't shared what that was. I didn't push; I hadn't shared what my own conversation with my friends had been about, either.

I had a plan for telling her everything, though.

I grabbed at her generous, soft hips for dear life, and continued to fuck her like it might be the last time. The anguish hammering in my chest was too powerful for gentle love making; tenderness would have to wait. For now, I pistoned my hips and bit back a groan.

I slapped her thigh. "Knees on the couch."

She moaned and did as told. Adjusting to the new position got me off her and in my confused, famished state, I thought nothing better than to wrap a fist around my cock. A greedy hand caressed the round lines in front of me, my eyes devouring the view— an apple-shaped ass, thick thighs smattered with cute dimples, and the dripping wet flesh of her sex, glistening from my tongue and general ministrations…

I groaned. "You're perfect, Nora."

With a hard hand around myself, I surged my hips forward. The fingers circling my girth kept half my cock out, tormenting us both with a teasing, partial thrust. I repeated the motion, one, two, fifty times. A swaying feeling twisted in my chest, overcome as I was with need to sink myself in her again. Feeling her flesh part for me. Letting the tiny, frustrated sounds she made beg me for more.

Nora's breathing rasped in her throat, whenever strangled noises didn't make her throat sing.

She arched her back and pressed back, seeking more of my dick. "I don't even have a preference for partners who own a cock —" a certain dreaminess to her tone had me wondering if she knew she was speaking out loud— "whether they were born with it or they acquired it later on… attached, or not… and yet here I am, so thoroughly thirsty for yours…"

The sentences came out broken up by her stuttering lungs. She grabbed at a random throw pillow and held on to it, face plastered to the soft material.

"What are you doing to me?" she cried out. "I need your hands all over me."

"Fuck." I notched the head on her entrance, let go of my cock, and thrust deep into her again.

The same strangled sob she made the first time we were together filled my ears.

"Come up." I gathered her in my arms, lifting her torso. With her kneeling on the sofa, this changed the angle in which I fucked her in the most delicious, utterly devastating way.

I would never be able to work at my desk and look at the couch across from me the same way again.

She moaned, soft in my arms. I let my hands roam all over. Eventually one hand latched to a breast, fingers playing with her nipple; the other rubbed on her slick, swollen clit. All the while, I pumped into her and drove us both wild.

"I love how you touch me," she breathed. Her hands clasped my forearms.

The hand on her chest journeyed up to her neck. I surrounded the long column with my fingers; a gentle pressure, just enough to feel the speed of her heartbeat. It ran as fast as mine.

Ragged words made it through me. "You could tie my hands and I'd find a way to touch you like this."

A few seconds passed, her clit hard under my fingertips, my cock working her and stretching her. Her pulse flying under my fingers.

"We might have to try that one day…" she let out.

It sounded like an admission— the potential for our future. It held power of some kind, and her body shook in my arms, and her pussy clamped me tight in an erratic rhythm, and the force of her climax and the meaning of her words…

Earth stopped spinning. My body locked up. My heart tittered at the edge of hope. My blood filled with possibility.

I came with a sob of my own.

I melted in the space of three heartbeats. I lost all my strength and we tumbled forward; we hadn't fully undressed and my pants chained my ankles— we fell onto the couch in a jumble of fabric and limbs.

Even as we disconnected, I kept her in my arms. Her head found its way to my shoulder, and one of my arms curled around her back. The other found harbor on her plush hip.

We recovered slowly, the sound of our breathing the only company we had. The library became our cocoon.

"We fit together." Nora's statement broke the silence in a wistful tone. "I think that's something true."

It was a little game we had started after returning from the lake house. We listed things about us and our relationship we were sure of.

"Something true is that we've been avoiding the larger conversation," I replied.

She sighed. "Yes, that's something true, too."

"Why do you think?"

"Because it's scary. It feels like Grand Central looms over us, rather than it being a beautiful train station."

I drew patterns on her skin. "It's going to be hard tomorrow."

She didn't respond. She lay still next to me, and for a moment I wondered if she might drift off to sleep. If I might have to wake her up so we could tackle what was to come.

When she spoke again, sleepiness was nowhere to be found. She sounded resolute.

"We need to talk." She sat up and rearranged her clothes, a thoughtful frown on her brow.

I echoed her; I put myself back together, as if having all our clothes on would protect us from the pain we might feel, if our decisions left us bereft.

"It's time," I agreed. I buttoned my jeans, but didn't bother with my shirt.

"I was thinking… I don't have to return to Lock Willow tomorrow. I could stay here for a bit longer…"

It would have been easy to take her words and prolong the inevitable. I could have taken comfort in waiting with her by my side, letting hope cloak the future for a bit longer.

Even as my heart knocked at my breastbone begging me to reconsider, I begged for the wisdom to do good for us both.

I got up and pulled her hand, so she'd follow me to the bookshelves behind my desk.

"I'm sorry if it's too sudden of a proposal." She followed me to the other end of the room. "I said it as a suggestion, but maybe I should be more direct and ask properly. Communication is key, right? And we should be able to…"

She quieted down when I opened one of the drawers at the bottom of the built in, to reveal two gifts of about the same size. I took them out and placed them on my desk.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Open them."

Her eyes switched between the packages and me, as if trying to figure out if it was a trap.

"Come on." I kissed her cheek. "They're yours."

Reluctantly, she tore the blue paper with specks of gold.

"Books?" She put the paper aside and inspected the tomes closely. "The Alders Trilogy?!"

She removed the ribbon keeping a set of three books together, and studied one of the novels in detail.

"These ones are signed first editions." I cleared my throat. "For the first book we discussed. I asked the author to sign them to Nora, rather than your full name— I hope that's okay."

"She signed them to me?!"

"I only got them this morning. I've been waiting for them."

She opened the hardback cover of the first book and ran a finger down the first page, where ink had marked a few words from the author and Nora's name.

"These are beautiful, Javier— so special—" She sounded a bit choked up.

"The other one is the latest special edition. Also signed."

She hugged the first edition to her chest with an arm; her free hand landed on the other set sitting on the desk.

Her eyes were on me, a trace of tears on her bottom lid. "Thank you. This is incredibly sweet."

"They're probably a lot to carry back and forth, so you can leave them here until you know where you'll live. I can send them there when you're ready…"

It was already difficult to speak. I took a deep breath to contain the emotions that built in my throat.

"Why does this sound like goodbye?" she asked.

"It's only goodbye if you want it to be."

She shook her head. "I'm not leaving until tomorrow, and maybe… maybe if I change my ticket…"

I pressed my lips together. "The books are just a small gesture. It's only a part of what I hoped to say tonight."

"Okay…"

I steeled myself to reveal my heart to her, and hope I didn't mangle the speech I'd practiced in my head for a week.

Blood rushed in my ears.

"I love you, Nora."

Her lips parted, and her eyes widened in a mix of hope and surprise. She hugged the book closer.

"For a long time," I said, "I didn't recognize it for what it was. That was my failing. I knew it was big, and important, and… peaceful? Trusting? Fuck, I still can't find the words."

I shook my head. My hand rested on the desk, but I didn't notice until Nora's fingers wrapped around it. A silent request to keep talking.

I gulped. "For a long time, I wondered if I was capable of feeling this. I had only felt the ghost of it, and it didn't seem like the kind of thing I could bet on. It may make you laugh, but… I asked my grandmother at the young age of sixteen, how to recognize it."

Nora left her book on the desk and took a step closer to me. "What did she say?"

"That she knew because she fought her parents trying to convince them to let her marry the man she loved— she had never been anything but an exemplary daughter. She pushed herself out of her comfort zone for him. She pushed the limits."

"This is another truth— we're both doing that."

I nodded, recognizing more of the game we'd been playing. We were both pushing our limits.

I lifted a hand to her face, and caressed her freckles with the path of my thumb. "When she couldn't marry him and had to accept the proposal her parents wanted, she said her heart broke. Seeing her beloved marry someone else did it. And when she walked down the aisle, heart in pieces, she still loved the same person. Those things told her she truly loved him."

"I don't want my heart to break. That's the whole point."

"I wish I could protect you from it, but I can't. As much as I know I'll never walk away from this, there is nothing I can do to guarantee lightning won't strike. It would take nothing short of an act of nature to tear us apart, but I have no way to reassure you. There's nothing I can promise to make that the truth. So I have to give you something else, and hope it'll help you forgive me. Help you trust me. Us."

She gazed at me with glassy eyes and a line of pain between her eyebrows, but she let me speak.

"Tell me, love." I licked my bottom lip, tasting the L word there, finding it sweet. "What will make you happy?"

"I don't know— how could I choose today—"

"I'm not asking you to choose today, but you deserve to find out if you want to move on without me. How can you make this choice if you don't know how you feel? If you stay, fear and grief will hide in the shadows and haunt us— they will hide your true feelings."

"If I have doubts, it's only because I'm scared. But maybe I don't have to be sure—" She bit her lip, tears pooling in her eyes. It tore at my heart.

I couldn't breathe properly, so my attempt at a deep breath ended up shallow anyway. "When you're gone, maybe you will miss me. Maybe you'll have the space you need to figure out how you feel about me, and if you really can forgive me one day. Decide if what we have is worth taking the risk. You have always found refuge in time and space— from our first kiss to after I confessed everything. So I'm giving you those things again."

She shook her head, fighting me even if she couldn't say the words.

Agony embedded itself in my guts, but I kept going. "You deserve to know— find out if you'd rather face grief today. If the life you envisioned for yourself is where you find your true happiness. Carrying these questions will only slow you down and I think… you're someone who's meant to soar."

A tear fell from her eyelashes, and I wiped it away with my thumb.

I pressed a soft kiss to her lips. "I love you, Nora. So walk away. See if you grieve me. How you grieve me. We only mourn what we love, and you should know if you love me back if you're going to return to me."

"Javier…"

Watery paths marked her face now, and I wiped them with tender fingers. "I've treasured every little piece of your heart you've shown me. I know you're not fully in… out of fear and hurt. I get it. Seeing you walk away will shatter my heart and, you know? I'm pretty sure I'll still feel the same. That's why I'll wait for you as long as you need."

A watery gasp made it through her lips. My heart constricted out of despair and the need to protect her from all of it.

"That's one hell of a brave move, Javier." She grabbed at my open shirt and pulled. "To stand here and ask me to go away. Test what I feel for you this way."

"It's supposed to be a grand gesture." I brought her closer to me. "To boldly tell you how I feel with zero expectation I'll hear it back. To tell you I understand you've been alone for so long you know nothing else. That I'll wait until you know if you want me to help change that for you. Let you choose for us."

"So ballsy," she repeated, but this time tears fell once more.

I kissed them away. "I'm scared, for what it's worth. You may decide that you don't love me. And I'm terrified I'm causing it and fucking up again."

"I don't think you're wrong." She ran her fingers down my chest, over my chain, the medal, and the ring. "But I hate to admit it, because I hoped to go on pretending uncertainty was okay. That the hope I can have for most things would reach this part of my heart one day, without me having to try. That's not very courageous, is it?"

"We can do the brave thing." I kissed her freckles. "We'll do this even if we're scared. If you come back and find me here like I promised, maybe that will prove to you that you can trust me. That only destiny could get in the way, because we refuse to let anything else break us."

"This is going to hurt. That's a good sign, right?"

I gave her a lopsided smile. "This is one more truth— it's giving me hope."

We found a special place for the books on the shelves, then I watched her struggle as she packed. Hesitate as we tentatively made a plan for the next day.

Later, we made love and said goodbye. She fell asleep in my arms; I lay awake and unmoving so she would stay with me in my bed.

In the dark of the night, with her warmth soaking into my skin, I heard it— a crack. My heart crumbled to pieces in my chest, fractured by the terror of what I'd done.

We kissed at the station the next morning. Seeing her climb the steps into her train car kicked the jagged shreds in my chest, but I stayed there— I watched her until she was long gone, and my hands had stopped shaking in my pockets.

The only thing that got me to return home was realizing that her going away meant I had kept my last promise.

At the end of it all, I let her go.