Chapter 141

Olivia POV

Jordan fussed about for a while, helping Jenny change into a fresh dress, making sure Elroy and I ate a “real” breakfast, not just coffee and toast, and letting us know how relieved she was that we had realized there was something deeply wrong about Emma.

“You might have said something,” Elroy grumbled, but there was no actual resentment there.

“I did try,” she said.

“You mean you tried to say something and couldn’t?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I mean that I did say something to both of you, but you dismissed it.”

“I don’t remember it,” Elroy said.

“Me either,” I agreed before breaking into a huge yawn I barely managed to cover with my hand in time.

“Time to catch up on some of the sleep you lost last night,” Jordan said.

I nodded and caught Elroy’s gaze. “Yes,” I said. “Shall we go to bed for a while?”

His eyes glittered in response as he nodded. Both of us were thinking about bed but not about sleeping. The love I’d felt for him before had fully returned, and I think the lust I had for him had actually increased.

“Let’s rest up before we head back to the Palace,” he said as he stood and offered me his hand. I took it with pleasure to help get myself out of my chair.

“Thank you for breakfast,” I told the hostess, who waved a hand.

“Oh, anytime, Luna. Just glad you liked it.”

I nodded, and then Elroy and I left the kitchen and made our way up the stairs to our room. I watched as he locked the door and then turned to me.

We smiled at each other. Then he tilted his head just a little.

“So, what would you like, my dear?”

“You, like that first time we met. You and everything that you are.”

“Everything?”

“Yes, OK? My mate, I want it all.”

I reached up and kissed him. What a simple way to describe diving into bliss. I kissed him, and this time he kissed me back, and it was just like that first time. He tasted like lost sleep and enormous relief, like coffee and freedom, like something sweet that could nourish me so completely I would never be hungry again.

The heat of him burned against me, and it felt a little like when the silver glow would burn over my skin.

“We’ll have to go a little gentler than that first time because of the baby,” I said, which was odd because I didn’t particularly feel like I wanted to say it. Frankly, I wanted to tell him to toss me on the bed and fuck me the way I remembered, the way that had made me think he did it professionally.

I wanted the feeling of his hands on me with every molecule of my being, corporal or otherwise, and with greedy hands I started getting rid of the layers between us.

I almost laughed. So many layers. He was still in his Palace clothes. As horrible as the last weeks had been, to have my true Elroy back in my arms made all that fade—not as though someone were taking the memories from me, but simply becoming less with the knowledge that he was tearing at my clothes as hungrily as I was tearing at his.

Elroy was kissing me again, and everything was nothing when he did that. It made no sense. It was a conceit of romance. But it was still true.

I was down to almost nothing when his left hand grabbed my right buttock, and I groaned aloud. I’d gotten his outer shirt off and was working on his undershirt, which would not go over his head because we were kissing so deeply.

I pulled back just a bit.

“What?” he demanded, but I just got that shirt off while his hands went to his pants. Soon, we were both naked, the way we should be, even though my stomach blocked my view of my own feet. It was bliss to see Elroy’s skin exposed, to know what it meant to see his shoulders, his stomach, his hips, his tender-looking genitals, his thighs, his shins, and finally his feet all bared to me.

It was bliss doubled to watch his eyes over my body hungrily, though his gaze softened when he gazed at my pregnant belly.

He smiled and stepped toward me, taking my breasts in his hands. I ran my hands down his back as we pressed close.

“Olivia,” he whispered, and then we were kissing again. He was beyond talented at the art. His lips and tongue and teeth worked at my mouth until I felt dizzy.

It was wonderful.

“Let’s lie down,” I said.

He smiled, letting me know that a little show of bossiness on my part was more than fine in the bedroom. His thumbs brushed over my nipples, and I moaned from deep within myself.

“I want you to enjoy me, Olivia,” he said, and my stomach flipped in desire as I grew wetter still between my legs. “I want you to take every ounce of pleasure you can from me.”

“Same here,” was all I could manage.

Dean kissed my chin, my lips, my philtrum, lingering, then my lips again as his fingers slid over the swell of my middle and then down and inside me, fingering my clit and chuckling no doubt at how ready I obviously was.

A few random memories of recent days flitted through my mind. Life had become so empty without the affection of the father of my child. I had never thought of myself as empty before. Lonely, yes, but not empty. Only as Elroy began to fill the hollow of my chest, the emptiness of my thoughts, had I realized how hollow I had been.

Now, as we kissed and he walked me back a few steps to the bed, I knew the places inside were not just filled with Elroy but also with the life we had been making together before that mongrel had come in to try to take him from me.

I thought of being Luna, of the work I’d been doing, of my friendships with Iris and Jordan, of the return of my mother. A thousand joys had been filling my life, and now it was being returned to me even as my body clenched around Elroy’s fingers and a flush of tingling heat rippled through me.

I moaned. “More of that. More of you.”

“More of you, Olivia,” he growled, and then we were tipping back on the bed, and his heavy body blanketed mine, though he put almost no pressure on my stomach.

I reached down for his cock and relished the velvet-over-stone feel of him. Using his precome, I slid my thumb back and forth over his tip, and he groaned with a pleased sound that made my toes curl.

With my pregnancy so far advanced, I had to remind myself not to thrust down on him, and I was rewarded for my prudence with his careful yet powerful lunge inside me.

“It’s been so long,” I whispered with my eyes closed in bliss. Oh, how did we deny ourselves this?

You’re so warm, he responded. So warm and sweet.

I laughed in pleasure.

Now, he thought to me, let’s see how many times I can make you come.