It Must Be Your Love: The Sullivans (28 page)

“I promised myself that day that I would trust Mia to make the right decisions, and to teach her by example to always insist on the best and the most powerful love.” Max Sullivan raised his glass across the table. “I’m not saying it will be easy to let my little girl go, and to know that I’m no longer the first man she’ll turn to, but if anyone is going to take my place, I’m glad it’s you, Ford.”

Before Ford could begin to express how much Max’s faith in him meant beyond clinking their glasses together in a quick toast, Mia and her mother came back in carrying a huge, warm apple pie and six forks. And as everyone dug straight in, Ford knew that even if Mia’s father hadn’t just said he approved of their relationship, he would have known it by the way her family assumed he’d fight for his pieces of apple from the center of the pie just like the rest of them...and then by the way Mia leaned over, mid-bite, and kissed him in front of the people she loved most in the world.

Ford caught a glimpse of Max and Claudia Sullivan smiling at each other right before he closed his eyes and kissed Mia back.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Mia wasn’t normally in such a rush to get out of her parents’ house after a Friday night dinner, but tonight, as soon as the final apple had been scraped out of the pie pan, she jumped out of her seat and yanked Ford up with her.

“Thanks for dinner. It was amazing. I promise to do all the washing up next time!” She let go of Ford’s hand just long enough to kiss her mother and father and hug her brothers goodbye. She barely gave Ford a chance to say his own thank-yous before she dragged him out of the dining room and through the living room to the foyer. “Love you guys, and we’ll see all of you tomorrow night at the show.”

Before anyone in her family could do or say anything to delay their departure, she opened the front door and pushed Ford out of it, slamming it shut behind them.

“Hurry!” she urged Ford as she moved as fast as she ever had in her heels to throw herself into the passenger seat of his car. He was barely behind the wheel when she grabbed the front of his shirt and planted a crazy hot kiss on him. He tasted like apples and beer and
Ford.
“Even though I know my entire family is standing at the front window watching us right now, if you don’t start the car in the next couple of seconds, I’m going to jump you anyway.”

His grin was at once brilliantly happy and darkly sensual as he started the engine. By the time he pulled out onto the road, she had half the buttons on his shirt undone.

He put one hand over both of hers and held them firm against his chest. “Tell me where there’s a dark place to park. And make it quick or we’re both going to get arrested for public indecency.”

Every inch of her thrilled at the sensual threat in his voice and the hard-rock beat of his heart against her hands. “Turn right here. Left there. Now right again.” With every turn he made, there were fewer houses and streetlights, until they reached the end of the neighborhood and the trees grew thicker as they entered a forest. “Now go straight until we come to the end of the road.”

They were completely shrouded in darkness when Ford turned off the engine. She leapt across the stick shift onto his lap, and though it was a tight fit between the steering wheel and his seat, she relished the hard press of his muscles against her curves.

She loved how hard he was between her thighs, how hungry his hands were as they roved from her breasts to her hips and then back again in a rough and restless pattern of lust. Though it was already pitch black in the car, she closed her eyes as she rocked her pelvis against his to focus every ounce of her concentration on the pleasure that was coming over her in waves.

Her hands were in his hair, her cheek pressed to the side of his as her skirt bunched up beneath his hands—when he stopped cold and gripped her hips hard to hold her still.

“Mia.”

Beyond pleased that he’d just discovered her bare skin, she informed him, “I took my panties off right before dessert.”

“You,” he said as he slowly moved his hands beneath her skirt to caress her naked hips, “are a very bad girl.”

The sinful feel of his fingertips grazing the sensitive skin at her inner thighs made her laugh husky as she urged him, “Be bad with me, Ford.”

“It’s gotten to the point,” he replied in a voice made raw with both emotion and lust, “where I’m coming up with a new fantasy about you every goddamned minute of every day. How I’m going to strip off your clothes. How you’re going to beg me to kiss you, to touch you. But—”

“All week long you’ve teased me,” she growled against his mouth before nipping hard at his lower lip. “I’m done, Ford.”

“Done with what?”

There wasn’t enough light from the moon above them for her to see his eyes, but she could hear the tension—and the hope—in his question.

“Done with doubting you.” She held his face in her hands and turned it slightly so that she could press a kiss to one cheek. “I’m done with being scared of what I feel for you.” She kissed his other cheek. “And I’m done falling in love with my best friend.”

“Tell me what you’re saying.” His words were rough, instead of gentle. “Tell me
exactly
what you’re saying, Mia.”

“I know we can’t erase our past, but there was enough good about what we had during that first week before it all imploded that I don’t think I’d want to erase it even if we could. This past week has shown me what a future with you could look like.” God, yes, she was desperate for more of him—all of him—but she wanted all the little things, too. “Falling asleep in your arms, feeling safe and loved. Waking up with you beside me in the morning, knowing I’ve finally found my other half. Spending our free time during the day laughing, and loving you more with every second, even when you’re pushing all of my hot buttons.” Threading her fingers through his, she said, “And you should know you have my mother’s stamp of approval, too.”

Mia hadn’t realized how much she’d needed that support and approval until her mother had gently pushed her to have faith in what she was feeling for Ford...and to know that it was natural to second-guess a love this powerful, even for a woman as amazing as her mother.

“You’re the person I want to laugh with. You’re the person I want to cry with. You’re the person I want to tell all of my secrets to. You’re the first one I want to call when I close a big new deal and also to make up new curse words with when one goes bad. You’re my best friend, Ford, and I know you always will be. I’m saying that I want to be yours in
exactly
every possible way.”

All week, when things had gotten heated and desperate between them, Ford had always been the one to stop them from going too far. But tonight, after telling him he was her new best friend, he immediately pulled the lever that lowered the seat back and flipped them over so that she was lying beneath him.

“Do you remember our first night together?” he asked.

The memory sent thrill bumps racing across her skin, even though she was burning up from the inside out at his nearness.
“God, yes.”

When they’d left the venue, the limo door had barely closed and the privacy screen hadn’t quite rolled all the way up to the ceiling when they’d attacked each other. She could remember everything about making love with Ford for the first time in the back of his limo, except whose clothes had come off first. They’d been that desperate for each other.

“You ruined limos for me,” he told her.

In the dark, all she knew was how deliciously heavy Ford was as he pressed her into the seat, his clean masculine scent taking over her senses one shaky breath at a time.

“Next limo we’re in,” she whispered into his ear, “I promise I’ll make it up to you.” Her teeth closed over his earlobe as she yanked his shirt all the way open. “Want a preview tonight?”

“I want
everything
tonight,” he said a beat before his mouth covered hers in a kiss that was shockingly possessive, thrillingly dominant...and utterly loving.

* * *

Mia was hot and needy and so damned ready everywhere he touched, but even as he greedily ran kisses over her face, her shoulders, the swell of her breasts, and then up her thighs to her hips, he knew he’d never be able to get enough of her in the cramped seat. He wanted to see her skin flush, he needed to watch her eyes spark, then cloud, as he took her closer and closer to pleasure, then sent her rushing all the way past.

“Home.” But even as he made the nearly impossible decision to wait a few more minutes to have her, he had to press his mouth to the spot on her neck where her pulse was racing and she smelled like hothouse flowers. “I’m taking you home, and then I’m going to make love to you until neither of us can move.”

“No.” Her arms tightened around his back as she turned her face so that her lips brushed against his. “I can’t make it that far feeling like this.”

She moved, limber and insistent against him, and when his hand that was beneath her skirt slid against her slick heat, he silently agreed that he couldn’t let her suffer for the short ride back to his house.

He didn’t give her so much as a word of warning before he thrust two fingers hard and deep inside her. She rewarded him with a low moan of pleasure that resonated all the way down to his soul. Shifting on the seat just enough that she could push her hips against his hand, he urged, “Show me what a bad girl you are by coming apart for me, Mia. Just like this, in the car, with my fingers inside you.”

Oh yes, he thought as her climax approached like a runaway train, she still loved dirty talk. For five years he’d remembered every naughty moment with her in the week they’d spent together. He’d need at least fifty more years of loving her to make it through the new list of naughty fantasies he’d come up with this week.

Cupping her left breast with his free hand, he teased her erect nipple mercilessly as he increased the pace and force of his fingers inside. And even though he should have been prepared for her climax, he wasn’t even close to ready for it.

Because she wasn’t just coming for him, she was shattering completely, and totally, against and beneath him. Surrendering not just her body...but all of her doubts and fears, too.

Despite being harder than he’d ever been in his life, he gathered her close and simply held her until her breathing evened out. Somehow, he managed to let her go for long enough to gently lift her back into her seat and slip the buckle over her, and to corral his focus so that he could drive safely out through the neighborhood and onto the freeway that would take them to his house.

He’d heard her come, he’d felt her come, but, damn it, he needed to
see
her come. And that wouldn’t happen in his car on a dark, deserted road. He needed to get them back to his house in one piece so that he could take her inside, turn on every goddamned light in the place, and strip off her clothes to appreciate every inch of her.

In the faint glow of the streetlights, Mia was so beautiful that he could barely trust himself to look at her without crashing. But though he made sure to drive carefully, he simply didn’t have the control left not to take a glimpse of her whenever it was safe to look away from the road for a brief moment.

Her high heels had come off as they’d tangled together on his seat and her legs were curled up beneath her, her face turned to him as she relaxed against her head rest. Her eyes were closed and he might have thought she was sleeping off the aftereffects of her powerful orgasm, were it not for the way her hand was creeping steadily but surely across his thigh.

“Are we almost there?” she murmured in a heavy voice without bothering to open her eyes.

“Keep doing that with your hand, and I sure as hell will be,” he warned her.

Of course, instead of moving her hand away, her beautiful lips curved up into a smile and she shifted in her seat so that she could feel him up even more.

Sweet Lord, if her fingers came one inch closer to his erection, they were going to be in danger of his crashing the car into a utility pole. Thankfully, he pulled onto his street and through his security gate before he could get them into an accident.

Seconds later, he was scooping her up into his arms and making a dash for the tower. She wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled him, soft and trusting for whatever he had planned for them now that they were home.

Home.
At the base of the tower stairs, he faltered, and she finally opened her eyes to look at him. “Ford?”

Her beauty, and her goodness, humbled him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Though she’d told him how she felt about him in the car, it was the first time she’d said those three words, simple and pure, in five years.

His hands tightened around her. “Say it again.”

“I love you.”

Knowing she could keep saying the words in an infinite loop and he’d never get tired of hearing them, he said, “Again.”

“Oh, Ford.” She slid her hands from his neck to frame his face. “I love you so much. More than I even know how to tell you. More than I’ll ever be able to show you.”

The kiss she gave him was so sweet he actually felt an ache from the sensation of his heart expanding inside his ribs.

“You already have,” he swore to her, and it was touch and go for a moment as to whether or not he would simply lower her to the floor and take her. But then, he barely, just barely, managed to corral the absolute last bit of his self-control to make himself move up the stairs with her in his arms.

From the first moment he’d seen the house, he’d wanted to make love to Mia in the tower. Upon moving in on Monday night, he’d found a cupboard hidden in the stone walls that was filled with soft blankets and pillows.

He could hardly bear to let her go long enough to make a bed, but as soon as he opened the door to the linens, she made a happy sound. Pulling out a colorful quilt, she spread it out on the tiled floor so he could drop the blankets and pillows over it.