Until Fountain Bridge: (InterMix) (9 page)

When I’d returned home to give everyone the optimistic news, Adam had surprised me by kissing me right there in front of my parents. I was even more surprised to discover
they
weren’t the least bit shocked. Afterward, we’d all gone next door to the pub to gather our thoughts and try to unwind from what had been the most horrendous twenty-four hours I’d ever remembered experiencing. I sat in the pub with Adam on one side and Hannah curled into me on the other, and, despite everything, I felt incredibly lucky as I gazed around at my friends and family.

Mum and Clark eventually took Hannah and Dec home, Braden reluctantly left to give Joss some space, and Joss disappeared, to give me and Adam some space. We ordered some takeaway, which I ravenously ate when we got back to my flat.

Adam and I hung out on my bed and talked for a little while, but there was so much to talk about it and I was too exhausted to give us the focus we needed. It seemed Adam was, too, because he disappeared with our leftovers and returned only to cuddle up to me in the bed and reach out to switch off the light.

When I awoke to soft morning sun pouring in through my curtains, I was feeling strong and ready to take on anything, and Adam Sutherland was spooning me.

It was kind of beautiful.

I felt his hair tickle my neck as he moved and his arm snaked across my waist. “You awake, baby?” he murmured, sleep making his voice extra sexy.

My grin got bigger. “Yeah.” I lightly caressed his forearm. “You know in all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never slept near you. You make noises.”

I felt his chest move behind me in laughter. “Noises?”

Twisting around, so I could look into his eyes, I grinned up into his face as he leaned over me. “You make ‘mmm’ noises.”

Adam grinned back at me. “What are ‘mmm’ noises?”

“You know ‘mmm’ noises. Like when something tastes or sounds good.”

He grimaced. “Like ‘yum’ noises?”

“Exactly, but you say, ‘mmm . . . ’”

“I think I just took a hit to my masculinity.”

I burst out laughing and stroked his jaw. “Don’t worry. I liked it. I just imagined the ‘mmms’ were for me.”

I turned over and Adam wrapped his arms tighter around me as he pulled my leg over his hip. His eyes grew drowsy and heated as he stared at my mouth. “They were for you.”

“How could they be for me if you didn’t even know you make them?”

“Because I dream about you,” he answered instantly and I stilled in surprise. He felt it and gave me a squeeze. “I’ve been having these dreams about you for a few years now.”

“What am I doing in them?” I asked somewhat breathlessly. There was a rising tide of warmth in my chest, and an even hotter heat tingling between my legs at his confession.

His hand slid down my waist to caress my bum and then he pulled my lower body against his and I could feel his morning erection pressing against me. I felt my nipples tighten in reaction, and drew in a breath. “Sometimes we’re making love, other times we’re fucking.”

I lifted my eyes to his, my smile dimming. “I don’t like that word.”

His mouth twitched. “You think it’s unromantic.”

He knew me too well. I shrugged unsurely.

“Els, wanting to fuck you doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

Needing more clarification, I slid my hands down from his face and settled them lightly on his chest. “What does it mean?”

His voice was hoarse now, “When I want to fuck you it means I’m in the mood for rough and hard.”

To my utter shock his words were turning me on. I squirmed a little against him and felt my cheeks flush. “I don’t think I’ve ever been . . . ” I still wasn’t sure if I could say the word. I’d admonished Joss so many times for using it because it was so tawdry sounding but when Adam put it like that.

“Say it,” he whispered across my mouth. “I want to hear it from your sweet mouth, baby.”

I gulped and bravely met his eyes. “I’ve—I’ve never been fucked,” I whispered.

If it was possible he grew even harder against me and when his hand slipped between our bodies and beneath my underwear, his fingers thrusting gently but easily into me, Adam groaned. “Baby . . . ” he leaned into me, his mouth brushing mine, his tongue just touching the tip of mine. “I think you like the thought of me fucking you.”

In response I kissed him. It was a deep kiss, one I meant to encourage him, but instead it turned soulful and desperate.

Adam rolled me onto my back, pressing my legs apart so he could settle between them, and when he broke our kiss it was to look into my eyes with such adoration I couldn’t breathe. “I’m not going to fuck you this morning, baby. This morning I’m going to make love to you. We’ll leave the rest until you’re recovered and at full strength.” His eyes darkened with promise. “You’re going to need it.”

I grinned up at him, suddenly realizing that Adam was here, in my arms, talking about our future together. It was a thirteen-year-old dream come true. “You have no idea how much I love you.”

He nodded slowly, pushing my nighty up my body. “As much as I love you.”

It was the first time he’d said it that I could allow myself to really feel it. Those three words poured out of him and pooled in my chest. As I raised my nighty over my head, lying almost naked for his perusal, I smiled shyly up at him. “You know, I don’t mind what we do this morning. You can do whatever you want to me.”

To my surprise this caused Adam to groan and he dropped his head on my shoulder.

“Baby?”

He turned his cheek and pressed a kiss to my bare skin, his hands coasting up my ribs to cup my breasts. I arched into his touch with a sigh as he replied, “How did I get so lucky? Smart, funny, sweet, beautiful, passionate—and she tells me I can do anything I want to her . . . ” He chuckled now. “There has to be a catch.” I blushed deeply and Adam smiled. “Fuck, I forgot modest.”

“Stop it.” I pushed playfully at his shoulders but really I needed him to stop or I was going to start crying.

He laughed again, the rumbling against my chest doing happy things to me down south. Adam gave my shoulder another quick kiss and sat up, straddling me as he pulled off his T-shirt. I drank my fill of him, biting my lip as my eyes took him in. I’d forgotten how beautiful he was—broad shoulders and lean muscles. Abs to die for.

His eyes never left me as his hands went to the buckle on his belt. I shivered with anticipation as he drew the zipper on his jean down. “This morning I’m making love to you because our first time should be about that. Plus, no matter how great you’re feeling, and I can tell you’re feeling a lot better, your body must still be exhausted. We’re taking it nice and slow.” He pushed down his jeans and underwear and my breathing stuttered as his erection sprang free, jutting up and out, hard and throbbing. Now I knew why the bugger was so confident. He was walking around with
that
in his trousers.

“You’re making ‘mmm’ noises,” Adam told me with laughter in his voice as he turned to shimmy his jeans clean off.

“I am not!” I protested, blushing again, and realizing I’d been so lost in staring at him that there was a great possibility I
had
been making ‘mmm’ noises.

“You were. It’s fucking adorable.” He reached for my underwear. I tilted my hips to help him ease them down my legs, and as he did he stopped every now and then to kiss my bare skin. He pushed my left knee up and I watched him with growing heat coiling in the pit of my stomach as he trailed kisses up my calf, across my knee, and along my inner thigh. “Your legs go on forever,” he whispered, his eyes lifting to meet mine. “I can’t wait to have them wrapped around me while I’m inside you.”

“Adam . . . ” I was completely at his mercy.

I repeated his name when his head descended between my legs and his tongue licked gently at my clit. He worked me with his mouth, kissing and licking and sucking until I came fast and hard against him.

I was still crying out to God as Adam kissed his way up my stomach and then stopped to draw my nipple into his hot mouth. He played with me a while, all the time murmuring compliments and words of love, until eventually I was wound so tight I begged him to come inside me.

At the pressure of him between my legs, I tensed momentarily. Feeling it, Adam threaded his fingers through mine and held my hands down on the bed while he stared into my eyes, anchoring me to him in every way he could. His lips parted on exhalation as he pushed inside me and sank deep. I gasped and lifted my hips in instinct causing a delicious frisson of pleasure through us both. Adam studied me, his expression tender. “I love you, Ellie Carmichael,” he whispered, his words heavy with sincerity.

I nodded and moved my hips again, panting slightly as I replied, “I love you, Adam.”

His grip on my hands became almost painful and he slid out of me nearly entirely before gliding back inside. I undulated against him, and we caught a wave, a slow rhythm that grew and grew until I was desperate for the finale. My legs were wrapped around him now, my thighs squeezing him tighter, begging for more.

“Adam,” I cried out, pushing against his hands, wanting to touch him, wanting to grasp him against me. “Harder, please.”

He growled low in his throat and he pulled out only to slam back into me. I started murmuring nonsense, mostly saying the word “Yes” over and over again as he continued to slam into me.

“Come for me, Els,” he demanded, his eyes on my face. “Come for me, baby.”

And like I’d been prone to doing for years, I gave him what he wanted. The rhythm hit its crescendo and I broke apart with a scream as Adam pressed his cheek to mine and tensed. I floated around in post-orgasmic space and he shuddered hard against me as he came.

We were both panting heavily, both clammy with sweat. I grinned up at the ceiling. That was what happened when you had the most amazing sex of your life.
“Wow,”
I whispered, sliding my arms around his back now that he’d let my hands go.

Adam lifted his cheek from mine, his features relaxed with satisfaction. His dark eyes, however, were glittering intensely. “Wow doesn’t even cover it,” he replied. “Been waiting my whole life for that.”

I bit my lip because hearing that was so nice, I wanted to cry.

He picked up on my emotions, smiled, and gave me a soft kiss. When he pulled back he frowned. “That was a bit of both.”

“What?” I frowned back at him in confusion.

“I started out making love to you but it’s your fault I ended up fucking you.”

“My fault?”

“Adam,” his voice went amusingly breathy as he imitated me, “‘Harder, please.’” He shook his head as I laughed. “I’m a man of great self-control but that . . . ”

I squeezed my thighs around him again in delight. “Are you admitting I have power over you, Adam Gerard Sutherland?”

His eyebrows puckered together as he shook his head in denial, a shake that quickly turned to a nod as I giggled beneath him. He closed his eyes in what appeared to be pleasured pain and suddenly he captured me around the waist and flipped us so he was on his back and I was lying on top of him. He held me close and I relaxed against him. I understood: He just needed to hold me for a moment and remember I was okay.

Once again I was overwhelmed by the realization that he was in love with me. I smiled and snuggled closer to him.

After a while he murmured, “You’re on the pill, right?”

“Shouldn’t you have asked that before you took me oh so wildly?”

He grinned up at me. “I wasn’t really thinking about anything but the need to take you oh so wildly.”

“Well, not to worry. I’m on the pill,” I assured him and settled back on his chest.

“Wouldn’t have mattered anyway,” he murmured, stroking my hair.

I tensed. “Meaning?”

“Meaning if an accident happened, it wouldn’t matter. An accident with you is a kid with you.”

Shock held me completely frozen as I processed this. How many times had I heard Braden joking with Adam about how terrified he was of getting a girl pregnant? It was one of the reasons Braden suspected Adam never slept with the same girl twice. In his twisted male logic, he thought it meant it lessened the chance of an accident, or at least it lessened the chance of a girl liking him so much she’d force an accident.

“You’d want a baby with me?” My throat croaked on the question.

I felt his knuckles brush down my spine in a caress that made me shiver to the tips of my toes. “Ellie, I want everything with you.”

Tears glimmering in my eyes I lifted my head and replied softly, gratefully, “I never knew you could be so romantic.”

Adam’s lips twitched in response and he shook his head against the pillow. “I’m not, but I reckon I’d do anything for you and since that has included sitting through more romantic comedies any man should have to endure, I know you’re a romantic. I just want you happy. I’ve got a lot to make up for.” He brushed my hair back from my face. “And you make it easy.” He pulled lightly on a strand of hair, his expression suddenly serious. “But if you breathe one word of it to your brother, or anybody for that matter, there will be consequences.”

I smiled and shook my head. “I won’t tell, I promise. I like knowing something about you no one else does.”

“Then we’re even.”

“How do you mean?”

He flipped me again and I squealed with laughter as he wrestled me back on the bed. Once he had me captured with my legs wrapped around his waist, he kissed me and drew back to murmur, “I’m the only one who knows sweet little Ellie Carmichael likes it when I talk dirty.”

Once again I felt my skin flush with embarrassment, but I didn’t contradict him. I couldn’t because he was so damn right.

Chapter 9

“Okay, I’ve decided you can’t give these to Joss.” Adam slammed the diary closed. “In fact, you may have to burn them.”

I took the journal from him and added it to the pile. “Why?”

“Because you go into a lot of detail, Els. Not just about sex, but also about what I say to you before, during, and after sex.”

I tried not to laugh and failed miserably. “You mean the romantic stuff?”

He gave me an unimpressed look. “You are
not
giving that to Joss. She’ll tell Braden and I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“You know Joss tries to be considerate, since Braden’s my brother, but sometimes things slip and what slips is that he can be a romantic too.”

Adam’s eyebrows rose and I saw his mouth start to curl mischievously at the corners. “Romantic how?”

I smiled at him. “As if I’m going to tell you and give you ammunition to torture him.”

“It’s only fair if you’re going to give him ammunition to torture me.”

Chuckling at the fear that my brother would discover Adam’s softer side, I shook my head slowly and answered casually. “I’m not.”

“What do you mean you’re not?”

“I’ve decided not to give Joss the diaries.”

Cocking his head in confusion, Adam’s eyes asked the question for him.

I shrugged. “I was going to up until that last entry. Reading it all just reminded me how much we felt, how much we feel, and how much a part of us it all is. It doesn’t belong to anyone else, and I guess I don’t want it to. It’s ours. Our history. Our story. And in a way, our future too. As much as I love her, you’re right. I can’t give that to Joss. I can’t give
these
to her.” I gestured to the diaries and then got up on all fours in an effort to clean up the piles of books, but I was stopped abruptly by the pressure of Adam’s hands on either side of my hips.

I looked back over my shoulder, my eyes widening slightly at the sight of him on his knees behind me with the most carnal and possessive look on his face. My lips parted as he pulled my arse into him and I felt his erection rub against me. “What are you doing?” I asked on a whisper.

In response, he slipped his hand around to the zipper on my shorts and tugged it down as his other hand tugged the zipper down on his jeans. “In a little while, we’ll go upstairs to make love, but right now I’m going to fuck my future wife on top of our history.”

Somehow Adam managed to get the f-word into the most romantic sentence ever, and I didn’t care. Instead I gasped as he rocked against me and hoarsely replied, “What about the floor? We might scratch it.”

He stroked my spine, then brought his hands back down to grip my hips and pull me harder against him. “Do you really think I give a shit about the floor right now?”

I shook my head, already flushing with anticipation. “I’m guessing not.”

Adam grinned wickedly. “Let’s start the next chapter, baby.”