Getting Played - Emma Chase Page 0,80

his hair. My muscles clench and my clothes feel rough on my heated skin—because I want them off and I want him inside me. In the bedroom, Dean plants me on my feet without taking his mouth from mine, and strips my leggings down my legs. I yank his shirt off and lick and nibble the taut, warm skin of his gorgeous chest.

Dean cups my cheek in his palm and breathes out hard.

“Lainey, are you sure you’re okay with this? You want this?”

“Why are you asking?” I ask. “Because I’m a thousand weeks pregnant?”

Dean presses a kiss to my temple. “Yeah. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“No, I’m good.” I nod. “Unless . . .” I look down at the belly-button-popping, immensely round stomach wedged between us. “Unless you don’t want to?”

A raspy scoff scrapes up Dean’s throat—like I just said something ridiculous.

Gently, slowly and deliberately, he skims my cotton maternity dress up over my head, then he unclasps my bra and peels it down my arms. And then he takes his time looking at me—dragging those ocean-blue eyes across my bare body with the same simmering intensity as the first night we met.

I twist my fingers together. “I know I’m—”

“Beautiful,” he whispers, with raw, reverent, sincerity. “You’re really fucking beautiful.”

And I don’t just hear the words—I feel them, under my skin and in my heart.

A smile tugs at my lips as Dean steps in close and takes my mouth in a kiss that makes my head light and my world spin. I slide my hand down his stomach, unbuttoning his jeans, so I can touch him, stroking him where he’s so thick and hard.

Then he picks me up in those strong arms and carries me to the bed.

~ ~ ~

What started off as fevered, desperate, wild sex ended up being intense, slow, deep lovemaking. Dean refused to let go until he gave me my third orgasm—he said he still has dozens to give until we’re even—and then with a long groan into my hair and his fingers clasping my thigh, he went over the edge with me.

Now we’re laying entwined and boneless in the bed. And I love this—the feel of his chest under my cheek, his arms around me, every inch of him so warm and solid. This spot, in Dean’s arms is my most happy place.

My eyes wander around the almost finished master suite—at the texture painted deep blue walls and the romantic faux-fur throw rug over the cherrywood floors, the one of a kind, hand-finished furniture.

And I sigh long and low.

Dean’s hand, that was combing through my hair, pauses.

“That’s not a happy sigh.”

I lift my head, resting my chin on his chest, and smile.

“You know my sighs?”

“I have them all mentally categorized. You have a happy sigh, a frustrated sigh, a horny sigh—incidentally that one’s my favorite—and a sad sigh. That last one was a saddy. What’s up with that?”

I draw little circles on his chest with my finger.

“I called the bank yesterday to check on the reappraised value of the house . . .”

Technically, the bank still owns this house—the Miller Street house. Facebook only leased it for the year, at a low rate, with the agreement that they would cover the cost of all the repairs and upgrades that were done during the filming of Life with Lainey. And in the end, the bank would have a more valuable property than they started with.

And oh boy, do they ever.

“And?” Dean asks.

“And it’s ludicrously out of my budget.”

A sympathetic hum rumbles through Dean’s chest. His fingers slide lazily up and down my spine.

“Well, you always planned to find another place at the end of your contract.”

He and I have talked about it—how we’ll find a place in town together, or Jay and the baby and I will move in to Grams’s house until we do.

“I know. It’s just that every project I finish is bittersweet now.” I sigh again—and the melancholy weighs down my words. “I love this place so much. Not just because I’ve put my heart and soul into decorating it, or how half the town has helped us finish it—it’s all the memories we’ve made here. It’s so much more than a house now . . . it’s our home. Yours and mine and Jason’s.”

Dean sweeps his fingers tenderly across my cheek.

“We’ll make more memories, Lainey—good ones, happy ones . . .” he wiggles his eyebrows “. . . dirty ones.”

That pulls a laugh out of me—and I press a kiss