His Forbidden Love (Manhattan Billionaires #2) - Ava Ryan Page 0,71

get my hands between us and undo his belt and pants. Then he quickly takes over, rumbling with rising impatience as he moves his boxers aside and grips himself.

I’m poised with my legs spread and ready to tell him to hurry, but something about the look on his face in this arrested moment stops me. He’s so still and focused as he stares up at me, so openly adoring that his eyes seem to glow. I get the feeling that I’m seeing the real him for the first time. Or maybe I’m seeing all of him for the first time.

I start to smile.

He starts to smile.

No words required.

I slowly ease down onto him while simultaneously licking my way deep into his voluptuous mouth. We begin to surge together, our tempo languid. Why hurry when we have the rest of the night and, even better, the rest of our lives? I circle my hips, taking care to brush my nipples against his chest and grind my sweet spot against his groin as my hair swings on either side of his face. Ever helpful, he matches my rhythm as he kneads the two halves of my ass together, concentrating and intensifying my pleasure as it spirals lower.

Funny how people make fun of men for coming too fast. I’m lucky I last thirty seconds before the buildup of exquisite sensation crescendos and overflows. A single high note of astonishment and I’m done with a piercing orgasm that jackknifes through me before subsiding into aftershocks that go on and on.

He laughs, a darkly triumphant rumble that somehow increases my joy, before stiffening and surging against me a final time. Then he shouts my name in a voice that’s hoarse and thrilling. We ride it out together, holding each other closer until there’s nothing left but gasps for air, dissipating heat and unadulterated joy.

I collapse against him, my smiling lips pressed to the side of his neck as he slumps back against the cushions.

I’m happy to stay there until I die, or at least until looming starvation forces me to answer the door for the pizza guy when he gets here, but something hard is hurting the side of my knee. Something in his pocket.

I raise my head and frown.

“What’s this?” I say with a nudge.

“What?” he says drowsily, cracking his eyes open and reaching into the pocket. “Oh, that? Another birthday present. I would have given it to you last night, but one of us flipped out.”

“I didn’t flip out.”

“My memory is hazy.”

“And how many presents do I get?” I ask, stunned by this ongoing generosity. “I’m not that special. And it’s not even a big birthday.”

“You’re special enough,” he says with a wry twist of his mouth as he hands me a flat red jeweler’s box that comes from Cartier, unless I’m much mistaken. “It’s not that big a deal. Just some diamond studs.”

“Did you say just diamond studs?” I cry, my heart cartwheeling with excitement. “Oh my God. Thank you!”

“Don’t thank me till you see them.” He represses a grin with what looks like great difficulty. “You better check them out to see if you like them.”

“Like them? Who the hell doesn’t like diamond studs from—”

I stop dead as I open the box.

It’s not a pair of diamond studs.

It’s a pear-shaped diamond ring with baguettes on either side. The most gorgeous ring in the world. A dream engagement ring.

My heart sinks.

“Hope you kept the receipt,” I say, trying to manage my disappointment. What a snafu. No diamond studs for me tonight. I snap the box shut and hand it to him before I get too attached to this ring and/or, worse, somehow damage it before he manages to return it to the store in exchange for my earrings. “They gave you the wrong box.”

There’s a pause.

“I don’t think they did, Ally,” he says quietly, staring me dead in the face.

Wow. Funny. He’s got jokes. Just to add insult to injury.

“Take it,” I say irritably, thrusting the box at him again.

A hint of a smile softens his eyes, making those sexy crow’s-feet appear at the outer corners.

“Ally,” he says with infinite tenderness. “I’m not taking the ring back. And I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. We’re getting married.”

Have you ever been struck by lightning? Right through the top of your head?

It’s hard to get breath back after that. Impossible to think straight.

I blink. I gasp. I sputter something that has no words attached to it. I look down at the box in