EmberDeciding to drag out his pleasure the way he so often did with me, I sank down between his knees and teased my tongue all around him. My hands kneaded his thighs, and I let my hair tickle his lower stomach. The muscles there clenched, the ones in his thighs quivering as I ran my fingertips over them.“You’re really in the mood to torture me?” He finally moaned, his neck arching over the side of the mattress and his cock twitching right in front of me.“Not really.” I grinned up at him before taking his tip into my mouth, my hands digging into his hips.Kaden’s hips came off the bed, his moans sending frissons of pleasure right to my very core. “Ember. Yes. God. Yes.”I wrapped my hand around his shaft, bringing the other to his balls. Massaging him with my tongue and hand, he started writhing beneath me.He hauled me up by my shoulders far more gently than I probably would’ve managed to be under the circumstances, and that was when I finally stopped. Kaden was breathing heavily
KADEN “Is it beach time yet?” I asked Ember after breakfast. She was back in the white robe that had driven me out of my damn mind not twelve hours ago, and I was wearing the matching one from the hook behind the bathroom door.To room service, we probably looked like a not-so-old married couple, and to my surprise, I loved it. The level of domesticity Ember and I had reached would’ve been laughable to me a year ago, but now it was nothing short of natural.We asked the waiter who brought our food to the suite to bring up some newspapers and sat swapping out the financial and business sections once we were done reading them. All the while, we munched on fluffy pancakes and crispy bacon.It was hot as hell outside, but we turned off the air conditioning, threw open the balcony doors, and just enjoyed the heat. Even the humidity that smacked me in the face when we first got here was welcome now, a reminder to enjoy everything about Florida while it lasted.Ember’s smile drew me out of
Kaden“That wasn’t what I was thinking,” I protested weakly. At the waggle of her brows, I shrugged. “Okay, maybe that was what I started out thinking.”She rolled her eyes, pushing her sunglasses up so I would be able to see the movement. “You’re insatiable.”“Only for you.” I winked, lifting my own glasses to return her favor. “Now lie down and let me get your back before you burn.”“About time,” she said, flopping down onto her lounger. “Make sure you get the area beneath the straps too. It’s always a bitch when you think you’re covered, and then the strap moves, and you end up looking like a striped lobster.”“No striped lobsters here.”A woman walking past us at that exact moment proved I was wrong, prompting me to laugh and Ember to look up to see why. She buried her face in her elbow crooked on the lounger to stifle her own giggles.“Okay,” I said. “So maybe there are a couple of striped lobsters here, but you won’t become one of them.”I lathered her properly with the sunscree
EMBERJeez. This guy. The feel of his lips against my skin while we were actually taking an honest to God walk along the beach while the sun was starting to set? It was like living my own personal version of the romantic comedies I liked to make fun of and secretly swooned over.His words played on a loop in my mind as the warm sand cascaded over my feet on our way to the ice cream parlor. Whatever you want, kitten, it’s all yours.My heart did a skippy, palpitating thing that would’ve had me worried had I been with anyone else. With Kaden though, I was getting used to it. My heart didn’t function the way a normal human’s did when around him. And I was perfectly okay with that.“You want to get a booth or eat and walk?” he asked as we stomped some of the sand off our feet on the welcome mat.“Eat and walk?” I suggested, letting go of his hand on our approach to the counter.The parlor was small and decorated in soft pink and baby blue. There were only a few booths, decorated in the sa
EmberIt was the same position I found myself torn between so often since he passed. Wanting to offload my secret to assuage my own guilt and wanting to be there for Kaden. I knew the guilt would be weighing heavily on me until I came clean, but I couldn’t do it. Not yet.There would be a time where it would be unavoidable to tell him, and I would take the consequences when that time came. It just couldn’t be now.With the moon and the sun saying their hello to one another, both shining down on us in their own ways with the one greeting while the other said goodbye, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him.Instead, I finished my cone and took his hand, offering him a silent show of support.“After everything we went through, I just can’t believe it all came down to a video. It’s a wonder he went through all that for me.” Kaden didn’t sound bitter about it, only resigned. “That he went through all that to put everything in place for me and to make sure I knew what he wanted to say even aft
KADEN Standing in my dad’s office—my office—I looked out over the city below. Most of the buildings were obscured by low-hanging clouds, and the weather was gray and miserable, but it seemed fitting somehow.Today was my first day as CEO of Marx Inc. The papers were signed, the ink was dry, and since there were no disputes or objections filed to my stepping into Dad’s position, it was now official.While Ember and I had been in Florida, Scotty, who was now my assistant, had rearranged Dad’s office and gotten it ready for me. The mammoth desk was still in there, but so were all my screens, a new computer, two new monitors, and a color printer I didn’t have any use for.Scotty left Dad’s bar, sitting area, and conference table untouched, but he told me he could have any of it removed at any time. I told him not to worry about it. In a way, this would always be Dad’s office. I was only running it for him now.Besides, there was a good reason why Dad had each of those features in his off
Kaden “That’s good to know,” she replied, seemingly making a decision before opening the file and taking out a smallish, square wooden block. “I have a present for you.”She handed the wooden block over upside down. The clamps on the back of it hinted that it was a photo frame, but I wasn’t prepared for the photo it held. It was one of Dad and I fishing when I was a kid.A photo I both treasured and often resented for giving me hope that we might be like the dad and the kid in the photo again someday. A photo I knew was supposed to be tucked away deep in one of the drawers at my place. “Where did you find it?”“While I was packing your stuff the other day, I saw it in your drawer,” she admitted, a hopeful smile tugging at her lips. “I had it framed so it can go on your desk. I thought you might like to have the memory with you while you’re settling in this office.”“So you went through my stuff?” I arched a brow, trying but failing to sound incredulous and disappointed.Propping a ha
EMBERSo, this was what it felt like when everything went to hell in a handbasket. My heart sank so low during those moments in Kaden’s office after he told me to leave that it felt like it might be at the soles of my feet by the time I left.Tears stung my eyes, threatening to fall with every step I took. I kept my head down when I emerged from Kaden’s office, allowing my hair to form a protective curtain as I hurried to the staircase. I couldn’t face the elevator right now.There was always someone in there who wanted to talk to me about something, and if I opened my mouth, the lump in my throat was bound to disintegrate from the vibrations in my voice box, and I was sure to become a rambling, blubbering mess.Slamming my fists into the door leading to the staircase, I burst onto the concrete landing and sagged against the cool wall. Shit. An hour ago, Kaden and I had gotten to the office together, happy and in love and sated from a morning of me wishing him luck for his first day
KadenAs an adult, I’d always been too busy to spend too much time on hypotheticals like if I wanted to settle down and have a family someday. I used protection religiously to avoid conceiving a child with a woman I didn’t really know in my younger days, and after that, I kind of gave up on ever finding a woman I could imagine myself spending the rest of my life and having kids with.Until Ember.Everything I used to want, worry about, think, or believe changed the day she walked back into my life. She still teased me some about my previous life of being a jerk as a kid or a player, but I could hardly remember what that was like either. Just like with my apartment, those were vague memories I didn’t care to recall.All my life, I’d heard people say you couldn’t change. I was living proof those people were wrong. To be fair, I’d started making changes before I even met Ember, but the guy I used to be wouldn’t have taken the whole day off work to go to the doctor and then to stock up on
KADEN“Everything is looking good so far,” Doctor Kruger told us, holding the ultrasound wand still on Ember’s growing stomach. She was really starting to show now and thought she looked more and more like a whale every day. I couldn’t disagree with her more. “The baby is growing well, and everything looks the way it should at around twenty-four weeks.”Doctor Kruger was the gynecologist Ember chose. She came highly recommended by the girls at the office. She looked a little bit like Gollum from Lord of the Rings, with hair so thin you could see most of her scalp, but there was a whole wall of awards in her office speaking to her ability.Ember smiled up at her, squeezing my hand tightly. Her eyes were glued to the screen beside her though, as were mine. It was hard to believe the black and white smudges we saw was an actual baby growing in Ember, but now and then, we could make out a hand or a foot or something that drove the point home.The doctor moved the wand higher, squeezing ou
Ember“Have you felt it move yet?” Kaden asked, dragging his chair around to my side of the table so he would be next to me instead of across from me. “And should we be eating Mexican? Isn’t it too spicy?”“I ordered it mild,” I reminded him. “But I don’t think eating Mexican is a problem. Sushi is probably a no-no for me until the baby comes, though.”He nodded, and I could practically see him adding the information to some kind of mental checklist. “So, you didn’t tell me if you’d felt it move yet.”“Not yet,” I said honestly. “I would have told you immediately if I had.”That much was true. Despite my misgivings about his reaction, I wouldn’t have kept him from anything involving his child. Something as major as feeling it move for the first time especially.“When do you think you’ll feel it?” he asked, cocking his head and shifting back on his chair to make space for him to get his phone out of his pocket.I lifted my shoulders, shaking my head. “No idea, but it will probably be s
EMBERFor four weeks, I had been waiting to find the right time to talk to Kaden about this. There just never seemed to be enough time. Though we were practically living together and had adjoining offices now, we were also busy and running around for work.My heart hammered against my ribcage so hard it was almost painful as I leaned forward, forcing myself to look into Kaden’s eyes. I had no idea how he was going to take this news. We had so much on our plates as it was, and we’d never even come close to talking about anything like this.Every word I knew suddenly disappeared from my brain as I looked into his gorgeous eyes, questions darkening them while he waited for me to tell him what I’d been waiting for the right time to talk to him about.Grasping for words, any words at this point, I ended up just blurting it out. “I’m four months pregnant.”Kaden paled, his eyes going huge. His jaw loosened, and his throat worked. Oh crap.This was exactly the reaction I’d been afraid of. Me
KadenA faint line appeared between Carol’s eyebrows before she schooled her expression, shaking my free hand again. “We’ll be in touch soon, I assume? If you could email the paperwork to my assistant, the same one who set up this meeting, I’ll have the lawyers look it over and send it right back.”“It will be in your inbox before the end of the day tomorrow,” Ember promised. If I knew her, she was already planning on firing off a text to Scotty as soon as we were out of Carol’s sight.Ember and I were sharing Scotty as our main assistant now. We each had a second assistant working under Scotty, but he was our go-to guy and the one who organized our respective second assistants. It was a system that was working really well for us.Once we were settled in my car, I glanced at her before putting my hand on her headrest and backing out of the parking space. “Did you ask Scotty to send her the documents yet?”She smiled, holding up her phone to show me the text she was typing. “Just about
KADEN“If you consider we only started putting this together for you last week, I think you’ll appreciate the growth you would already have seen if we’d started making these moves only a few days ago.” I was speaking to our new potential client, an older woman with her dyed black hair pulled back in a severe bun.She was the CEO of a hotel group that was starting to pop up everywhere. The company was only a few years old, but they were expanding at an impressive rate, and Ember and I both really wanted to sign her.“We can do great things together, Carol,” Ember added, clicking a button on the remote in her hand to move onto the next slide we had prepared for her. “Both our companies have shown exponential growth over the last six months, and together, I think we can keep that trajectory going.”I could feel Ember’s excitement coming off her in waves from where she was sitting next to me at a mahogany conference table at one of Carol’s group’s hotels. The group had two new boutique ho
EMBERWhen Kaden’s lips crashed into mine, it was with such passion and fervor that a fresh wave of tears welled up behind my eyes. Different tears this time, happy tears. I couldn’t believe he was here, that he was in my arms and kissing me the way he was.An hour ago, I was convinced our relationship was toast. When I didn’t hear from Ryan, I thought the worst. I thought Kaden was so mad at me, he’d convinced Ryan he was right, and I was wrong. I thought Ryan wasn’t going to speak to me ever again either.I thought so many things, all of which were apparently wrong. It was hard to have faith in people when you felt as guilty and as badly as I did, though. In my defense, those weren’t feelings I had much experience with, and now that I’d felt them in their fullest glory, I had no intention of ever finding myself in a position like that ever again.From now on, I was going back to honesty. I still regretted the way I handled things with Mr. Marx, but I’d also learned from it. With Kad
KadenShit. I even made her promise to stop avoiding me. I shoved her even deeper into the impossible corner she was already in. I made her look me in the eyes and sleep in my bed, even when she couldn’t do it, and now I was pissed at her for doing exactly that?I groaned out loud, bringing my forehead to my desk.As if Ryan could tell what I was thinking, he said, “She loves you, Kaden. She loves you more than anything in the world. You’re everything to her. Trust me when I tell you she never meant to hurt you. She was stuck in purgatory about this for weeks.”Lifting my head only enough to catch a glimpse of his eyes, I frowned. “Is this a big brother talk? Because I don’t think I can stomach one of those right now.”I really couldn’t bear to hear him tell me how much she loved me after the way I acted. Sure, I was shocked, and she shouldn’t have done what she did, but I honestly didn’t know what else I could have expected her to do under the circumstances.Even if she did, would sh
KADENMy head was spinning. I felt nauseous, my stomach twisting and turning as I tried to focus on the screen in front of me. I was trying to get everything with Ember out of my head and get some work done, but it was proving to be harder than I thought it would be.Despite everything, I still didn’t want to let my dad down. Sure, he told my girl he was dying and not me, but—“Fuck,” I muttered, dragging my hands through my hair. Again. I shuddered to think what I looked like by now. At least no one was bothering me.Scotty was keeping his distance, and most people would probably be leaving soon. They were giving me the day to get settled in, which was a fucking blessing since I had no idea how I would be able to handle meetings or making any big decisions today.I’d been so damn optimistic just this morning, determined to make this work no matter what. I was so damn sure I had this under control, that I was going to walk in as CEO and things would just fall in place.I was prepared