Where We Left Off (Phoenix Falls Series Book 1)

The blinding morning light streams in through the open curtains, pulled back from the patio doors that lead from the bedroom to the porch. I blink at the whiteness all around me – white pillow, white walls, white duvet – before scrunching my eyes shut again and wiggling backwards into Tate’s warm body. One of his arms lies under my waist so that his thumb can rub up and down my stomach, and his other hand – the hand which reads my name – is holding my hip, tracing gentle patterns onto my skin with the hypnotising tips of his fingers.

After taking a year out to reapply to different courses and different colleges from my first time around, whilst working as Mitch’s sole PR and design assistant to amount a little cash to go towards my college fund, I started college in October as a Literature major. Tate came over at literally every moment that Mitch didn’t have him working, but now that it’s my first winter break I’m going to be staying at his house over Christmas.

Well, it’s not so much a house really. The little wooden chalet which overlooks Silver Lake has the cosy warmth of a cabin to it, but with no other residents anywhere in the vicinity.

Tate drove across to my campus yesterday to come and pick me up, and we arrived back to his place just as the night dawned. We talked whilst he was driving but once we got to the lake house there were other things that we wanted to spend our time doing.

I turn around and look up at him. He’s laying contentedly, eyes shut, with a steadily heaving chest that lets me know that he’s awake. I scoot closer to him so that I can press a kiss to the cavern between his pecs, and a satisfied groan quietly escapes his throat.

His hands roam until they are holding me just beneath my armpits, and he lifts my torso so that my head is resting at the same height as his on the pillow. Then he manoeuvres himself so that he can roll his body on top of me, hitching my knees up around his waist, as he settles between my legs and presses his lips into my neck.

“Hey angel,” he murmurs, his morning voice deep and consuming. I shudder beneath his bodyweight and I wrap myself tighter around him. I should probably mention that, although I’m wearing his t-shirt and soft boxer briefs, he is top-to-bottom naked.

He laughs quietly and tries to angle his hips away from me. Not so easy when you’re borderline centaur. When he lifts himself up onto his flattened palms there are still inches of hardened muscle dragging across my thigh.

I reach down to touch him and he restrains my hands, a secretive smile playing across his lips. Even half-asleep he has more strength than his tiny nymphomaniac girlfriend. “Baby, no,” he chuckles.

Um, baby yes. I lift one calf so that it’s resting against his shoulder and I pull the shirt up over my head. He sucks in a breath as he looks down at me but he unclenches his jaw and reconfigures my limbs like a Rubik’s cube.

I look up at him with a sad little expression and he presses chaste kisses up and down my cheeks.

“There’s something I want to do first,” he whispers, and then he pulls us upright so that we can look out of the windows.

I’m instantly dazzled as my eyes meet the shimmering blanket of snow carpeting the porch just beyond the bedroom, all the way down to the gravel and sand, right up to the edge of the lake’s smooth surface. It really is called Silver Lake for a reason. I lean over to the dresser so that I can put on my glasses and then, wrapped up in Tate’s tan arms, I stare at the view some more.

“Nice, huh?” he says, bouncing me on his lap as I take it all in. Obviously I could feel the crunch of the snow beneath my boots when we arrived last night, but under the cold morning sunlight it looks like a whole other planet out there.

“Let’s go outside for a minute, okay?” he asks, and my eyes instantly shoot to his.

“Aren’t we… I thought we were going to…” I attempt to roll his boxers down my hips whilst simultaneously running my palm over his length. It’s been two weeks since the last time he could visit me on campus so now that I have him beneath me I feel desperately hungry. I’m Oliver Twist with his little bowl of porridge. Please sir, may I have some cock?

He kisses my neck consolingly and says, “I just want to show you one thing first.”

I pull a face but I trust him, so I let him move away to shuck on a pair of briefs and his jeans, quickly sliding the tongue of his belt through the thick metal buckle, and then throwing on a shirt and a jacket. He pulls me by my ankles to the edge of the mattress, pushing his pyjama pants up my legs, but he does stop for a minute after he glances at my chest, running his fingers over me before taking me in his mouth. I clutch him tightly to my body but he groans and pulls away, looking around to find another shirt and my winter coat, and then we walk to the patio doors to put on our socks and boots.

He pushes open the door and I’m met with the crisp soundless air, snow twinkling up at us from every available surface. He gives my ass a firm little spank and I yelp out of my reverie, scowling up at his annoyingly attractive face with narrowed eyes and a frown. He grabs my cheeks, already frozen pink, and smashes his mouth down onto mine, a laugh reverberating in his chest as I bite him petulantly. I push him away and trudge sulkily through the snow to the edge of the lake. Okay, it’s beautiful, but it could have waited another fifteen minutes. Or another twenty-five minutes. Or even another hour, I don’t care, I’ve missed him, alright?

I stand at the water’s edge, waiting for him to come up behind me, and I look down at my reflection in the crystallised surface. My hair is spilling around me in thick curls and waves, mussed up from the night before, and my eyes – although feigning irritation – are bright like the sky above me. I almost startle as I watch myself because my expression is so full of hope and wonder and love. I breathe out a sigh, and it mists in the cold air around me. I don’t think that I could be any happier than I am in this very moment, and what a nice feeling that is to have.

“Tate?” I ask, not feeling his body behind me. I turn around to see where he’s gone to and my breath catches in my throat. My lungs empty. If my boots weren’t impaled ten-inches deep in the snow I would have probably fallen over.

Tate is down on one knee, his hands clasping a little leather box, and when my rounded eyes flash to his, the fingers with my name inked across them gently ease open the lid. Sat inside a plump cushioned bed is a large twinkling diamond, so bright and multifaceted in the winter sunlight that it sends millions of refractions sparkling across Tate’s sun-kissed skin.

“I’ve wanted to do this since you were fourteen years old,” he says. My eyes sting as I hold back a sob. “And I needed it to be perfect for my girl, so I thought I should write a speech.”

My vision blurs, so I quickly push up my glasses for a moment and wipe the heels of my hands over my eyes. Ever since Tate told me about his dyslexia he has been trying so hard to improve all of the things that he didn’t prioritise during high school. I love him so much, and my heart constricts painfully when I think about him putting pressure on himself like this.

I readjust my glasses so that they’re back in place and he jerks his chin to my coat.

“Check your pocket, baby,” he says, eyes on the silver zipper.

With shaking fingers I pull down the zip and put my hand inside. When I feel a little piece of folded paper I can’t keep my tears back any longer. They’re streaming down my face like a waterfall as I choke out, “Please tell me that this isn’t what I think it is.”

He waits for me to pull it out and when I open it up I clutch my chest in anguished heartache. It’s a marriage proposal – and it’s handwritten. My eyes trail to the neat black question mark at the end of the last sentence and I can barely see for my tears.

I shake my head and I hear Tate’s quiet laugh as he stands up to pull me against his chest. I clutch my fingers into the fabric of his coat as he caresses my head with his free hand, his biceps securing my body to his.

“Want to read it later?” he asks, a smile in his voice.

I nod and tilt backwards so that I can look at him. He sees my face and pulls an adoring expression, stroking the backs of his fingers over my salt-stained skin.

“I need to say the important bits now though, okay?” he asks, before pressing a kiss to the tip of my cheek.

“Okay,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around his waist.

He smiles at me and says, “I’ve loved you forever baby, and I have no intentions of stopping. You made me a better man than I ever thought I could be, and I want to live the rest of my life with you. Only with you. So please will you do me the honour of being my lawfully wedded wife?”

I pull his lips down to mine and he instantly exhales with relief and pleasure, sliding his tongue against my own with long unhurried strokes.

After a minute he murmurs against my mouth, “Is that a yes, baby?”

I laugh and bite my lip. “Yes,” I say excitedly, butterflies fluttering in my stomach. “Definitely, definitely yes.”

He draws my mouth back to his, and he fills me so deeply that I feel him everywhere. I gasp at the intensity.

“Need to get this ring on you,” he murmurs, pulling away only so that he can get back down on one knee, take my shaking hand in his, and slide the diamond up my finger. He bows his head and kisses the back of my hand, and my legs tremble at the sight. He gets back to his feet and lifts me so that I can wrap myself around his waist as he walks us back up the shore to the chalet.

As soon as we’re back inside with the door clicked shut Tate is ripping the clothes from my body, growling as he crowds me backwards towards the bed.

“Only the ring,” he says as he tugs his pants down my legs, his teeth grazing the insides of my thighs. “Want you wearing only the ring.”

When I’m suitably stripped he moves to undress himself but then I suddenly realise, “Wait, my socks!”

We both look down at the baby pink bed socks on my feet and Tate breathes out a laugh, pressing my naked skin against his jacket and jeans.

His hands roam to my ass, kneading roughly as he says, “Okay, the ring and the socks – you’re not getting cold feet on me, baby.”

I crawl backwards up the mattress and I watch him as he tugs the clothes off his own body. Coat: gone. Shirt: gone. When he gets to his belt he studies me with hooded eyes, gauging the fast-paced heaving of my bare chest. The buckle jangles as he unsheathes the leather tongue, and he yanks his button open and his fly down. My eyes trace over the ink on his bicep and the letters on his hand, and I squirm agitatedly on the soft quilt. He pulls his jeans and briefs down over his hips and I sink my teeth into my lip in anticipation.

He takes a condom from the box on the floor and leans his body over mine, the hard leather and denim digging into my thighs. “Want me to keep them on?” he whispers as he pulls my hips down to meet his.

I nod slowly like a woman possessed, and then I run my left hand languidly across my throat. His eyes flash down to the ring and a flame ignites behind his irises. He interlocks our fingers and presses our hands down into the bed, using his other hand to bite open the foil packet, sheath himself in the condom, and then align his body against mine.

I move my free hand to his cheek and I caress it sweetly. He meets my gaze and presses a slow kiss to my lips.

“I love you so much, baby,” he murmurs. “I can’t wait to make you my wife.”

I kiss him again, running my fingers up the thick column of his neck and into his hair. “I love you too.”

Then, with one more kiss, he rolls his hips into mine and we pick up where we left off.