i gripped the comforter, bracing myself for the orgasm that loomed and threatened to take me under. i couldn't believe we'd made it this long, but now that we had, i was helpless against the sensations rocketing through me. a few more seconds of dedicated attention under his mouth and i was at the edge. my heart beat wildly. i was starved for him, an exposed nerve, waiting for him to set me off with a spark. then he did, tonguing me until i could scarcely breathe.

"blake!"

i screamed his name, frozen around the pleasure he gave me. it had been too long. i shuddered, utterly blissed out, but knowing that we had the whole night.

he rose over me, his toned body warm and protective over mine. i caught my breath, letting him come into focus again. he smiled and kissed me sweetly.

"i missed that," i hummed.

"me too. you're going to lose count of how many times i make you come tonight. i have to make up for lost time. "

a delirious smile curled my lips, contentment washing over me. "i can't wait."

his arms rested on either side of my head as he stared down with a look that felt like wonder. "erica, do you have any idea how much i love you?"

i swallowed hard. if he loved me a fraction of how much i loved him, i knew. every sliver of wonder in his stare ricocheted into me, landing squarely on my heart. i feathered my fingertips over the hard lines of his features, awe and desire mingling inside of me.

"i think so. but i'd rather you show me."

he closed his eyes a long moment. gently he kneed my legs apart. i wrapped my legs around his hips, urging him to me.

slowly, he slid inside of me, joining us together. i whimpered, growing tense around his body. i cried out softly, trembling with the pleasure of having him inside me again, filling me so perfectly after such an absence.

the first wave of pleasure overtook me. the sheer bliss of our bodies together again almost too much to bear. i came back down, only to feel my desire building again.

"blake," i whimpered, clinging to him as he took me there, again and again, with deep, steady thrusts.

i'd grown slick around him, my thoughts swirling from the passion in our touch, the energy that exploded between us every time we made love. we had all night like this. we had every night. we had forever.

blake nuzzled into my hair, inhaling me, kissing me, loving me.

"my wife," he whispered.

a tear fell, sliding down to my ear. our breath mingled, ragged and in time with each other all at once. we couldn't be any closer. we were one. nothing could tear us apart.

chapter twenty

over the speakers, airport staff rattled off boarding instructions for the flights around us while we waited for our turn. by morning we'd be in dublin, the first stop of the month long honeymoon that blake had promised and planned for us. i sat beside him, focusing on some invisible point in the darkness that had fallen outside.

i'd spent weeks having downtime. emotionally and physically i had struggled to get back on my feet. but becoming blake's wife had lit a fire inside of me again. i was ready to start fresh. jet setting around the world or even just a small part of it was a good start in a new direction.

my phone vibrated in my pocket, distracting me from my daydreaming. james's name appeared and i answered quickly.

"james, hey."

"hey, i'm super sorry if i'm interrupting your honeymoon. i wasn't sure if you'd left yet."

"i'm at the airport actually. what's up?"

he cleared his throat. "i was wondering if you might have any room for a front-end developer at the new office?"

i hesitated, a little blindsided by the request. "why? is everything okay?"

"not really, no. everything has gone to shit here. the site... it's gone."

"what?" i looked over at blake and turned the volume up on the phone so he could hear james.

"things were transitioning okay with their team. i mean, not great, but isaac's techies were figuring things out slow but sure. we were moving it to the perry media group servers, and everything went down." he sighed. "they accused me of sabotaging the switch. obviously i didn't, so i left."

"do you think we were hacked?" i shook my head. i still spoke about clozpin as if i had some claim over it. i didn't. i'd lost it.

"definitely."

"really? has anyone taken responsibility since you left?"

he paused, and my thoughts filled in the silence. threats from the past lurked in the confines of my mind. but how...

"i think it's trevor."

my heart stopped, trevor's name echoing in the silence. the ghost that i'd hoped would disappear along with max when blake had taken out their copycat site. he was still the one person i could always count on to viciously troll and attack our online assets. he'd been mercifully absent. could he really be back to haunt us now? i glanced up to blake, his eyes steely and cold.

"but why? sophia and isaac aren't allies. why would he attack their assets?"

"if this is trevor's handiwork, i'd be willing to bet he had no idea isaac is on your bad side. for all he knows, it was a completely amicable sale, and that you're still vested."

i released an exasperated sigh. "i'm surprised they haven't reached out to me..."

"i think they've got their hands full trying to pick up the pieces right now. but with all the bad press and the downtime, it's going to be hard for them. we were small, and when trevor hit us, we recovered pretty easily. this is different. everything they've done since the sale has been in the spotlight, because isaac's been putting this new venture in the limelight from the day you left."

i closed my eyes. i wouldn't have known. i'd been living in near isolation for weeks. plus, if anyone had gotten wind of this, they likely wouldn't have told me. "this is crazy."

"there's more."

i lifted my eyebrows. "oh?"

"whoever hacked their site also hacked email accounts hosted on perry's server. they've been releasing things."

"like what?"

"email transcripts and illicit photos."

i thought i might be sick. illicit photos?

"photos of who?" i asked tentatively.

"isaac with models, along with a hell of a lot of complaints. did you know he's got a handful of girls threatening him with sexual harassment lawsuits? sophia basically blackmailed him into acquiring your site along with alex's business, because she had all this dirt on him. she promised to keep the girls at her agency quiet in exchange for a slice of the ownership of clozpin."