33 TAYLOR

Knowing I was waiting for Austin my whole life, and I was right about it, was a meteor landing. It was the miracle of flight. It was the beauty of him. The smell of him, the way his hands felt on my body. It was like a snug fit. A way I knew that I could make the world spin around us. Wait for us. Believe in us.

He put one hand in my hair and the other on my lower back, and then he dipped me into a deeper kiss. That was Austin, the most romantic. He could pull it off, and I was more than grateful to receive it.

After we kissed, he pulled me up and hugged me. I felt my heart slip from neutral to drive. I’d been waiting for this moment since he last held me.

* * *

TAYLOR

Austin had switched to water hours ago, when we finally decided to leave. I was still buzzing. I had a bag packed at his direction.

“Can we just stay here?” I offered.

“No, we can’t. The thing I want to do to you needs privacy.” His smolder said it all and I didn’t argue.

We walked hand-in-hand to the expensive Hillshire Embassy. The doorman was there, smiling and crisp at what had to be four-thirty in the morning.

As we took the elevator, I had questions, “Did you get this hotel room because you thought you couldn’t stay with me?”

Austin bit his bottom lip before responding, “Kitten, you’ve always welcomed me. That’s never a question. You will always have options with me. You get to leave with never any bad feelings at all. You’re free. I hope that freedom leads you to my bed every night, but my respect for you will come before my needs where you’re concerned.”

I realized that the hotel room was his way of being different from Endgame. Whenever Austin tried to leave, he was treated to mind games and fights. He didn’t ever want to be that.

The elevator sounded its bell at the top floor. Austin pulled out his phone and held an app up to the scanner.

Inside, the plush penthouse suite was laid out to the city. It looked beautiful. There was a generous kitchen, dining room, and living room.

“Wow. This is a home, not a hotel room. Do they owe you money or something?”

“Actually.” He chuckled. “I had a voucher for this room for, like, two years because I had done some social media stuff for them. I thought it would be a great wedding present for a friend or something. But…” He pressed an elaborate button in a frame on the wall that read “Call for Champagne”.