Seventh Heaven: Whychoose Contemporary Romance (The Allendale Four Book 4) Read online

  “Heaven?” I asked, sitting up. Her palm moved to my bare chest, pushing me back down. I blinked into the dark, finally making out her form, her face in the pale light coming from the window. She straddled my legs and the twitching shifted to full hardening.

  “I’ve been thinking about you all day,” she confessed quietly. “While I was at work. When I was walking the dog. Later in the shower. I was in bed and I just kept thinking about you. About your mouth and your body and frankly, your dick.”

  She kissed me, bare breasts pressing against my chest. This…this was something different. Something unexpected.

  “So you just walked down here naked?”

  “Is that a problem?” I saw her head tilt in the dark.

  “Nope. Definitely not.”

  My body and urges took over, not caring why she came in here late at night like this, only gleeful that she did. Her body ground down on me and my hands gripped her hips, our bodies warming up to one another.

  Her mouth tasted like mint, her skin like lotion. I ran my teeth down her shoulder and kissed her breasts, licking her nipples until she shuddered and squirmed against me.

  “I love how that feels,” she said, more vocal than I’d ever heard her.

  “Fuck, Heaven, you’re killing me, is that your plan?”

  She laughed in the dark. “I could think of worse ways to go.”

  I ran my hands up and down her body, cupping her ass and gripping her cheeks. She moaned into my mouth, lifting her hips and touching my raging cock. She guided me to the warmth between her legs, sighing with contentment.

  “I love the way you feel inside of me.”

  Despite the late hour, the surprise, and lack of foreplay, it didn’t take either of us long to fall into a quick, savage rhythm. Her moans were loud, fueling my need and want. I slipped my fingers between us, helping her along, and she leaned back, hair dangling down her back, giving me an exquisite view of her body.

  “Just like that,” she said, riding both my cock and hand. “Oh my god, Jax, just like that.”

  Her jaw slacked and her breasts bounced and I clenched my jaw, keeping my composure. I almost came twenty times just watching her on top of me, feeling the love and lust that intensified as she got closer and closer to slipping over the edge. Her body shifted gears, slowing, and I rubbed easy circles around her bundle of nerves until she sucked in a breath and cried out, shattering from the inside out.

  “Beautiful,” I said, watching her ride the wave. Her hips continued to roll, urging me on, and I grabbed the flesh of her thighs and pulled her to me. Her hands landed against my chest, rubbing my nipples beneath her palms.

  “Does that feel good?”

  “Yes,” I grunted.

  “Do you want me to go harder?”

  “Jesus, Heaven.” She leaned over me and slammed down. I wasn’t sure what her intentions were when she came in here, but now I was starting to think she wanted to kill me. Death by orgasm.

  Yeah, I’d take it.

  I held on as long as I could, but with a goddess riding on top of me, her hair long and spilling over her breasts and the sheer sight of her I succumbed, thrusting hard with a deep guttural moan. I pulled her to me as I came, kissing her senseless, wanting to be connected, share the same air, touch in as many places as possible.

  When I was spent I fell back on the pillow, looking up at the woman above me. She hadn’t moved and I saw the small wisp of a smile toying on her lips.

  “That was amazing,” I said.

  “It really was.”

  “I love you,” I told her, meeting my eyes to her. I could never say it enough.

  She fell forward and wrapped her arms around me, still connected at the hips. “I love you too, Jackson Hall.”

  I believed her and I was grateful as hell that she’d showed up in my room, but there was something off about this nighttime visit. Something that I’d follow up with in the morning, but for now I laid in the arms of my lover and held her tight, not wanting the moment to end.

  12

  Oliver

  Thursday morning meant the four of us meet at six a.m. for a private session at the gym. The rest of the facility was open, but we had secure rooms for our high-profile clients. Really, we used the time to catch up, work out, and challenge one another like we always had.

  Anderson was positioned under a large bench press, waiting as Jackson loaded the weights. Fifty pounds across both sides. I was on an identical one next to him and Hayden slid the same weight across the bar. We all moved into position. Me and Anderson lifting—the others spotting.

  “You know the rules: first one to get to ten,” Jackson said.

  I focused on my own weight, trying not to get distracted by the grunting and movement next to me. I lifted the bar and pushed up—the goal was ten. The first six came easy, but the final four were a struggle. I grunted and clenched my jaw. I felt the burn down my arms and across my chest as my muscles strained.

  “Two more, dude, two more,” Hayden said watching closely, ready to grab the bar if I needed him. I heard Jackson encouraging Anderson. There was more on the line than pride. The loser had to buy drinks the next time we all went out—and the winner got to soak in Heaven’s attention, while the rest of us backed off for the night. I didn’t give a damn about the drinks, but I sure as hell wanted Heaven.

  I pushed, struggling against the weight—moving forward with sheer determination. Hayden clapped behind me, a smile on his face, making me confident and giving me the boost I needed to get through to the last one.

  “Ten!” Hayden shouted, at the same time as Jackson. I looked to the side and my elbows wobbled. “Fuck.” Hayden grabbed the bar out of my hands and lifted it over the rack. Exhausted and drenched in sweat, I looked over at Anderson. He looked as beat as I did.

  Jackson shrugged. “It was a tie.”

  “Are you serious?” Anderson asked skeptically. My boy didn’t like to lose—even by a tie.

  “He’s right,” Hayden agreed.

  Anderson and I looked at one another. He sighed and swung his legs over the bench to a sitting position. I did the same.

  “So how do we want to handle this? Rematch?” he asked.

  “There’s another option,” Jackson said.

  I glanced up at my partner. “What’s that?”

  “You could split the winnings. I doubt Heaven would mind.”

  Hayden leaned against the bars. “He’s probably right.”

  I stood and walked over to Anderson, offering him a hand. He took it and lifted himself off the bench. “We’ll give her the choice. She may tell us both to fuck off.”

  Jackson snorted before walking out of the room and down the hall. We always hit the sauna after our workout—a little time to decompress before the rest of the day.

  Again, it was a private area—for our most exclusive clients. We quickly changed, wrapping clean, white towels around our waists, and took a seat inside, everyone finding a spot to sprawl out on the benches. The heat felt good against my sore, overworked, muscles.

  “So, Jackson,” Hayden said, cradling the back of his head with his hands against the wall, “I got up to let Sadie out last night and passed your room.”

  “Oh yeah?” Jackson’s eyes were closed but he slowly opened them.

  “Thing’s sounded…rowdy.”

  “If that’s what you want to call a surprise visit by Heaven, then okay.” Sweat dripped down his face. “But seriously, she showed up in the dark and just…I don’t know. She was ready.”

  Anderson nodded. “That was her in the bathroom the other night at the baby announcement. No complaints, but I didn’t see that coming.”

  Their eyes swung to me. “Nothing unusual here other than her being pretty adamant about me taking time off to meet up with her.”

  I glanced at Hayden but he shrugged. “I haven’t been on the receiving end of such treatment.” He leaned over placing his elbows on his knees. “But we had a weird talk a few weeks ago—it see
med like something was bothering her. She was talking about ’saddling’ people with her baggage. At the time I thought she was talking about us, but after the other night…”

  “What?” I asked.

  “She knew Amber and Ginger were trying to have a baby,” Jackson said. “She mentioned it the other night.” He looked at Hayden. “Is that what you think she was talking about? Passing her baggage onto a kid?”

  “Maybe. She mentioned her mom and dad, her anxiety and depression—all things that would be hereditary. I just didn’t get it at the time.”

  “Do you think that’s what she wants? A baby?” Anderson asked.

  “Or doesn’t want, is more likely.”

  The four of us grew silent, taking in all that information. I had a strong, personal reaction that I kept to myself. I knew I wanted kids—with Heaven—with this family, but I also knew that was a decision I couldn’t make on my own. From the looks on the others’ faces there was no doubt they knew that, too.

  “This is something we’ll have to talk about, don’t you think?” Jackson asked.

  “Yeah,” Anderson agreed. “I knew the day would come, I just didn’t realize it would be so soon.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” Hayden said. “We’re not Amber and Ginger. We don’t have to make a choice like this now.”

  “You don’t think we need to at least know where everyone stands?” I asked. “Because this…this is the kind of shit that could be a deal-breaker. It could change everything.” All three of them gave me a dirty look and I held up my hands. “I’m not trying to be a dick, but ultimately this is Heaven’s choice, and then we have to decide if we want to go along with it.”

  Despite the heat of the sauna, every muscle in my body tensed with the realization of what this meant if Hayden was right. In one moment the trajectory of our lives shifted, one topic, one decision. We walked into that room one way and left feeling uncertain about the future. What did Heaven want? And would her desires line up with our own?

  13

  Heaven

  “Babe, it’s my turn.”

  “In a minute.”

  “You’ve had the controller for an hour.” Hayden reached for my hands. I jerked away. Sadie, asleep next to me on the couch, wagged her tail.

  “I’m in the middle of something.”

  “You’re being a hog.”

  “Shut up. You’re just mad I’m on level eighteen.”

  He rolled his eyes but I kept my focus on the game in front of me. Two more levels. I could beat my score.

  “It’s your fault, you know,” he said to Jackson, who was lounging on the chair near the sofa.

  “How is her being a game hog my fault?”

  “You’re the one that taught her how to play. She used to just watch us but no, you thought it would be more fun if she joined in. Now she’s a maniac.”

  I laughed. “I am not a maniac.”

  “You’re obsessed.”

  I jabbed my thumb into the button and muttered a curse at the game. “I am not obsessed. You just suck and you can’t handle it.”

  “Did you just say I sucked?”

  “At the game, duh.”

  There was a beat of silence, which I took to mean he’d finally shut up about it, but my character was climbing the mountain, almost at the top near the treasure chest when—oof.

  “What the hell?” I shouted, feeling the strong grip of arms around my chest. Jackson stood in front of me with a devilish grin on his handsome face. He plucked the controller out of my hands, while Hayden held me against his chest. Sadie jumped off the couch and barked at the two of us. “I wasn’t finished!”

  “Yeah, you are,” Hayden said.

  I watched in horror as Jackson reset the game. “What? Why did you do that?”

  “Because there are rules, Heaven,” Jackson said, shaking his head, “and you don’t follow them. We take turns, no one hogs the game. You don’t just get to come in here and mess with the system.”

  I squirmed out of Hayden’s arms and turned to glare at him. Sadie circled our feet. “Well, your system sucks.”

  Anderson and Oliver walked out of the back room. The tall swimmer rubbed his hand through his hair, leaving it a rumpled mess. “What the hell are you guys arguing about?

  “Video games—”

  “Heaven’s not playing fair—”

  “Nothing.”

  They all glared at me. I shrugged. “They have a bad attitude.”

  Hayden’s eyes narrowed and I placed my hands on my hips. A ripple of energy ran between us. I opened my mouth to say something snarky but he lunged, coming after me with those massive hands and ridiculously strong arms, and I yelped and bolted.

  Somehow, I narrowly escaped his grasp, rushing around the kitchen table and through the narrow space. Jackson cackled with laughter, loving every moment. Hayden bent his knees and spread his arms, cornering me in. My heart hammered in my chest, not because I was really afraid of him, but because this was a game and I desperately wanted to beat him. I looked to my left and right, noting my only option was with one of the two guys watching the scene with interest.

  I raised my eyebrows in Oliver’s direction and he shook his head. “Don’t involve me in this.”

  I shifted to Anderson, who held my gaze with his brilliant green eyes.

  “Dude, don’t interfere,” Hayden warned.

  “You guys are acting like children.” Anderson crossed his arms over his chest. “I mean, is this what you’re going to do one day when Amber and Ginger ask us to watch their kid?”

  Jackson snorted, already involved in a new game. “Or when we have our own?”

  It was like the air in the room evaporated. Hayden’s entire body shifted, moving away from the playful stance so he could glare at Jackson. Anderson’s hand thrust in his hair and Oliver’s eyes narrowed. I glanced between them, the statement bouncing around my head. I’d known it was coming—there was no escaping it, but now? Like this? And the problem wasn’t just that Jackson brought up having kids—it was the guilty, concerned expression on the guys’ faces. They knew.

  “Heaven,” Oliver said, frowning a little.

  I shook my head, not wanting to hear anything he had to say. The feeling of playfulness vanished in my gut and was replaced with unease. Not now. I turned and walked toward the door, Sadie nipping at my heels.

  “Babe.” I felt Hayden’s hand, gentle on my shoulder. I shrugged him away.

  “Not now.”

  “We’re going to have to talk about this.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” Which was what you said when there was a shit-ton to talk about. I opened the door and let the dog pass through. “Have fun. I’ll be back later.”

  “Heaven, wait—” Anderson called my name.

  I shut the door—shut him out. There would be time for us to talk about this later, but not now. Not today.

  14

  Heaven

  “So you just left.”

  “Yeah, I left.”

  “And then what?”

  “I came here.” Sadie and I had shown up on Amber’s front door twenty minutes before. She took one look at me and the dog and let us in. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Well, you could have stayed and talked to them.”

  “I’m not ready.”

  “I’m not sure you have that choice. All Jackson did was make an innocent comment and you flipped out. You owe them the truth.”

  “They already know. I saw it on their faces. They must have figured it out.” I sighed and rested my elbows on the kitchen table. “You know they gossip like school girls.”

  She rolled her eyes. “They talk about you because they love you.”

  I looked at my friend. She wasn’t showing much but there was a tiny bulge beneath her tight gray T-shirt. I was so happy for her, truly, but I was also jealous. Why did I have to make everything so difficult? Why couldn’t just this one thing be easy?

  “What am I going to do
if they feel differently?” I asked. “What if they want kids? What if only two of them want kids and the other two don’t?”

  “There are a million what-ifs in this scenario and none of them will get answered until you sit down with them and talk it over.”

  A feeling of dread filled my stomach. “What if I lose them, Amber?”

  She sighed and moved to my side of the table, bumping my hip with hers and wrapping her arm around me. “You guys have been through a lot—but avoiding stuff has never been the way to deal with it. Just talk to them, Heaven. Tell them what you want, what you’re feeling. They’ll understand.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Then it’s better to deal with it now than five years down the road, don’t you think?”

  I knew she was right but the idea terrified me. They had stuck by me through a lot of rocky shit. I just didn’t think it was fair to do it again, but like we all know, life wasn’t fair. Not for me or the Allendale Four, at least.

  I didn’t know what to expect that night when I got home. Maybe the four of them waiting in the living room, ready to talk. Maybe they were still playing video games, the entire thing part of my paranoia and imagination. When I pushed through the back gate, Sadie got excited and raced ahead. Anderson was stretched out on the patio couch, feet dangling from the edge, book in hand.

  Sadie rushed to him, giving him affection—too much, probably—by shoving her nose in his face.

  “Hey, girl,” he said, scratching under her chin. He sat up, eyes landing on me. “Hey, you.”

  “Hi.”

  He swung his legs around and placed his feet on the ground, still petting the dog. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I spent the afternoon with Amber.”

  He nodded. “Did you eat? Oliver made dinner.”

  “I had some food at her place.”

  Space stretched between us and I saw the tight clench of his jaw—the one that meant he was thinking hard. “About earlier...”