Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
She gasps against my mouth, her body coiling tight around my cock. “Carter.” I feel her cry before it comes and muffle it with my mouth. She whimpers against my lips, and I slowly move, pulling out and sliding deeper with each pass.
I don’t know how long we stay there. Kissing as our bodies rock. But it feels more intimate than anything I’ve ever shared with anyone else before. And when her body tightens around me and I feel her orgasm coming again, I pull back to watch her face—to memorize the way she looks as the pleasure washes over her. She bites back a moan, her dark lashes on her cheeks as she lets her release roll over her again.
Something unlocks in my chest. For the first time in months—maybe for the first time ever—I understand what it means to make love. I’ve used sex to hide from the shitstorm inside me, but lovemaking is the storm. As I move inside her, the connection between us tears down the walls around my ravaged soul and throws them open for her to see. For her to judge and decide if I’m worthy. And for the first time since the warehouse fire, I want to be worthy. I want to be enough for someone’s tomorrow. I finally want to plan my own future.
The thought fills me with more elation than fear, but there’s an even stronger emotion that grips me as I press my mouth to hers. For once in too long, it’s one I want to share and not hide, and it fills me with hope as I find my own release.
“We should probably sleep.” I stroke a hand up Teagan’s bare stomach to settle between her breasts. I can’t stop touching her, holding her, feeling her. Tomorrow is a busy day that starts with us spending hours apart, and I feel like I have to soak up as much of her as I can tonight so she doesn’t slip away in the morning.
“Probably,” she says on a sigh. She’s no better, keeping her fingers threaded through mine or a hand in my hair, on my chest, my thigh. We crossed a line tonight—not just physically, but emotionally—and neither of us is in any rush to fall asleep.
“You have to be up early for the . . . What did you call that ceremony?”
Teagan turns in my arms, rolling to face me with a hand under her cheek. “It’s called a Mehndi party, and it’s a tradition where the bride and her bridesmaids have henna designs applied to their hands and feet.” She smiles softly. “Saanvi’s will be the most complex, so we’ll keep her company and entertain her while it’s done. It’s more fun than it sounds, but it gives the bridal party time to give the bride advice before her big day.”
“I can’t wait to see it.”
“I’m glad Saanvi wanted to pair some of the Hindu traditions with the traditional Catholic wedding ceremony, which”—she rolls her eyes—“is long.”
I’ve always thought Teagan was beautiful, but right now, flushed from lovemaking and curled up next to me, there’s a glow to her that makes me ache for more. More from her. More from us. If I could steal hours from next week to give us tonight, I’d do it. Instead, I settle for kissing her again, running my hand down her back, mapping out each tiny peak and valley of her spine.
She breaks the kiss and traces an imaginary line across my pecs, as if she wants to memorize me in this moment as much as I want to memorize her. “How will you spend your morning?”
“I’m going to check on Isaiah. He’s healing, but without his dad around . . .” Some of the night’s warmth and joy drains from me. “I don’t know. He probably doesn’t want me there, but I can’t let him push me away.”
She scoots closer, nestling her head in the crook of my shoulder. When she sighs, her breath dances across my chest. “You’re right. He needs you.”
I shift uncomfortably. “I don’t know about that.”
“He does. He talked about you a lot.”
“When?”
“On Monday—after you left and before he was discharged. He admires you, and I’m sure he misses his dad, but he knows—on some level—that he’s lucky to have you.”
“Thank you.” Taking the words as more than blown smoke is hard, but I make myself do it—even if that little bit of truth feels heavier than I expected, like a weight I’m not sure I can carry or deserve to.
She returns to tracing across my chest then dips her hand lower to take a similar tour across my abdomen.
“You were right this morning, you know.” I focus on my breathing. In. Out. It’s so hard to talk about this shit, but I want to try with Teagan. I want her to understand. “I’m sorry that I shut you down when you tried to talk to me about Max this morning. It’s just . . .” I search her face. “I do blame myself, and maybe if Isaiah’s mom weren’t a total piece of crap, it wouldn’t be so hard, but I feel like I failed to protect the person that kid needed most in the world.”