by M. Mabie
“I hate this. It’s so hard. It’s killing me, too.” I sobbed.
He leaned back further, and I all but curled up on his chest and let him pet me as I cried.
His breathing picked up steadily, then he spoke softly.
“We’ve over thought it. We thought we could make our own rules for love, Nora. Even if we didn’t know that’s what it was when it all started. That’s what we did.”
He was so right. My tears had stopped, and I lay hypnotized, focused on the light bulb through the sheer shade of the bedside lamp, it seared effervescent blobs into my vision.
I didn’t know what state I was in, but there was a sweet aroma of acceptance. Of truth and something else. Oh, yes ... freesia.
Then I saw it in the boutonniere on his coat.
I’ll be damned.
“There are no rules, Nora. You either love someone or you don’t.” His fingers ran up and down my arm, the lower half of my body bared and uncovered from my change in position, but he knew my nakedness.
“Show me.”
If he could fight that long, he could fight one last round. I’d fight with him, and maybe we’d slaughter my fears.
I found his lips and moved my finger over them as I spoke. “No labels. No thinking. No right. No wrong. No rules. No fighting. No holding back. No love. No hate. No then. No next. No anything.” I blinked up at him. “Show me, and I’ll show you. Right now because this is all we’ve got.”
We stared at each other. His brown eyes replayed every gentle stroke he’d ever gifted my heart. Every time he called my bullshit and ran his fingers down my face telling me to take my panties off. Every time he told me I was beautiful only to follow up with making me feel it.
His skin was a perfect contrast to my own. Cool when I was hot. Flesh-warming when chill gripped me. Startlingly, in that bed, we were the same.
Of all the things on Earth, I craved him most—in every cell, every atom—and I wanted him to invade me. To fill me so full of himself that even if we did part, I’d have residual Reagan in my veins for life.
I waited for him to kiss me. Claim me once more for old time’s sake. I wanted my face to lure him, the sound of my pulse to rouse his lips.
Here I am. Come and get me. All of me.
This was war, and I was on his side this time. Our side.
Our connection proved strong. Our bodies remembered the primal choreography.
It was the same curious look in his eyes as I sat up and let the rest of the sheet fall.
He nodded in agreement. Wordlessly, slow and sure. No one was in the lead. No one in the driver’s seat. We moved collectively, in unison.
I leaned back and opened my arms to him, and he came to me. My eyes drifted shut as he leaned into me.
My mouth parted, and his lips fit in all my empty spaces. Our tongues met in the middle.
Hello, my one true lover.
His nose brushed my cheek as he deepened the kiss. My head lulled as he abandoned my mouth for my jaw.
There were no sounds in the room except for the kiss.
His right hand swept around my middle and pulled me down onto the bed under him as he held himself above me with the other. Never breaking the attention he gave my neck.
My hands slipped into the robe, over the muscles below his ribs, and met behind him in the valley at his spine.
The knot on the robe between us, the only thing preventing all of him touching all of me. It dug into my stomach and raked my skin with its rough textured threads. My tolerance for it quickly ran out.
He palmed my breast and looked at it like it was sacred before attacking it with his mouth. The sensation made me arch against him.
The knot was still driving me insane, and I relaxed against the bed trying to make room for my hand to unravel it.
It was blocking him from me.
With only one hand I struggled.
His free hand left my breast to help. Together we both worked our fingers through the loops and pulled the knot apart.
Then we both said, “Yes,” and our purest desires said the rest.
We fell against the mattress, his body on mine. All the while, our hands roamed. Our mouths tasted.
With him between my legs all it took was reaching out for him with my hips and he was there. Our bodies knew the way, and we let them go. He pressed into me, and I met him. And I met him. And I met him.
My body took on a rhythm matching his. The typical rush and urgency of our most recent history abated. We didn’t have any more time to lose, and there was no point hurrying.
I didn’t focus on finishing. I didn’t care if it ever ended. I prayed it wouldn’t.
His breath on my neck, the feel of his hair against my cheek as I dragged my fingers through it. The rock of his hips, when he was seated inside me, rubbed against my clit like the beat of a steady drum.
A slow, glorious crescendo.
One him and one me.
When it grew too loud, too amplified, be both slowed.
“I’m not ready,” he whispered in my ear.
I trembled. “I’m not either.”
We rolled facing each other, my legs linked behind him. His legs between mine, his arms crisscrossing my back.
Face to face.
I rocked my hip, and his eyes fluttered. Helpless like me. He replied with a push, and when the new angle touched a forgotten spot, my mouth fell slack as I sighed.
Both our heads tipped back, but our eye contact held. I watched his face, and he showed me what it felt like for him. Small movements in his brow, a twitch in his lip, and a focus in his eyes like I’d only seen when we first met.
He was still fighting.
I pushed down against him again, and one of his eyes squinted from the pleasure. We were lusty animals, but it felt so fucking good.
NINETEEN
PRESENT
REAGAN – Saturday, September 18, 2010
It had never felt that phenomenal or all-consuming. Or maybe I’d thought that the last time, but it was true again in that instant.
Nora was there with me, totally. She let me watch her, let me see her as we lay on our sides, clinging to the moment. She watched me back.
With my arms wrapped under her arms and my hands gripping her shoulders, I pulled her down on me even more as I pushed into her even stronger than the time before.
She still didn’t look away.
Yes. Stay with me.
Her nose wrinkled as she exhaled soundlessly, but I felt her chest cave.
Everything was in slow motion, and for the first time, with her in my arms, I was able to focus on one thing. Us.
Like we were one body. One experience. I wasn’t looking for anything I didn’t have in my arms. Everything was found there.
Her cheek was pink from where my head had rubbed it raw before things started to feel out of hand. Before there was no turning back. Before we’d slowed down.
I’d been about to come, and the chaos in my brain started to return, but I hadn’t had enough peace yet. Enough us yet.
It felt like we’d just obtained it.
I wasn’t squandering seconds away with her anymore.
I was there.
She was there.
In the same place, at the same time, except there was no need for time anymore.
I didn’t close my eyes, and she didn’t either, as my lips once again brushed hers.
It was like we were moving yet laying perfectly still, the smallest movements creating the most exquisite sensations.
My dick was harder than ever before, and she was wet and hot around it. Simple as it sounded, it was perfection in the flesh.
I pushed against the bed with my foot adding a little more pressure to our connection.
She said, her voice enchanted, “I could come like this, but I still don’t want to. We just got here.”
Under normal circumstances, I’d want her to come. In the past, I’d thoughtlessly pretended I didn’t want her to. God, I’d been such a fool.
/> Still, this time, I wasn’t playing a game. Like her, I wanted to wait. I wanted to have every bit of her before we were finished. Not because it was the last time—which it very well may have been—but because it was the first time I was letting it all go and it was everything I’d ever wanted.
“I want more of you first,” I said.
It was no longer her orgasm I strived for, it was the magic right before. The bliss of knowing—even just for the second—she was mine completely.
“I want more of you, too.”
I rolled back on top of her, and couldn’t help myself but push inside of her over and over while I was there. A shiver raced up my back, and I caught myself before I went too far.
I wanted to bring her to the edge, but not let her tip—for all new reasons.
I wanted to show her, but at the same time, I was desperate to keep her there, for myself, as long as I could.
I watched her follow me as I slid down her body, placing kisses on the playground.
One for her nipple here. A lick on her belly there. A peck at her navel.
She squirmed as my cock fell free of her.
“Don’t go,” she pleaded.
“Shhh. I’ll be back.”
Her skin below was flushed and warm against my mouth, and she leaned up to see me lick her cleft.
That’s right. Watch me like you used to.
She tasted so good that I wanted to close my eyes and savor her, but I resisted. She lifted her hips to give me everything, and her hand clutched my hair and held me to her. I moved her leg to the side so I could get to more of her, and she let it fall over, needing it, too.
Her expression was what heaven looks like. Bliss and rapture and joy and peace. I could taste her pleasure on my tongue, feel it roll through her and see it in her eyes.
This is all I want. Just you and me and this.
But as she started to quake under the sensation of it all, she shyly pulled herself away from my mouth. Taking a step back from the edge on her own.
Yes, stay here with me.
Gingerly, she fed me her flesh, pulling it away when she got too close.
I trusted she wanted what I did. For it to last. So I didn’t hold back and enjoyed the sensual gift as it was given to me.
Her hand stretched out for my erection. I was curled around her on the bed, but my cock was slightly out of her reach.
I’d never been strong enough to resist her, and so I moved to an angle that would allow her to grip me. Before she reached out again, she brought her hand to my mouth. Her fingers slid past my teeth to coat them with her arousal off my tongue.
Her slick hand retreated and found me as hard as when all of this began. She slid me through her grip and teased the spot around the tip where she knew first hand I was so sensitive.
How long could we stay like that?
How long would our bodies give our hearts and brains a break?
I didn’t want to waste seconds worrying about it. I’d been willing her to stay in the moment, I had to do the same. If ever there were a time when we needed to hold on, it was then.
One thought still haunted me. I hadn’t meant to hurt her earlier when I didn’t hold her hand. I reached up her stomach to undo my error, to hold her free hand that lay there. I linked our fingers together.
“What if I’m more like you than I’ve ever admitted? More than I was ever willing to accept.” Her words were slow, like she was thinking them instead of saying them. Our eyes still not breaking the honest gaze.
Hearing her say that, even if it was never meant to be heard, felt like a relief. Almost like validation, but it was probably too late.
She went slowly on. “I hate the idea of anyone touching you. Of you touching them. I’m so jealous all the time. I know it’s wrong, but it’s the truth.”
I didn’t reply because I didn’t want her to stop. I’d needed to hear those words for so long.
Sucking at her flesh, I gently watched and listened to her tell me things she never had.
My hand squeezed hers in solidarity. After all, we were still safe. Or we’d gotten so good at lying to ourselves that we now believed anything.
She continued speaking, but her lips hardly moved while in that lucid headspace. “It’s so fucking scary out there. I’m terrified most of the time. I think if I let myself feel this much happiness, I’ll die if it goes away. If I give you everything, and it’s still not enough, you’ll take all that I have when you leave.”
I slowed what I was doing, parting with a kiss on her sex just long enough to ask, “Why would I ever leave?”
Then I kissed her center again because I couldn’t help myself.
“Because I always fall short of pleasing you. I always disappoint. You always want more than I have.”
Where would she ever get the notion that she wasn’t enough on her own?
Probably because I told her over and over, I wanted more, as if it were her fault I was so fucking in love with her that there would never be enough.
I could feel the moment slipping away, and I wanted to prevent it. This one time I wanted better for us.
“With you, I’m never satisfied. Don’t you understand? That’s how my love is. It’s greedy and selfish. There’s never enough you.” I sucked her skin into my mouth and pulled my head back so that it slipped away. “I’ll never get enough of this,” I said against her wetness. “I’ll never be tired of your kisses, or the way you’re stroking me off and looking at me like that.”
Then, for the first time in a while, I broke eye contact. Flattening my tongue, I started at her ass and licked a long firm stripe up the center of her.
“I’ll be hungry for you on my deathbed, baby. It’ll make no difference whether you’re there or not.”
That was a fact surer than any vow I’d ever make.
READ THE KNOT DUET CONCLUSION IN TETHERED LOVE
ALSO BY M MABIE
Standalone, Romantic Comedy
Fade In
The Wake Trilogy
Bait
Sail
Anchor
The City Limits Series
Series of Standalones
Roots and Wings
Sunshine and Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
A Standalone Contemporary Romance
All the Way
ABOUT M MABIE
M. Mabie is a writer who made thousands of readers hate to love (and love to hate) the angst-filled contemporary romance, Bait.
Mabie lives in Illinois with her husband. She writes unconventional love stories and tries to embody "real-life romance." She cares about politics but will not discuss them in public. She uses the same fork at every meal, watches Wayne's World while cleaning, and lets her dog sleep on her head.
She has always been a writer. In fact, she was born with a pen in her hand, which almost never happens. Almost. M. Mabie usually doesn't speak in third-person.
She promises.
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