Leave Me Breathless

Chapter Nineteen


It had been the longest week of his life. Whether it was the anticipation of seeing Macy or the absolute devastation of basically being on a death watch, he didn’t know. The two factors simply amalgamated into one long, never-ending stretch of agony.

He felt better the instant he got away from the sterile hospital smells and on the road, putting miles between him and that damned place and eating up the ones that separated him from his girl. He ate them up a little too eagerly, resulting in a speeding ticket halfway to Fort Worth. It didn’t even matter. Minutes after getting back on I-35, he was flying again.

She would probably get on his ass about that if she were here. He could almost hear her, and it seemed even her imagined nagging made him grin. He supposed he wouldn’t do either one of them any good if he got himself killed, so he managed to ease off the accelerator a little. The closer he got, the calmer he got.

Macy had booked the hotel room and texted him the directions. She’d also said she would call him when she got there, so even though she’d left home earlier than he had, he figured as he pulled into the parking lot that he must have beaten her.

Well, given the f*cking ticket tossed over in his passenger seat, it was no wonder. At least the cop had let him go without searching his damn car. His appearance didn’t exactly present him as an upstanding citizen.

After parking and stretching his legs for a minute, he grabbed his cell and dialed her. It was a perfect day, the sky a flawless, early spring blue. He stared at the cars zooming past on the interstate while he waited to hear her voice again.

“Do not tell me you’re already there,” she answered.

“Yeah, I am. Where is your slow ass?”

“Hey, now. I’ll show you slow in about…twenty minutes, according to my GPS.”

Oh, hell yes. “A’ight, then. Just making sure I wasn’t about to get stood up.”

“Not in a million. See you soon.”

“Be careful.”

While he waited, he texted Steph, then called and shot the shit with Brian for a few minutes. The dude sounded frazzled but hid it fairly well. If Ghost hadn’t known him for half his life, he might have missed the strain.

Did Brian think the same about him? Probably. Weren’t they just a couple of miserable clods. But brighter days lay ahead. They had to. He could put a bug in Macy’s ear that she needed to get her best friend to drag that guy away and f*ck him senseless for a few days. He’d be a new man.

A burgundy Acadia caught his attention as it whipped into a parking space a few down from him, and he said his good-byes to his friend.

All through the week while he’d been away from Macy, he’d told himself she couldn’t be as beautiful as he remembered, he couldn’t feel for her this much this soon. He’d spent days having to look at Brooke, whose beauty was like a knife carving his heart out all over again. When Macy came around the back end of her SUV, her bright smile all for him, she was like a balm to his ragged senses. His breath fled him. He literally couldn’t take in air for a moment; he damn sure couldn’t speak.

She couldn’t know she did this to him. Not ever. How could he give someone that kind of power over him, when every time he’d allowed it to happen before, everything had gone to shit?

Macy flew into his arms, and he held her with all the conviction and determination he had in that moment to keep her at a distance. To not get so crazy so fast. It wasn’t smart, and he knew it; he just didn’t think good sense would be enough to trump his need for her. He was so f*cked, careening madly down the path to getting his heart splattered all over hell. And grinning like a buffoon the entire time.

Her scent engulfed him. Warm vanilla, even sweeter than he remembered, tempting him to eat her alive. She made a little helpless sound in his ear, and he damn near lost control of himself.

“You okay?” he asked, wondering at her exuberance. They’d talked a lot in the past week, almost every night, but he realized they’d mostly talked about what was going on with him. What hurts and stresses had she come here to work out? He simply couldn’t believe she was only here to see him, but he had all night to get to the bottom of it.

She nodded against his neck. “Mm-hmm. Long drive. Glad to be here, glad to see you.” She gave him another squeeze, and he set her feet on the ground, only then realizing he’d lifted her.

“You look… You’re stunning, Macy.”

A blush rose in her cheeks, and he couldn’t resist reaching up to caress them with his thumbs. Had no one other than him ever told her that before? It was most likely an idiotic assumption, but even so, it pissed him off. Any man she’d belonged to who neglected to praise her every damn day was a damn fool.

“Thanks. I feel kind of wilted after being in the car all this time.”

“Wilted, my ass. You’re in full bloom, baby.” He ducked as she laughed and swatted at him. “Hey, are you hungry? The city is our playground. I know we can find good sushi around here.”

“Mmm. Yes, I’m hungry,” she said, running her finger underneath his chin and getting an instant reaction from down south. “But the food can wait awhile.”

Damn straight it could. Somehow he made it through the next few minutes, waiting while she checked them in, unloading her bags for her, finding their room. It all passed in slow f*cking motion. Lust had sucker-punched him. He hoped that woman knew what she’d signed on for, because he kept thinking he was going to go to hell for all the things he wanted to do to her.

“I can’t help but feel naughty about doing this,” she said as she fitted the key card into the slot. “It feels like some illicit affair, sneaking off from life, meeting up at a hotel…”

He grinned and hauled their overnight bags inside, dropping them by the door. “Then that’s what it is.”

“Secret lovers. That aren’t exactly so secret anymore.” She glanced around the room. It was nice, cool, dim from the closed curtains. Hell, he didn’t give a f*ck about the room. He only gave a f*ck about the bed and the woman in the room.

“Oh yeah? Who knows you’re here?” he asked.

“You know…no one, actually. I didn’t even tell Candace or Sam where I was going.”

“I hope there was no important reason for that, because Brian knows. So Candace probably does too.”

Macy muttered something that sounded like, “That isn’t necessarily true,” as she leaned over and tested the softness of the bed, but he couldn’t be bothered to ponder over it. All he could focus on was the way her blousy brown shirt cinched at her little waist and those f*cking ass-bling jeans molded to her butt.

“Secret lovers, huh?” he said, moving toward her. She turned around and gave him a little smirk, taking a step back for every one he took forward. She wore her hair long and straight, and it spilled around her shoulders, inviting his fingers to sink into the heavy, lustrous silk of it. “That the way you want it?”

“No. I didn’t mean that. Like I said, we aren’t so secret now.”

And she didn’t mind. Jesus H. Could he love this girl the way she deserved? He could love her with everything he was, and still it wouldn’t be enough. He would f*ck up somehow, because that was what he did.

She’d stopped her teasing retreat from his advance and stood still now, big hazel eyes watching his approach until she was looking right up into his eyes. Unflinching. Open. Her breath came a little quickly; her pulse fluttered at the side of her neck.

Would he ever get used to this breathless, speechless, f*cking stupefaction she instigated when she was close to him? It all seemed so fragile… One wrong word, one wrong action from him and the whole thing would crack. He only knew how to really communicate with girls like Raina. Brash, in-your-face girls who knew why they were here: to f*ck and fight and above all have a good time.

Not girls like Macy, who looked at him with expectations beyond what he could give them physically. Girls like that should know to go elsewhere to get those needs met. Brooke sure as hell had. She’d even known right where to go.

“Why’d you come here?” he asked, gently brushing back a lock of hair straying near her eye.

Confusion flitted across her delicate features. “What?”

“I’m sure it’s not about walking on the wild side anymore—hell, we never even really got there, did we? I’ve been a sucky tour guide.”

“Seth, you’ve said and done things to me no one else has. I’ve done things and thought things and said things I never thought I would. So, no, you haven’t been a ‘sucky tour guide’. You’ve been…perfect. For me, you’ve been perfect.” She took his hand, the one that hadn’t quite been able to stop touching her hair, and let her fingers slide through his. “I even talked to my parents and one of my old friends about racing again. Baby steps,” she added quickly.

Pride practically exploded in his chest. “Babe, that’s awesome.”

“Well, thanks for confronting me about it.”

“It’s all you. All I did was give you one little nudge.”

“Yeah, but…it was a nudge no one else would give me. And you did way more than that.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“I know I can be sort of a closed book sometimes. You get me to open up. You aren’t afraid to do that. It means a lot, that you would make the effort. At that moment, it was like you knew me and what I needed to hear better than anyone else ever has.”

Again, she was able to put something out there that strangled his heart in a chokehold and tied his friggin’ tongue up in knots. So he did the only thing he knew to do—pulled her in his arms and put his mouth on hers. If he couldn’t use it to speak to her right then, he could use it to make her feel good. To get closer to her.

A sigh escaped her, and he drank it up, drank her in, sliding his hands down to her ass to pull her tight against his aching cock. She whimpered against his lips, and her tongue slipped between his teeth, teasing and tempting his until he plundered her back. Her body trembled and heated against his, and when she pulled away to look up at him, her eyes were a little brighter, her lips a little fuller.

“Why didn’t you kiss me the first night we were together?”

Seriously? “Couldn’t give you everything up front.”

Her fingers curled around the back of his neck, warm and tantalizing. She wet her lips, and the knowledge that she tasted him there made his hands clench on her. “You gave me everything later.”

He leaned in, sliding his lips across hers. “Not everything.” When she parted her lips to invite the invasion of his tongue once more, he eluded her, instead trailing his mouth down her jaw and her sweet-smelling neck.

“Tease,” she chided, but he heard the tremor in the word. Chuckling, he reluctantly let go of her and stepped back, leaving her panting gently and staring at him in bewilderment.

“Undress for me,” he told her.

“What about you?”

“In due time.” He sat on the bed and leaned back against the headboard. “Do it.”

Expression unreadable, she regarded him for a few seconds, and he wondered if she might refuse despite the fact he’d seen her naked often enough.

“You’re feeling like a bad girl today, remember,” he prompted her. “You’ve run away from life to meet up with your clandestine lover in a distant city, and no one knows where you are. You’re his for the night. It scares you a little, doesn’t it.” Her quick intake of breath caused her breasts to swell briefly, beguilingly. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, watching the effects of his words soften her body. “But it also gets you hot.”

“Sometimes I think you know me a little too well.” Even as she said it, her hands slipped under the bottom of her shirt. Agonizingly slowly, she peeled it upward and over her head until her hair came free of it with a soft swish and settled back around her creamy, naked shoulders. His mouth ran dry at the sight of her lacy red bra, cut so low if she but moved, he might catch the slightest glimpse of the upper edge of her areola.

Aw f*ck.

“You’re wearing the red panties, aren’t you?”

Her head fell back, and she giggled in a way that made him think of a demonic seductress. She should have a red devil tail twitching around her feet. Then, giving him an impish glance any porn star could learn from, she popped the button on her jeans, lowered the zipper and slid them down over her hips with a slow wiggle. Kicking them free, she shook her hair back and looked at him, waiting for his next move.

He knew what he wanted that move to be. Pinning her sexy ass down on the bed and having it six ways to Sunday all night long. He wanted to tie her up, take away the control she so desperately needed in her life, make her give it all to him.

Instead, he said, “Come here.”

She wet her lips and obeyed, hips swaying hypnotically. If he were a lesser man, the mere sight of her advancing on him would be enough to make him come all over himself.

He’d known from the first time he’d seen her—freaked out and practically cowering in the parlor—that underneath the demure exterior lurked a passionate, confident and devastatingly sexual woman. She’d never disappointed him.

“So if I’m yours for the night, what are you going to do to me?” she asked. He let his gaze roam her body. She was within reach now, standing at the side of the bed; he just didn’t know what he wanted to reach for first.

“What do you want?” he whispered.

Never taking her eyes from his, she unhooked her bra and let it slide from her arms. He swallowed against the sudden dryness in his throat. Suddenly there was no question what he wanted to reach for first.

Sitting up and turning toward her, he grasped her hips and pulled her in between his legs. Her breath hitched and shuddered and her skin felt like warm satin underneath his palms as he pushed his hands up her belly to cup the firm weight of her breasts. “F*cking gorgeous,” he murmured, leaning forward to catch first one nipple and then the other in his mouth. Her knees quaked where they were pressed between his thighs, and her hands grasped fistfuls of his shirt as she whimpered.

He loved the sound of that. He drew her deeper, sucked her harder, circling her hard little nipple with his tongue, all in an effort to send her moans to a crescendo. Her head fell back, a movement that only bowed her lithe body into him more. The scent of her arousal flared his nostrils, and if his erection had been threatening to bust his fly before, the situation was twice as dire now.

Hooking his wrist under her knee, he hauled her leg up until her bent knee rested on his thigh. She gasped and immediately rolled her hips toward him, wordlessly begging for him to touch. He didn’t keep her waiting, slipping his fingers between her parted legs but making sure to stay on top of the damp fabric for now. He moved his attentions from one wet, beaded nipple to the other one he’d been mostly neglecting.

“Oh, Seth, please,” she panted, angling her body so that his fingertips brushed her *. A jolt went through her; her hands clenched him tighter. Any more and she was going to tear off his shirt. He didn’t give a shit.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said against her puckering flesh.

“Wha…?” The breath left her as he sucked again. He didn’t let her have it back for at least another minute, teasing her nipple, strumming her *.

“Why you came here. I asked, you never said.”

“To see you.” Her voice was lower, fuller, desire-drenched, and damn, he got off on it.

“To f*ck me.”

“Not just…no, I…oh, God.” His fingers had just bypassed the fabric barrier between them and her p-ssy. So wet, so soft. In one frenzied motion, she put all her weight on her knee and lifted her other leg until it rested on him too, opening herself more.

“No? So if I stop, then—”

“No, don’t stop!”

He chuckled. She was lying to herself if she thought she didn’t need this. Maybe he was lying to himself to think she needed anything more than this.

What if he loosened her up sexually only for the next f*cking bastard who came into her life to reap all the benefits?

Oh, goddammit, no. He snatched his hand away, grabbed her by the hips and threw her on the bed sideways, rising up over her and damn near ripping his shirt off as she watched him with a kind of feral apprehension in her eyes. It didn’t stop her from grabbing his jeans and working them until she held his cock in her hands. F*ck, he was hard, so hard it hurt, and sweet relief was only a few inches away. Between her legs or between her lips, he didn’t much care, only knew he had to get in one place or the other, and he had to get there fast.

“Are you on the pill?” he rasped.

Her eyelashes flickered as she looked up at him. “No. Sorry.”

And so his dreams of sinking uninhibited into her wet heat and not leaving until he came died a screaming death. It was all right. He just wished he’d had the foresight to get the condoms out and have them close at hand. By the time he returned to her with the little foil packet, he was no less ravenous for the pause. She wasn’t either, apparently, because she grabbed it from him and had it opened and his dick sheathed in latex almost before he could blink.

“Panties off,” he demanded, and she made even quicker work of stripping them. He shucked his jeans. Her hungry gaze roved over him, and she stretched her arms above her head, already knowing what he liked without him having to ask.

“I thought you liked them on,” she said huskily.

“I don’t want a f*cking thing keeping me from touching every inch of you I can.”

A sigh shuddered from her. Jesus Christ. Her long, naked body gleamed in the dim light. All his. Her gaze dropped to his cock, she licked her lips, and that was the last thing his dangerously thin control could take.

He hadn’t slid his fingers inside her, hadn’t stretched her, hadn’t prepared her. He wanted the sweet shock of her impossible tightness, wanted her squeezing him until he couldn’t breathe, wanted to see the answering sensations pass across her face.

He spread her knees wider. Let the head of his cock slip through her gathered moisture and thrust once, hard. Her fingers wrenched the bedspread above her head. Her lovely face pinched in agonized ecstasy. He made it only halfway before he couldn’t take any more of the friction, drew back and thrust again to ease his entry.

A dozen curses must have fallen from his lips, but he was beyond knowing or caring what he said. Only when she’d taken him all did he stop for a moment, breathing harshly while her legs trembled around his hips. She shivered all over, in fact, even inside where he could feel every movement magnified a hundredfold around his too-engorged shaft.

Scared, hurt, tuned on…whatever she was right now, he was right there with her. It was all from the possessiveness that had bubbled up at the thought of her with some other a*shole’s hands all over her. Some other a*shole’s dick where his was right now. He opened his mouth to say something…what, he had no clue. Something to reassure her.

He never imagined she’d be the one to reassure him. “Baby, come here,” she said, disobeying his unspoken request and holding her arms out to him. He’d have been the dumbest son of a bitch alive not to go into them.

It wasn’t too hard, in that moment, to almost understand where Brian was coming from now in his need to stake a claim with his woman, to make her his and his alone. Truth of the matter was, though, that it made no difference how much you gave her, or how many rings you put on her finger; there was always a motherf*cker around the corner just waiting to try to entice her with a better deal. Didn’t he f*cking know it.

Even as he relaxed into her embrace, despair ate a hole in his gut. It couldn’t last. But he couldn’t fight it. As much as he liked taking her control away, her arms around him and her soft body welcoming his stole away every last bit of his own. With only a few words, a touch, she’d brought his ragged beast to heel under her own gentle command.

She hadn’t come here to f*ck him; she’d come here to make love to him. He wasn’t ready for that yet.

“It’s all going to be okay,” she whispered, stroking his back.

He inhaled the overwhelming sweetness of her skin and hair and released his breath on a shudder, trying to get a grip before he just f*cking lost it, right here, right now. There was so much, too much shit flying around his head…and maybe this had been an epically bad idea to expose her to it.

“Turn over; let me up.”

No use arguing with her. He rolled, pulling her with him. Maybe she wouldn’t look at his face too much. God only knew what she’d see.

Planting little kisses along his jaw, she lifted her hips, letting him slide out to just the last half-inch. He groaned, clenching his hands on her ass in an effort not to shove her back down. Slowly, so damn slowly it curled his toes, she sank again. Inch by inch until she’d taken him all and he’d broken out in a sweat.

“Oh God,” she gasped. Her warm palms captured his face, and her lips melted over his. Then, as she lifted and sank again, she pulled her head back and stared right at him, lips parted, eyes glazed with pleasure. “Oh.”

“Macy…” Heaven. She was a little piece of heaven wrapped around him to offset the hell in his head. Her body moved with fluid grace as she began to love him…it was the only word for what she did. Every withdrawal brought her lips back to his. Her scents—like cupcakes and sex—swirled in his head, and he could drown in the dark luxury of her heavy silken hair falling around him.

A little faster now, but still gently, she rode him, seeking the angle that told him she was reaching her peak and needed to fly. So much for his hope she wouldn’t look at him much, because she stared right in his f*cking eyes, hers like burning amber glazed with pleasure and need.

“F*ck, that’s good,” she said, and it was so unexpected he almost burst out laughing.

“Aren’t you glad you didn’t run screaming?”

“Wha…? Oh.” She gave a breathy laugh, apparently remembering her comment about his piercing. “I am. So freaking glad.”

“Turn around.”

“Huh?”

He urged her up with a gentle push on her hips. “Turn around, cowgirl. You’ll see.” Curious uncertainty flashing in her eyes, she did as he told her, putting her back to him. He reached between them and positioned himself at her entrance, both of them groaning as she sank back down, swallowing him whole.

“F*ck,” he breathed. Running his hand up her sides, he drew her back until she lay atop him, turning her head for a kiss as he caressed her belly and breasts. It was a welcome break from her probing gaze, and, given her whimpers and the minute gyrations of her hips on him as he lay perfectly still, he knew his piercing was resting at her sweet spot.

“Seth,” she moaned against his mouth. “I need…” Her p-ssy pulsed around him, involuntary spasms that were going to drive him out of his mind.

God, yes, she needed, and he wanted to be the one overseeing the fulfillment of those needs from now on. He took one of her hands and slid it down over her belly. “Play with your *, Macy.”

The disadvantage was that he couldn’t see as she obeyed. He felt her hand leave his, heard the tiny, moist sound of her fingers finding their target and her answering sigh. In little increments, he began to move. It was all she needed—for him to work the very spot he was at. Her fingers explored lower and touched his dick where it disappeared inside her, and the shock of it jolted up his spine, made him growl, made him tighten his arm around her waist.

“I need you to come, baby, before I blow,” he said in a rush at her ear. “Need to feel you squeeze me while I’m hard and deep.”

“Yes.” The brush of her fingers left him and returned to working the little bud he couldn’t wait to kiss and tongue and suck later until she screamed. He told her all about those plans while she sighed and moaned, trembled and jerked, until finally she broke over him. Her body undulated in waves while he left control in the dust and took her in long strokes that sent her cries higher and milked his own release from him in great heaving spasms that took all the stress and heartache with them—at least for the moment. Her weight collapsed onto him just as the last shudder rent him.

But she didn’t stay. She slid off him and curled at his side, her body still shaking so violently he was compelled to turn and wrap her in his arms.

“Are you okay?”

She only nodded, clinging to him. He didn’t push. It had been f*cking intense for him, too, and he couldn’t have articulated it, so there was no reason to make her attempt to do so.

As quickly as he was able, he took care of the condom. Then, reaching over her, he pulled the lower half of the bedspread away from the mattress and tossed it over both of them, snuggling her closer into his chest. Just in case her shivering wasn’t only emotional in nature.

And if it was? If she was as affected by what was happening here as he seemed to be?

He gripped her tighter. Her smooth leg slid over his, and her arm went around his waist, her head nestling under his chin. Warm breath gusted against his shoulder. So much for his grand, smart plans to keep her at a distance. Here in this little cocoon, the world didn’t matter, and seemingly anything he’d ever thought or felt before didn’t matter either. He would f*cking die for this girl.

“You’re too good for me,” he whispered. Not really what he wanted to spout at the moment, but it was what came out.

“Don’t say that.” Her voice was still small, husky, breathless.

“I know. It’s lame.”

Her head lifted, and clear hazel eyes met his gaze. “I want you. And I’m an uptight bitch, remember? I don’t tend to want things that aren’t good enough for me.”

“An uptight bitch? Who the hell ever told you that?”

“No one ever had to tell me that.”

“For an uptight bitch, you’re pretty damn selfless.”

A grin teased at the corner of her lips. “You think I don’t have my own selfish reasons for being here?”

“Well, so did I, for that matter. So, how about admitting neither of us is perfect and getting on with life.”

“You brought it up.”

“It was an observation. Correct but irrelevant.”

“Not correct and irrelevant.”

He laughed, sinking his hand into her hair to cup her neck and guide her lips back to his. “All right,” he told her between mouthfuls of her sweetness. “I give in.”

“That’s the way it should be.” She slid her body over his, a devilish glint in her eyes. “You giving in.”

“Is it now?”

“Mm-hmm.” Her thighs eased open around his hips, and her mouth trailed down to his right nipple ring. When her tongue flicked it, his breath caught. Damn if his cock wasn’t already swelling hard against the softness of her belly. “So do these really heighten sensitivity?”

He lifted his hips, pressing his erection into her. “What do you think?”

As she chuckled, a burst of her breath cooled the wetness she’d left at his nipple and he groaned. “I think I could look at you and get that reaction.”

She might just be right about that. “You interested?”

Her incredulous gaze lifted to his. “In nipple rings? Oh, hell no.”

A gasp escaped her as he flipped her under him, the movement causing the blanket to slip off their bodies. “I don’t pierce, anyway.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope. Purely interested in the ink.” Her skin was a delicious mix of sweet and salty as he licked the delicate curve where her neck met her shoulder. He knew from experience that flavor only intensified between her legs. “There’s so much I want to do with you.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve needles.”

“Noted.” He drew one pert nipple into his mouth, sucked it slowly as he skimmed his fingers down her belly. Her hips tilted upward in sweet invitation, and he accepted, sliding two fingertips on either side of her * but not touching it directly. She gave a little mewl of distress…and then the words that stopped the world’s turning.

“Other than that, you can…do anything you want to me.”

The building could’ve caught fire, a tornado siren could’ve blared, or a f*cking wrecking ball could’ve crashed through the wall, and he wouldn’t have noticed at the moment. But those words brought his head up.

“What do you want?”

He could practically see the blush rising in her cheeks. “I thought we were talking about what you want.”

“No, this is all you. I’d like to push you, but only to places where I’m pretty certain you’d like to go. I’m not going to cross any lines you may have all for the sake of getting myself off. So if there’s something you’re curious about, or you think you want to try, then you need to tell me.”

She averted her gaze from his, studying the portion of the ceiling just over his right shoulder. “I just keep thinking about what you said about your ex, about you staying around because she was crazy in bed. It was the first thing you mentioned when I asked why you were with someone like that for so long.”

“And if I’d used my brain, I would never have told you that, especially if I thought it would eat at you. Hey.” Gently, he stroked the hair from her forehead, drawing her attention again. “It might’ve kept me for a while, but it didn’t keep me forever, did it?”

“I don’t like the thought that I’m not the best you’ve ever had.” Wow. The fierce intensity of that statement took him by surprise, and for a moment, he wondered if he’d just gotten a glimpse of the pre-accident, always-gotta-win Macy everyone talked about. Also…what the hell?

“Now I f*cking did not mean to give you that impression. Jesus, girl.” He sat up on his knees, rubbing a hand over his head. She followed, modestly holding the bedspread to the swell of her breasts. “I wish I could even describe to you how I felt that first night we were together. I can’t, though, because the only words going through my mind were holy f*cking shit. That’s it. Over and over. That you had even looked my way once, that you agreed to meet up, that you actually pulled the first move and didn’t tease or stop me—my life could’ve ended that night, Macy, and I’d have considered it complete. You are the best I’ve ever had. If all we do from now on is straight missionary sex at eight p.m. on Tuesday nights of months that start with J, you’ll still be the best I’ve ever had.”

If he’d expected her to look happy about all of that, he was disappointed. She lowered her head, still clutching that ridiculous blanket as if he hadn’t just had her nipple in his mouth. “Then I had to go and mess everything up,” she said at last, sounding small and dejected.

“Don’t beat yourself up. You explained. It’s forgiven. Come here.” Scooting to her on his knees, he wrapped her in his arms. Thank God, she finally dropped the blanket, going skin-to-skin with him, burying her face in his shoulder and squeezing him tight. “I’m the luckiest son of a bitch alive to be here right now,” he whispered. “Don’t ever think I don’t know it.”

“I’m pretty lucky, myself.”