I never thought I’d get here again, but I am. I’m in love with this woman, and at an almost desperate, fevered level.
“I’m in love with you,” I murmur softly, brushing my lips against hers. She wraps her small, muscular arms about my neck. “God help you and me both, but I am so damn in love with you.”
She takes hold of my face, breaking our kiss and forcing me away. Then our eyes meet, and that sacred, beautiful stillness descends upon us again. Over our moment, over this joining. It’s as if all separation or the possibility of it vanishes, and even though I’m not inside her yet—even though my whole body is trembling—we’re one. We’re already one.
“I want you, Michael,” she whispers on a heartbeat. “I really, really want you.”
I move my lips against the column of her throat, teasing my tongue along her fast-beating pulse. “Good thing, baby. ’Cause I’m dying to get inside of you.”
Her hands roam and move across my shoulders, fingers spread wide over the exact spot where I have my tattoo. I flash on the image I had before, of her mouth trailing over it, licking my shoulder, body grinding up against mine.
“Kiss it,” I groan, and her hands stop their exploration.
“I don’t…”
I lift off of her in a push up, knowing we’ll have to change positions. With eyes narrowed and my hard cock jutting toward her, I fight the urge to beg. “My tattoo, baby. Kiss my tattoo.”
I move onto my stomach, a position that could be achingly familiar, but I send those memories out to the horizon at the first flick of her warm tongue against my skin. She slides atop me, the lightest slip of a thing. Damn, she’s like a butterfly herself, I think. My miraculous, healing creature. My Rebecca.
But then she’s straddling me, and I can feel that warm dampness between her thighs as it touches my lower back, as she bends again and slowly kisses the stretched wings of my tattoo.
“Like this?” Her voice is thick and husky, lost to what’s happening.
“Yeah, baby. Good. That’s good.”
Warm hands move along my nape, slide across my hips, and I keep thinking I should take control here. But I feel more confidence and seduction in these strokes of Rebecca’s than any other time we’ve been together.
She feels so bold because she knows I can’t see her or the scars. I realize it then, my heart slamming, and I don’t know if I should flip her onto her back and make her accept my love—or if I should go with this current, very sexy groove, this power that’s starting up between us. A power that is intimately linked with my own past, not just Rebecca’s, I think, as I lay spread face-first beneath her body.
But what happens between us now, it’s got to be about the present—about who we are in each other’s arms, not the embrace of the past.
“Becca?” I ask softly, arching my back and lifting my head so I can look over my shoulder at her. The glimpse I get in return tightens my throat. Her blonde hair is disheveled and wild, her lips swollen from my earlier kisses, and a flush has hit her Irish cheeks that makes me want to claim her now.
“Becca, now it’s my turn.”
“For what?” Her hair falls over one shoulder, another heavy lock over her eyes.
I smile, moving up onto my knees and reach for her. “To shatter every one of your defenses.”
***
I’m the one who’s shattered, I think, snuggling Rebecca a little closer. We’re both sweaty and sticky, but definitely very satisfied. I’ve got a smile on my face that just won’t fade. How could I have forgotten what it feels like to be inside a woman? Lying here afterwards with Rebecca, staring at Casey’s ceiling, I can’t believe I ever forgot. The softness. The warmth, all close around me. It’s like I just lost my virginity all over again; I’m seventeen, all dewy-eyed and invincible. Like my very first time with Katie back in high school, I’m filled with innocent wonder. Amazement. Rebecca is tiny and curvy and soft; she’s everything Alex never was. I guess somewhere along the way I forgot the difference.
Beside me, she’s nestled close within the crook of my arm. The bathroom light spills over our bed, and I can’t stop watching her, even though I’m sleepy as hell. Between surfing today, and now sex, I’m flattened.
She’s so beautiful, the gold in her hair shimmering in the near dark; I swear I could get going all over again. She rolls closer, splaying her palm across my chest. She rubs me there, running her hand over the curling dark hairs.
“That was really incredible,” she says, a sweet, tender smile forming on her lips.
I stroke her hair, holding her close. “Definitely incredible.” Worth the thirteen-year wait, I want to say, but figure I’d better keep that to myself. Closing my eyes, I wait for her to say something about how she’s falling in love with me, something dopey to satisfy the seventeen-year-old she’s brought out to play tonight.