His eyes turned sad, flickering back out to the water. “I think it would be very hard to love the man who lost you out at sea.”
“You’re also the one who found me,” I whispered.
Blue fire ignited in his eyes, nostrils flaring, and then his mouth crashed over mine.
The center of my chest churned the same as the waves on the lake. My heart bobbed along with the swell of emotions, buoyant because she was here. She came back. And because I finally got to tell her the words I’d kept locked away.
I loved her. Since the first night I plucked her from the surf. True, maybe at first I loved her because of Sadie, because of all the moments we had as kids and all the moments I felt we never got to have.
But eventually, Sadie merged into Amnesia in my head and my heart. The love I knew grew and changed; it morphed from a boyish crush turned into agony to something stronger, deeper, and not so dire.
Amnesia didn’t represent something I’d lost anymore, but something I’d gained. Something I desperately wanted to keep.
I didn’t know if she could ever love me, if even she was capable after everything she’d been through, but her whispered words just now felt like a jolt of lightning right through eye of the storm inside me. Everything lit up, electrified. The determination to take it slow, to let her learn to live again and not put any undue pressure on her, disintegrated.
This wasn’t our first kiss, but it was the first of many more. The amount of desire I held for her seeped from my pores and caused my fingers to quake. My fingertips clutched at her waist, anchoring her right up against my torso. Her thin frame fit along mine so well it was as if she melted right into me.
The wind around us picked up, tossing around our hair, grabbing at our clothes. It only spurred me closer because I would never let it rip us apart. Amnesia slipped her arms around my waist, just above my hipbones. At the small of my back, her hands clasped together, her arms tightened, and I felt a sigh brush across my lips. I took advantage of the slight lift off of her lips to cup her face, splaying my fingers wide, cradling as much of her in my palms as I could.
Opening my eyes, I sought out hers. We were still so close our noses bumped, our breaths mingling. Instead of seeing both her eyes, it was like I looked in one, straight into her… past all the unknowns and right to the core where there was nothing but truth.
I meant what I said about it not mattering to me who she was. The girl I lost at sea or a woman with no past—I didn’t care. I didn’t think I even realized how true it was until I gazed into her face just then.
The wind picked up again, the sound of water slapping against the shore and splashing along the banks carrying through the air. Her eyes closed and her head tilted, offering me more. I surrendered to the invitation.
My tongue slipped between her lips, tangled around hers, and then languidly explored her mouth. Amnesia welcomed me inside, but that wasn’t all. Her own tongue sought me out, did some exploring of its own.
Deep in my throat, I moaned, wanting her to know how much I loved it, and then pressed harder, claiming her a little deeper. The pads of her fingers dug into the small of my back, and her body rose up on tiptoes as I assaulted her mouth more fully than ever before.
Thunder rolled overhead, slow and low at first, then drew closer, the sound sort of cracking overhead like a warning. Forcing my mouth away, we both gulped in deep breaths. My lips slipped along her jawline and down her neck.
Am tilted back, my palm supporting her head as she offered up her creamy, delicate skin. I licked over it, then nipped at her flesh before sucking her deeply into my mouth.
Another roar of thunder boomed through the sky. Amnesia jolted a little. Her body went stiff, her hands clutching at me a little more desperately.
Taking her hand, we ran through the yard all the way up to the house where the back door still banged against the side of the house. The air inside was a little warmer, the blustery wind kept out by the sturdy walls.
Almost the second after I latched the door behind us, the sky opened up and sheets of rain plummeted from above, pelted the grass, and stirred up the lake even more. The heavy way it pounded against the roof made my house feel even smaller, as if we were suddenly, amazingly in a world of our own, where nothing else existed and no one else mattered.
“You okay?” I rasped, shoving the hair off my face and going to her.
The lighting in here was dim, and it had grown much darker with the storm, so the light filtering through the window over the kitchen sink wasn’t much to go on. This close, though, I could see her eyes, the slightly rounded look, and the swell of her lip.
“Are you?” she whispered.
“Oh, baby. I was okay the minute you came back,” I murmured, taking in as much of her as I could.
Am stretched up, wrapped her arms around my neck, and pressed close. Her mouth was tentative at first, and it sent my stomach, heart, and lungs into a nosedive. Once, twice, and then a third time, she grazed the fullness of her lips over mine. I might have thought she was flirting if she were any other girl.
She wasn’t any other girl, though. She was the only girl like her. Maybe, just maybe that’s why she was so hard to figure out.
Keeping my hands at my sides was sweet torture. The tips of my fingers hummed with desire and jerked with need. I remained steadfast in not moving, allowing her the time she wanted to explore as I knew she never had.
I felt her stare, so I opened mine and then watched her brown eyes watch me as she licked across my lips with one achingly slow pass.
“Mmm,” she hummed and then fit her mouth fully against mine.
I kissed her back because there was no way in hell I couldn’t. With a moan, I lifted her off her feet, spinning, and sitting her ass on the countertop behind us. Amnesia’s knees fell open, and I stepped between them. She didn’t stop kissing; her tongue grew bold and stroked along my teeth and wrapped around mine.
Pressing my hips into the lower cabinet, my cock freaking throbbed so hard it hurt. The pressure of pinning it between me and the cabinets was somewhat of a relief because it eased some of the worst throbbing.
Amnesia pulled back. Her lips made a slight sucking sound against mine as she did. I didn’t pull away. I was too tangled in her web. I’d stay exactly there until she either claimed me as her prey or let me go.
The tip of her pink tongue darted out, rubbed across her lower lip, and she smiled. I didn’t smile back, too heavy with desire.
Her eyes were dark, partly from longing and partly from the lack of light. With the window at her back, she sort of glowed before of me like an angel, sure as hell making me feel divine.
I didn’t even try to conceal the fact my eyes ate up her face and that she was literally the only thing in the room to me.