Atone (Recovered Innocence #2)

I don’t question why she needs this reassurance, because I need it too. I need the absolution of living in the moment. When I walked into this room I took off my grief and left it outside along with the past. I was so lost without it until she grounded me with her honesty. Maybe that’s why I came here…to see how it would feel to let it go, if only for a short while. She’s a safe place to hide from the world and who I couldn’t be. I hope I’m the same for her.

Pushing away any other thoughts except the way she looks and feels on top of me, I concentrate on giving her what she wants. To be fully present in the here and now. A mindless fuck. I focus on her pleasure and what makes her gasp and grind against me. Her face is flushed, her head thrown back. I repeat the motion, strumming her clit with one hand while hitting deep inside her with the fingers of my other hand. She clamps her hands on my wrists and cries out, her whole body taut. She’s so fucking beautiful I lose my breath watching her.

My dick is hard and insistent beneath her, but I don’t make a move to relieve it. I’m too mesmerized by the new look in her eyes. I move my hands around to her hips and up to her waist. She lies down on top of me with a sigh, her head tucked beneath my chin. Smoothing my hands up her back, I close my eyes and focus on the feel of her. I could lie like this with her forever and never move.

Pressing her hot, open mouth to my chest, she sucks, marking me. The sting shoots straight to my dick and I push on her hips to relieve the ache she’s creating. Her mouth begins a journey south as she inches down my body, licking and biting. I groan as her breasts rub against my dick. And then she’s on her knees between my legs, taking me in her mouth. My breath hitches. I lift my head to watch.

Her eyes are on mine as her lips wrap around my shaft, pistoning along with her hand, up and down. I stroke the side of her face. She takes me deep, sucking hard. My vision blurs. She does something with her other hand that makes my hips jerk. Oh, fuck. I’m gonna come. My head drops back and I can’t move. She has me pinned down. Her mouth is fucking genius. My hips buck in time with her strokes. The tightening of my fingers on her scalp is the only warning she gets. I raise my head, my whole body tight. She deep-throats me and that’s it. My hips flex as I come in her mouth. There’s a roaring in my ears and I go temporarily blind.

She holds on to me until I go lax, her gaze never leaving mine. Lifting her head, she pulls her mouth off me slowly, as though she’s reluctant to let go. Her lips purse at the tip and she gives my dick a kiss. The way she looks at me in that moment is unreal. I’m ripped wide open. Who is this girl and how did I get here with her?

“Come here.” I tug on her wrist.

She crawls back up my body, straddles my hips, her forearms bracketing my head, and looks down at me. I take her face in my hands and kiss her, openmouthed. It’s a lazy, sated kiss. We’re the wrong way on the bed. My legs dangle over the side and she’s heavy on top of me, but I’m more comfortable than I’ve been in a long damn time. Maybe it’s the booze or the sex or both. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just her. I can’t remember feeling this easy, like anything could happen and I’d roll with it instead of it rolling over me.

She breaks the kiss and traces a finger around the edge of my lips as though she’s trying to memorize their shape. That’s a stupid thing to think, but that’s how it feels. Her eyes follow the movement around and around. It’s ticklish. I let her do it anyway. She could do just about anything to me right now and I’d let her. It’s not just the blowjob—although it was fucking amazing—it’s her. I’m not supposed to compare, and there’s no way to do it without cheating them both, but I can’t do things—do this—with Vera and not make comparisons to the only other woman I’ve ever slept with.

Everything with Vera is new and interesting and exciting. Everything with Cassandra toward the end was frustrating and difficult and work. We were trying to start over when she was killed. I was trying to forget she slept with someone else during the time we were broken up. We were trying to find our way back to the new and the easy and the exciting. And then she was gone. I was left with nothing but if-onlys and thoughts of what might have been. It was what might have been that I held on to.

I saw the grief for what might have been in my parents and how it fucked them up like it’s fucking me up. Maybe that’s why I came here—to not be like them. To try something I haven’t been able to do—let what might have been go and grab on to what might be. Vera is what might be. My new job at the agency is what might be. Trying to forge a new relationship with my parents is what might be.

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