"Are you sure?" I breathed against her neck.
She answered by pulling my shirt over my head, her eyes dark and certain. "I've never been more sure of anything."
CHAPTER 6
OLIVIA
There was no hesitation. No second guessing. I’d been sure about Garner for as long as I could remember. When he looked at me, I knew he saw it too. That this thing between us wasn’t fake. It never had been. His jaw flexed like he was trying to find the right words, but I didn’t need them. I moved closer, slid my fingers up the back of his neck, and kissed him.
It was the kind of kiss that told the truth… deep, intentional, and more than a little desperate.
He groaned low in his chest and kissed me back, like the dam holding back his feelings had finally cracked. His hands moved to my waist, then splayed across my back, holding me in a way that felt like he didn’t want to let go. His mouth moved over mine like he knew every inch by heart. Like he’d imagined this a thousand times and couldn’t believe it was real now.
I couldn’t either.
My hands were in his hair, on his jaw, pressed to his bare chest the second he tugged off his shirt. I ran my palms over his tattoos, tracing them like they meant something. Like they were pieces of him I’d never gotten to touch before. He was solid, warm, and already breathing heavy.
We sat up so he could pull my shirt over my head and toss it on the floor. His eyes dropped to my bare skin, and he froze.
“Liv,” he said, voice raw. “If we do this…”
“I know,” I whispered.
That was all it took.
He kissed me again, slower this time. His hands skimmed my arms, my sides, every curve he’d never touched but had probably memorized from years of being close and never crossing the line. His touch made my breath catch, not from nerves, but from how much I wanted this. Wanted him.
He laid me back on the bed with a gentleness that made my chest ache, like I was something he didn’t quite believe he was allowed to have. But when I pulled him down with me, there was no more hesitation.
I couldn’t stop touching him. Couldn’t stop staring at his face, the way his eyes darkened when I whispered his name. The way he swore under his breath when my fingers slipped beneath the waistband of his sweats.
Our kisses grew deeper as he tugged off his sweats, then gently slid my shorts and panties down my legs. All that mattered was skin and heat and the way he looked at me like I was the only thing that existed. We were tangled up, breathless and bare, and everything felt sharp and alive.
“Tell me this is real,” he said against my collarbone, his voice wrecked.
I arched into him. “It’s real.”
He pressed a kiss there, then another, lower. His mouth trailed down my body like he was cataloging every inch. He didn’t rush. Didn’t push. Just touched me in a way that made it impossible to think.
I curled my fingers into his shoulders, my back arching off the mattress as his touch lit me up from the inside out. The tension built slowly, like a rising tide. Neither of us tried to rush things. We held each other, breathed each other in, and let the moment carry us.
Finally, when I wasn’t sure I could take much more, he broke contact. “Let me get a condom.”
The reality of what we were about to do washed over me. This was my last chance to back down. Garner climbed back on the bed, the foil packet in hand. I took it from him, ripped it open, and slid the condom down his thick, hard shaft.
When he finally slid into me, I felt it everywhere. Not only in my body, but deep in my heart. Like something had finally locked into place.
We moved together, slowly at first. His forehead rested against mine, and both of us were quiet except for the sound of skin on skin. Then his rhythm deepened. Our hands tangled. My body met his with every thrust, aching for more, needing everything he gave me and everything he didn’t say. It wasn’t just sex. This was something we’d been building toward for years.
When the pressure coiled so tight that I couldn’t breathe, I gasped his name as I hovered on the edge.
“That’s it, baby girl. Come for me, Liv.”
My fingernails dug into his shoulders as I shattered underneath him.
He followed right after, with a groan that sounded like a surrender, his arms tightening around me like he could hold the world together if he squeezed me hard enough.
We stayed like that for a long beat, our breath mingling, our bodies locked together. Then he rolled me over, so my cheek rested on his chest while his cock stayed buried inside me. I didn’t want the moment to end.
