“I’m sure I don’t know,” he says, but his concern saturates every word. When I check, his expression is pinched, stress hardening the corners of his eyes, mouth.
“Hey,” I say, squeezing his hand. “I’m sure it’s nothing.” There’s an ache in my chest, to dig in, distract, offer solace with hands and lips and teeth. But the line between real and role is already too blurred, and I’m too tired to fake a smile if he refuses. “Maybe she has a secret lover,” I joke.
“Excuse me?”
“I asked her about Paris, and she answered like she’d snuck out her window to make out with someone.”
“I do not want the details.”
“Party pooper,” I say as we watch Astrid quietly ease her car down the driveway.
“When it’s your mum, we’ll see how you like it.” Okay, fine, he has a point.
“Still, I’m kind of proud of her. Sneaking out to see her secret boyfriend? It’s so sexy.”
Lincoln growls, and before I can react, he picks me up over his shoulder and walks through the side entrance and up the stairs.
I bounce as he drops me onto the bed, momentarily blinded by my blood singing in my veins. I’m going to need him to do that again. A hundred times. Then follow me onto it and cage me in and ravage me. I’m disappointed when he doesn’t, merely standing at the end of the bed while he slips his jacket off and folds it. Fuck if that isn’t doing it for me, though.
“Never use the words sexy to describe my mum.”
“Oh, she’s too old to be sexy?”
“No one’s too old to be anything, especially that. But that doesn’t stop her from being my mum.”
“Well, I think she’s incredibly sexy. It must be where you get it from.” Finally he climbs onto the bed, covering my mouth with his hand while I giggle underneath.
“Now where were we?” he asks, kissing me.
The first time we slept together, it was fire and heat, and I wanted it faster, my blood racing in my veins.
Now time slows, and I want to stop it, take our time, soak in every touch until I know the shape of it as well as my own face. I can’t let him go long enough to make it easy, but he doesn’t seem to care. We kiss, long, sweeping arcs of tongue, remembering and relearning all at the same time.
I think I’m babbling. Can hear hushed promises between breaths, between kisses, the words pouring out of me as neatly as water.
“Oh god,” I say, pulling at his shirt, tugging up, up, up, until it’s off and I finally get my hands on his skin. “We could have been doing this for weeks.” I’m scrambling to get my hands, my mouth, on those tattoos.
“Slow down,” he says. But he’s just as eager, pulling my dress up over my head. “We have all night.”
It’s not enough time. A lifetime wouldn’t be enough.
“Hey,” Lincoln says. With his hand in my hair, he tips my head back and holds me there, his eyes dark. Everything in me calms. “I love you. Everything I am is yours.”
Oh god, this is it. It’s real.
Words escape for the second time tonight, but it’s okay, because he knows. Just like he’s always known. What I need. Who I am.
I can’t get enough of him, barely leaving enough space for either of us to undress, but he manages it. So capable. Fuck, I love him.
“Fuck me,” I gasp, and Lincoln responds by wrapping his thick arms around my back and lifting me into his arms, our mouths never separating as he settles me in his lap. I can feel how hard he is, and I moan into his mouth at the thought of him inside me again, finally, after all this time.
When he starts to pull away, I stop him. I don’t want anything between us. Not anymore.
“I’ve got the all-clear if you want to go without,” I tell him.
Lincoln digs his fingers into my ass with a low growl. “Fuck, of course I want you. Are you sure?”
I nod, frantic.
