“I’m, um… I was born…”
“That’s Elizabeth?” Gracie traces the shape of my wife’s hair with a fingernail.
“Yes,” I breathe, feeling the familiar ache in my chest.
“She looks happy here.” Gracie points to the one picture that sticks a stake in my heart every time I see it.
“Oh, she was,” I say cryptically.
It’s way too fucking soon to talk about Owen. My wife’s ex-boyfriend. The guy she loved. The man she should have married instead of me. Yeah, I have a picture of her dancing with him at our wedding. I’ve compared the smile on her face as she whirled on the dance floor with him, arms wide, laughing, to the ones she took with me a billion times over the last few years.
I cannot believe I missed all the signs. They were there even on what should have been the happiest day of our lives. With me, she looked stiff. Like she was being forced to pose with a composed smile. With him? Well, the picture Gracie is studying says it all. Elizabeth was free, silly, alive. I didn’t make her feel that. Another man did. Even on our wedding day.
As if picking up on the change in me, Gracie scoots a little closer, closing the gap I just tried to put between us.
“Let’s close the album,” she says quietly. “I feel like living in the moment.”
I happily slam the album shut and move it aside. “I can get behind that. What kind of living would you like to do in this moment?”
She reaches a hand toward my chin and scratches her nails against the stubble that’s growing in. “I’m thinking this is a perfect place to have a first kiss, Ryder. What do you think?”
I don’t have to think. I turn on the couch and take her face in both my hands. I breathe her in as she snakes her hands up my arms, shoulders, and laces them behind my neck. I want to bury my fingers into her hair and get lost in the soft, warm layers. Caress her neck, her ears, her chin with my lips, exploring every sensitive inch of skin.
But she’s the one who kisses me first. Her lips are so soft, so gentle as they press against mine. She seems as eager to taste me as I am to explore her. She holds my chin in her hand and nuzzles my stubble with her nose. Then I feel the slightest flick as she teases my lower lip with her tongue.
I’m twisting toward her, feeling as awkward as a kid on a first date trying to hold her, feel her, get as close to her as I can while we’re side by side on the couch.
I let her take the lead as long as I can, allowing her to set the pace. She devours my skin with small, hot kisses. My cheeks, my chin, my neck. When she finally presses her lips to mine, I can hardly slow my body’s response. I claim her lips with mine, giving in to the surge of electricity that draws my buzzing limbs to her.
She makes tiny purring noises with every gasp of breath. She is as colorful and sweet and delicious and erotic as I imagined. When I open my eyes, I see the wings of her eyeliner, her perfect brows, the inky blue images on her tattooed fingers as they hold my face.
I slam my eyes shut and give over to the moment. No more thinking. No more looking. All I want to do is feel her. Feel the heat of her mouth when I open mine and taste her. She does not disappoint. Our tongues tangle in a nearly frantic bid for control.
I’m breathless and hard as a goddamn baseball bat when she shoves me back against the couch and climbs into my lap, then pulls my face close. If this were a movie, this would be about the time when Luke would come down the stairs or Cora would start crying on the monitor. But my kids are sound asleep, and Gracie is moving my hand from her hip to her breast.
I moan through our kiss, and her breath hitches. I’m sure she feels the raging erection between us, and I realize there’s just no good way for this to end. I can’t take her upstairs. I won’t. I haven’t done that with anyone since Elizabeth died. I’m a father. And as much as I feel like tearing the tank from her shoulders and tasting every inch of her skin, that kind of thing just can’t happen spontaneously.
I’m sure she senses my hesitation. She eases her mouth from mine and pulls back, looking into my eyes. She’s even more gorgeous now. Her face is flushed, and her lips parted. The perfect, silky hair is mussed from my hands weaving through it. Her lids are half closed, but even through the erotic haze that consumes both of us, I can tell she’s looking at me with concern.
“Hey,” she says. “Too much? Everything okay?”
“Too okay,” I grumble. I look down at my lap and slide my hands out from under her hair. “You are fucking amazing, Gracie. I just want to be able to enjoy you without worrying a kid’s going to come down the stairs.”
“You’re right. We’re responsible adults. We can control our…urges, right?”
“Totally. Urge control. Got it.” Even as I say the words, I’m pulling her in. Tasting her again because now I know she’s going to leave. I practically asked her to, but I want her to know it’s not what I want to do. It’s what I need to do. “Nope,” I whisper. “You undo me. I’m powerless. You’re everything I want, Gracie, and fuck. You’re right here for the taking. I want you.”
She’s trembling as our kisses soften and ease from hungry and hard to gentle.
“I want you too,” she whispers.
But wanting and having are two different things.
Reluctantly, we disengage, Gracie pulling herself from my lap and standing to smooth her clothes.
“Well,” she says brightly, tugging her top back into place. “This was fun. We’ll have to do it again as soon as possible.”
“Yeah?” I ask. “You want that?”
