“I forgave you long ago,” she said, reaching up to remove his hand from her face. But somehow all she seemed to do was curl her fingers around his wrist and feel his pulse beating hard under hiswarm skin.
“How?” hebreathed.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged.“After a while, I wasn’t angryanymore.”
“I don’t deserve this.” George’s other hand was in her hair, dislodging the hat, which slid off and fell to the floor. “I expected to take hours, if not days, of explanation. Reasons for everything.”
“I don’t need a legal defence,” she said, earning another half-smile.
“You should make me work harder for this. Make me slay dragons and climb mountains.” There was barely an inch of air between them. Heat radiated off him.
“Didn’t you tell me once—things that come freely are worth more?”Take your hands off him, now. She slid her hand from his wrist down his arm, brushing over the soft hairs, and felt him shudder.
“I don’t deserve you.” His fingers tightened in her hair. “Millie”—his voice was almost a groan—“I have no control left. Please say yes. I don’t want to take you against your will. Sayyes.Now.”
No. No. And no.
Her body curved into his. Her mouth found his lips and opened up to him. Her arms slid around him, pressing her palms to the shifting and flexing muscles in his back as he lifted her and carried her inhis arms.
Just one kiss. Because he tastes like heaven, like home. I deserve one kiss. Then I will sendhim away.
Still kissing, he carried her to theback room.
As soon as he sets me down, I will untangle my tongue from this kiss, and then I will say no.
She slid down through his arms until she was standing on her own feet, locked in a crushing embrace. His tongue withdrew, his lips pulled away a little, butnot much.
He spoke against her mouth. “Reach into my trousers, my pocket.” Then his mouth closed on hers again.
She slipped her hand to his waist, lower to his belt, and lower inside his pocket. Her fingers found a small box of condoms.A box.
It was her last lucid thought for several hours.
Easter Sunday. Blue Sage Café, 5:30am
In his fantasies about sex with Millie, George had imagined himself taking it slow their first time, savouring every touch and every taste. Her body had driven him crazy for so long that he wanted to make love to every inch of it, to drive her crazy in a hundred different ways.
In reality, their first time was a mindless hungry rush like tumbling and tumbling and tumbling off a cliff.
The second time was, if anything, a deeper falling that took away his breath and left him unable to speak afterwards.
Their third time, slow, searing and intense, was also wordless. From time to time, one of them, sometimes both, would cry out.
Sunrise found them wrapped around each other diagonally across the bed, the sheets a hopeless tangle on the floor. The sun shone through the window and made patterns on the wall, on the bed and on Millie’s soft, smooth body. He traced the light patterns withhis hand.
“I meant to tell you something important earlier,” he said against her stomach.
Her hand played through his hair, her fingers soft and warm. Life didn’t get much better than that.Lying with his head in the pit of her stomach, feeling the air in and out of her. Her breathing told him how she reacted to his touch. Her hair lay in tangled curls over one shoulder, where he had last played with it. After a night of heavy kissing, her golden velvety skin had turned red on her cheeks, around her mouth, on her chin and throat, and probably all over her. He should have rememberedto shave.
“What?” Her whisper started in her stomach somewhere under his cheek. Helooked up.
“I love you,” he said, the words that had first come to him last September. “I love you. I love you, I love you, Ilove you.”
“Yes, I know.” Her voice flowedlike silk.
He chuckled softly. “It doesn’t do much for a man’s ego if his declaration isn’t even asurprise.”
Her stomach fluttered with a silent giggle. “Oh, you have surprised me plenty. Especially the last few hours.”
