“That you felt that you needed to do this,” I rasp. “That I wasn’t there to stop you. To tell you?—”
“Don’t do that,” she breathes. “I might have done it regardless.”
I shake my head and kiss them once more before I stand between her legs. Her hazel-green eyes peer up at me through her lashes.
“Don’t think about it,” Natalia whispers. “Not right now. Not like this.”
“I’m sorry.” My hands smooth up and down her bare thighs before I run them up her curves, beneath her lavender sweater. Natalia dips her chin and I pull it over her head. I bend enough to kiss between her breasts. “I’m sorry.”
Natalia’s whimper is quiet, only giving me a shake of herhead, as her hands roam my body. My muscles grow taut and my body shudders beneath her touch, her fingers brushing across my skin, tracing lines, dipping between hard-earned muscle, as she peers up at me through her lashes.
“How do you look like this?” she whispers and bites into her lip, her eyes following the path of her fingers. “I mean, Jesus fucking…”
I moan her name, my cock aching. “Sweetheart.”
Her hands come back to my hair and nape, pulling me back down to her lips.
“I’ve got you, you know,” I whisper. “Always.”
“I know you do,” she rasps, her fingers scratching into my hair. Natalia pulls me down but it doesn’t take much—she doesn’t ever have to ask.
It’s her lips and mine, moving slowly, a dance we’ve mastered. Something we’ll never get wrong.
“Rowan,” she whimpers. “In—Inside me…”
Within a minute, our clothes are lost on the floor and I’m inside the girl I love, even though I haven’t told her. And I probably should tell her because it kills me when I can’t while I’m inside of her like this, kissing her and fucking her intently, giving everything I have to her.
Together, our names become a million meanings, a million synonyms. Every time she says my name, I hear something new. And every time I say hers, I can only hope she hears me.
I urge her back onto the table and she hisses at the cool stainless steel. I bring her ankles to my shoulders and pull her to the edge with me, my thumb rubbing circles over her clit until she’s breathless and arching off the table. She cups her breasts, tugs at her nipples, my name spilling from her lips, and we’re sent into a euphoric oblivion together.
“Oh my god,” Natalia heaves, our bodies slick with a thin sheen of sweat. But holy fuck, she looks fucking gorgeous. Her body flushes, her lips swollen from kissing me—only me. And when she snaps her eyes open, they’re on me and it rips the air right out of me when I’m met with that color of hazel and green mixed together.
I gingerly lower her legs from my shoulders and move to set them down, but she wraps them around me instead. I bend and kiss her stomach, resting my forehead there for a moment to catch my breath and listen while she catches hers.
Steady rhythms.
“Are you okay?” Natalia whispers, her fingers in my hair again and scratching. She’ll never know how easily that settles the storm that blows inside of me.
“Yes, sweetheart,” I rasp and pick myself up. “Are you?”
She nods and reaches for me. I wrap my arm around her and pull her back into a sitting position. Her limbs are wrapped around me like she won’t ever let go and she buries her face in my neck, nuzzling her nose.
Steady and calm again, I pull out of her.
“Oh my god.” She sighs.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says and sits back, her hands still holding on tight. “Everything.”
I push curls of her wildly enthralling mane behind her ears and breathe with her, the sounds in sync. The ordinary motion of her powerful breathing is enough to soothe the tumultuous churning in my chest.
The oven dings before my lips inch closer enough to hers and Natalia rasps, “I think the cupcakes are ready.”
CHAPTER 21
Natalia
