“You better hurry up, then,” I teased and scooted up on the bed.
He climbed back on top of me, kissing me as if it was the first and last time. His hands cupped my breasts before he dipped his head down to suck on a nipple, moaning and biting before he kissed across my chest and took the other one in his mouth.
“Hold on one second,” he panted, reaching over me to feel around his nightstand drawer.
“Thank God,” he exhaled in relief when he showed me the foil packet, ripping off the edge and sliding the rubber down his length. I stilled again for only a second, the memory of our last time and the events that had followed too bittersweet to think about.
He didn’t seem to notice before he slid into me, his body falling into mine as he moved slowly, inch by inch until he was fully seated inside.
“Thea,” he groaned as he moved faster. I raised my hips off of the bed to get him deeper. Dominic was making love to me, but I wanted him to fuck me. Fuck away all the bad memories and the doubts, create a place where only we existed. Where we craved each other like a drug and only made sense together. Fuck away all the time we’d spent apart, and all the nights I’d felt so lost without him in my life it was as if I hadn’t belonged anywhere.
His arms snaked around me as he pulled me closer, both of us eerily silent other than our heavy breaths and the creak of his bed.
When Dominic plowed into me, his eyes hooded and wild, it was as if he’d heard my wish and made it his mission to grant it. My legs went rigid as my body shook from the inside out, a second orgasm hitting me hard. He grunted my name as he spilled into me, collapsing into the crook of my neck as his breathing slowed.
“I love you.” He lifted his head, threading his fingers through my tangled and damp hair and weaving around a fistful. His body was limp against mine, but need and desperation radiated off of him in waves. “I love you so much.” He swallowed before his forehead fell against mine, his eyes clenching shut. “Tell me we can go back, Thea.” His voice faded into a whisper as it cracked. “That we can have it all back. I’d give anything—”
I cut him off with a kiss. I loved him more than anything, too, and there was nothing I wanted more than to be back here with him, not lose each other ever again and look forward to a future.
He didn’t say anything else as he lay next to me and wrapped his arms around me from behind. I scraped my nails up and down his arm, my soul sighing as we melted together on his bed.
This was home, I just needed to figure out a way to stay.
29
Dominic
My eyes popped open,without fail, every morning at six a.m. This was the first time the alarm beat me to it, blaring in my ear from underneath my pillow.
Keeping my arm around Thea’s naked waist, I reached with my other hand to shut it off. She groaned in my arms and stirred before leaning into me again, her breathing slow and peaceful.
I ran my lips over her shoulder and buried my face into the back of her neck. While I loved waking up with her in my arms, I didn’t know what to expect. It felt like we’d turned a corner, but last night was more than I’d hoped for and most definitely more than I’d expected. The years that passed since the last time Thea was in my bed had broken us both, but when it came to how we felt about each other, that had never faded.
For a ton of reasons, it was as if I’d been asleep since I’d come out here. Once I’d stopped grieving enough to function, I went about my life taking things at face value and not expecting much. The woman sleeping next to me was all I’d ever wanted, and now that I almost had her back, hadusback, I was afraid to move an inch or say a word, terrified she’d wake up and rush for the door.
“Five more minutes,” she mumbled into the pillow. “I know you have to go to work.” She rolled over and nuzzled into my neck, planting a kiss on my throat before her mouth opened in a wide yawn. I pulled her closer, my chest deflating with a bit of relief. She wasn’t fully awake yet, but she wasn’t trying to escape the minute she woke up. I was all about the little victories.
The way back to each other was a marathon—not a race—no matter how much I wanted to sprint toward the finish line.
“Do I look like I’m going anywhere?” I drifted my hand along her hip, chuckling to myself when she purred against me like a sexy little kitten. Thea had always been passionate and brave, it was what I loved the most about her. She never held back affection or love. She gave me all she had without limits or apology.
She’d told me she wanted to drown in me last night, but I’d been the one pulled under, and I never wanted to come up for air.
“I already told Joe I’d be in around ten. So you could go back to sleep, if you want.” I traced the sweet spot behind her ear with the tip of my tongue until I drew a moan out of her. Her nails dug into my back when I grazed my teeth across her shoulder. “Or I could crawl under these sheets and wake you up the right way.”
I cupped her breast and drifted my thumb over her nipple. Her head fell back with a loud whimper, and I burst out laughing.
“I love when you’re loud.” Our mouths fused together in a sloppy kiss, all the passion between us igniting again so easily. She pushed against my chest and straddled my hips, showing me how soaked and ready she was for me already. I’d lost count sometime after one o’clock of all the orgasms we’d passed back and forth. Thea was still my little freckled tiger.
She didn’t say it back, but I knew she still loved me as fiercely as she always had.
I just had to prove to her that I loved her even more.
“Ride me, sweetheart,” I rasped, reaching into my nightstand drawer and palming what felt like my last condom. “I want to start my day inside you.”
Her eyes glazed over before she ripped the foil edge and rolled the condom on, drifting her palm up and down my cock before guiding me in. Raising my hips off the bed until I was all the way inside, I was hypnotized by the slow roll of her gorgeous body as she took me deep, inching me in and out of her until I let out a moan at the sweetest torture. We were sleepy and slow, but my heart pounded for more.
“That’s my girl,” I growled when she moved faster, rubbing her quivering hands across my chest and dragging her nails down my stomach. I sat up, grabbed the nape of her neck and brought her mouth to mine.
