As if we were made for each other.
We weren’t asleep.
We should’ve been. Although I’d started running, my cardiovascular fitness was far from optimal, and Beau had pushed all of my physical and emotional limits in just a handful of hours.
And in just a handful of hours, it felt as if my life had changed forever.
I was lying in Beau’s bed. The sheets were impossibly soft and smelled of him. Of us. His worn tee was draped over my body, rubbing over my sore and sensitive nipples. His strong arms were wrapped around me, and he’d plant kisses on my forehead at regular intervals to show he was not asleep either.
The silence was not oppressive or awkward.
It was comforting. It was amazing that I could lay here with him, and it felt like we’d done it one thousand nights before. Like it was something we should’ve been doing all along.
“I found out my ex-wife is dead tonight,” Beau spoke into the darkness.
He said it so mildly that it took me a handful of seconds to compute what he’d just said.
I hadn’t thought anything would make me move from where I was, tangled up with Beau, sated, the happiest I’d been in memory.
That sentence did it.
I sat up so quickly that he didn’t have a chance to fasten his arms around me before I fumbled for the bedside light. It took me a couple of tries because it was dark, my limbs were heavy from the sex marathon I’d just competed in, and it was an unfamiliar room, but I managed.
The room was suddenly bathed in light bright enough to make Beau squint at me. It would’ve been cute to witness his face screwed up like that if not for the current circumstances.
“That’swhat you say after the best sex of my life?” I scowled at him. “Was this some kind of fucked-up grief fuck?” My anger burned hot and quick until Beau’s expression changed.
He was no longer squinting, just staring at me intently. His face wasn’t harsh nor marked with that familiar disdain. As I stared at him, so naked—in more ways than one—I understood that the mask he wore was not only with me but with everyone. No one witnessed Beau’s pain, Beau’s sadness. Because he was too busy being strong for everyone else.
I wasn’t angry anymore, though fear simmered low in my gut that I was some kind of grief sex. My fear could be handled later.
Beau was my priority.
“Are you okay?” I asked him softly, my hand going to his chest.
He blinked slowly, my heart skipping at the reverence that painted his expression. For me. It was so all-encompassing, so very full of emotion that I couldn’t breathe properly.
Then he opened his mouth and spoke.
“Fuck, I love you, Hannah.”
I must’ve been having a small stroke.
Beau’s hand lifted to cup my jaw, holding me as if I were a baby bird, something precious, delicate.
Then his thumb brushed my cheek, wiping away tears I didn’t even know were rolling down my face.
“W-what did you just say?”
Beau grasped my hips, lifting me so I was straddling him. I let out a soft moan as my sensitive flesh grazed against his semi-hard cock. Even though I had been thoroughly fucked and didn’t think my vagina could handle his length again so soon, my body trembled with need.
The tension in Beau’s neck and the twitch in his cock told me he felt the same desire, but he didn’t act on it, just clasped each side of my neck, looking me in the eye.
“I love you, Hannah,” he repeated.
The world tilted on its axis.
“I want to say it clearly so there are no misconceptions, so I don’t confuse you or hurt you.” He tightened his grip on my neck. “I’ve hurt you.” Regret was etched into the words. “I’ll carry that with me till the end of my days, that I didn’t treat you right. That I was selfish. All because I was fucking terrified of how much I wanted you.” He laid a kiss on my nose. “I am not used to good things, Hannah. I lost my mother. The woman I thought I loved turned out to be nasty, cruel, heartless. The light of my life, my daughter, my hope that I may have happiness till the end of my days … was almost taken from me.” He caught himself, the words cracking. “I had to watch her almost waste away in front of me.”
