“Thank you for being there tonight,” he says between kisses, yanking my dress off as we cross the threshold of his room.
Moonlight streams in through the windows, the stars sparkling in the dark sky.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” I’m breathless as I unbutton his shirt. My bra is somewhere on the floor, and his hands are on my breasts, weighing them and toying with my nipples, tugging a line of sensation that goes straight to my center.
“I know.” He kisses me hard, moaning into my mouth. “But it meant a lot, that you were there.”
I try not to think about what this all means, that Holly and Jeff were so welcoming, that everyone clearly knows something is going on between Tate and me, Bea included, and that celebrating her tenth birthday made my heart explode into tiny little pieces of happiness.
“Didn’t it?” he asks, pulling back to study me, his hands coming to my face as he searches my eyes.
The realization grows inside me, unstoppable and illuminating.
I’m falling in love with Tate, and I think he’s falling in love withme, too. All of this feels so different and easy, like I’m where I’m meant to be. Like I belong with him and Bea.
I don’t want to walk away at the end of playoffs. I don’t see how I could. I want to stay with them and be a part of their family.
He could change his mind, though. People do that. People don’t show up when you expect them to. People let you down.
“Didn’t it mean something?” he asks again, softer this time.
I don’t want to think about the scary stuff, right now. I just want to enjoy this. I just want to fall a little deeper. At my core, I know I’ll never feel like this about anyone again.
And I don’t want to waste a moment of it.
“Yes,” I whisper. “It meant something.”
Satisfied, he kisses me before his lips move across my jaw, down my neck, sucking on the sensitive spot where my neck and shoulder meet. Even though I know his body, I explore it again, every toned muscle, every ab, the trail of chest hair leading into his waistband. When I tug his pants down an inch, his breath catches, and when I slide my hand over the straining ridge of his erection, he groans against my skin.
“I need your mouth,” he begs.
I’m already on my knees. His pants are already off, erection jutting out as I run my tongue up and down his length, watching his eyelids grow heavy and his expression of disbelief and pleasure.
“Yes,” he hisses, head falling back as my cheeks hollow out from suction, and he grows even harder.
Tate doesn’t need encouragement to take his pleasure this time, and within a minute, his hands come to my hair, his hips begin to thrust, and curses fall from his lips. His eyes are impossibly dark, as he stands above me like a god, and he alternates saying my name like a prayer and praising me for how good I am, how perfect, how beautiful. How spectacular my mouth feels, how he’s going to come so hard and how he’s going to make me come so hard in return.
It doesn’t take long to get him there, and to my relief, he doesn’t try to stop. His orgasm seizes him, hard and fast, and he fucks my mouth, moaning as he releases. My gaze stays glued to his as I swallow, arousal gathering between my legs, pounding through my blood, prickling across my skin.
This is what I am for—making Tate Ward come.
“Holy fuck,” he mutters, catching his breath, looking at me like I’m an angel sent from heaven as I swallow the last of it. “It just keeps getting better.”
His arms come to my waist and he swings me onto the bed, two thick fingers sinking into me easily from how turned on I am, and a high, startled moan scrapes out of me as heat arcs up my spine. Tate lowers his mouth between my legs and latches onto my clit. My entire body seizes, my hands fisted in his hair and my toes curled.
“Wait,” I gasp. He pauses, meeting my eyes, and I bite my bottom lip, an urgent, aching feeling pooling between my legs. “Not this. I need more. I need all of you.” I take a deep breath, holding his eyes. “I don’t want to wait anymore, Tate.”
He’s been holding back, never letting us go all the way, but I can’t wait anymore.
I glance down at his erection and raise an eyebrow at him. “I thought old guys had a long refractory period.”
He laughs. “Not with you.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
He runs a hand through his hair and I worry he’s going to deny himself yet again, but he stands and opens the nightstand. He pulls a box of condoms out of his bedside table and tears it open before unwrapping one and rolling it over himself.
I give him a teasing look. “Did you check the expiration on those?”
