We kiss until my lips tingle, until we both need to take a breath.
He sits back down on the bed, taking me with him. “Hi, sweet girl.”
His pet name for me is back and has me swallowing nervously, because am I though? If I don’t tell him about Seth, are we both liars? But did he even lie? When I don’t readily respond with a pet name of my own, I note the subtle frown between his eyes. “Hi,” I answer back after a few pregnant seconds. I don’t say Julie or sweet boyfriend or anything except hi.
His fingers tuck a fallen strand of hair behind each ear.
I leave my forehead pressed to his to avoid his scrutiny. He keeps circling his fingers around the shell of my ears. It’s lulling me. I want to disappear into his touch. I want to forget everything except his touch on my skin.
“Talk to me, Ever. What’s going on in there?” He swipes his thumbs over my forehead from the center to my temples. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I have nothing to hide. I promise.”
On the last sentence, his promise to hide nothing from me, I exhale a partial sob. Because now I’m the one with secrets and something to hide. If I tell him the truth, will he still call me his sweet girl? Will he still want me, love me? I don’t want to know. And even though I know now he didn’t lie, the whole hot mess opened a Pandora’s box of noise in my head. Still, I don’t know if I’ll have the guts to come clean or at least unpack all the shit crowding my brain. What if I do and it makes him never look at me or touch me the same again? I selfishly want to feel his arms around me and feel him kiss me like he always has one more time. Especially if it ends up being the last time.
Chapter 30
Julian
“Idon’t want to talk. I don’t want to think.” Her dark lashes rest on her cheeks. She won’t look at me.
“Ever . . .” I sigh her name.Is she still doubting me? Who I am? If I lied? Why doesn’t she want to talk? What is she afraid to find out?
“Just make me forget about the last twenty-four hours. Okay?” She swipes a damp trail off her cheeks with the backs of her fingers, then raises her liquid-gray eyes to mine. “Can we just pretend . . . just for now . . . that none of it happened? That we’re still us and none of it changed?” When I don’t immediately answer she adds, “Please?” She presses her lips to the pulse in my neck.
My body responds instantly, and I lean into her kiss.
As soon as I do, she’s tugging the shirt up my body and whipping it over my head. Then she removes hers. She’s naked under it and presses her breasts to my chest.
Fuck, I missed her.I know we should talk before we do this, but I also know I won’t deny her. I pull her hips into mine where I’m already hard.
Her hands roam up and down my stomach and chest, pushing me back on the bed. She shimmies out of her sweats, again naked underneath, then hooks her fingers into the waistband of my pajama pants and slides them over my hips. She sees the boxer briefs and stops her motion to pull them down with the PJs. Once we’re both naked, she climbs back on top as I inch my way farther onto the bed.
Sitting with her moist heat perfectly on top of my hard-on, she leans down and kisses me, swiping her tongue into my mouth expertly, fusing her lips to mine. Without altering the tempo of our kiss, she reaches down and takes me in her hand, guiding me to her opening and plunging down on me with a sharp intake of breath and a cry.
I clamp my hands down on her hips and hold her to me for a few seconds, rocking her back and forth a couple times until I feel her expand to accommodate me. Then I pick her up slowly, drop her back on me with a groan and pull her hips toward me. I repeat it, setting a cadence that has us both panting and her dripping.
When I feel her begin to tighten around me, I stop and roll her onto her back and wait. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut the whole time she rode me. I hold myself still inside her until she looks at me. I want her to see me, feel me, acknowledge me. I want her to remember us, what we have. Once her thunderous gray eyes find mine, I nod.
“You see me, Everly?”
She stares at me, not answering.
I pull all the way out of her, watch her brow crease in a frown, then slam into her so deeply she arches off the bed, her chin aiming at the ceiling, her eyes rolling back and fluttering closed again. I freeze and wait. When her back relaxes and her chin lowers, she finds my eyes again. I nod. “Good girl. You like that, don’t you? Me inside you?”
She nods.
“Tell me, Everly. Tell me who’s inside you.”
“You.” It’s more a breathless moan than a word.
“And who am I?”
“Julian.”
I reward her answer by pulling all the way out and slamming into her again. “That’s right. And I love you. Do you hear me, Everly? I love you.”
She’s nodding, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
I lower my face to hers and trail kisses along her cheek to her ear. “Say it, Ever. Tell me.”
