I try to sit up, to tell her we can stop, but before I can get the words out, she lifts her fingers to her lips and tastes me.
It’s the sexiest damn thing I’ve ever seen.
And then she kisses me.
The world could burn down around us, and I wouldn’t care. There’s nothing rushed about her movements. Every brush of her fingers across my skin is a question, and my body’s answer is always the same.
I’m here. I’m yours.
“Take off my bra,” she whispers. “I don’t want anything between us.”
My hands ain’t steady, but I manage to undo the hooks as she wriggles out of her panties.
Her focus lands on the scar from the blade, slashing across her skin like an angry bolt of lightning. Her shoulders hunch, and I nudge her chin up, meeting her gaze.
“You’re so damn beautiful, Grace. I don’t know what I did to get lucky enough for you to choose me once, let alone twice.”
I lean in for another kiss, cupping her breast and skating my thumb over the hard point of her nipple. My other hand slides down her back to her ass. “Still okay?” I whisper against her lips.
“No.” She slides her fingers into my hair, a small smile curving her lips. “Because you’re not inside me.”
Easing her onto her back, I brace one arm on the headboard and position myself between her thighs. “Well, I reckon we could fix that.”
With my other hand, I guide myself to her entrance. My eyes don’t leave hers as I slide my crown past her lower lips. She’s so damn tight, I have to ease myself in by inches. After every one, I stop, kiss her until she’s breathless, then nestle myself deeper.
She’s shaking by the time my hips are flush against her. “I’ll go slow, darlin’.”
Grace nods, then lifts her hand to my cheek. “Just to start. I’m not fragile, AJ. I want this. I want you. All of you.”
There ain’t nothin’ in this world I won’t give her.
My first thrusts are gentle. Letting her get used to me. To my weight pressing her against the mattress. But when her muscles start to tremble, and a moan spills from her lips, I risk sliding deeper. Harder.
Grace arches her back, and a flush blooms over her skin. “Touch me, AJ,” she whimpers.
Fuck me.
I find her clit with my thumb, circling the tiny nub, teasing, trying to draw her pleasure out as long as I can. But between her desperate cries and tight channel, my own release is barreling down on me like a bullet.
“Aaron…I’m….”
Grace’s eyelids flutter. Her muscles seize, heels digging into the mattress as she flies apart. Her channel throbs around me, and with one final thrust, I let myself soar with her.
We cling to one another, our legs tangled under the sheets, her breath warm against my chest. I should get up. Turn the lights off. Give the security system one last check. But then I’d have to let her go, and I can’t. Not yet.
Not when I can feel the world shifting around us. Like all the jagged pieces of my life finally fit together—with Grace at the center.
Her fingers trace slow patterns over my skin, then still. “Aaron?”
“Yeah, darlin’?”
She lifts her head just enough to meet my gaze. Strength and vulnerability battle in her blue-green eyes. “I love you.”
The words gut me. Break me open and put me back together in the same heartbeat. My eyes sting, and I crush her tighter against me, my voice ragged when it finally comes. “I love you, Grace. More than anything. Always.”
She lets out a shaky breath, burying her face against my neck as her tears dampen my skin. We’re both crying. Both healing. Together.
Chapter Fifty-One
