Actually probably a little messed up. Therapy was probably in order for both of them. But they were alive.
She nodded and took a long, shaky breath, running her hands through his hair. “None of this matters without you anymore. I want us to be together, whatever it takes.”
“Works for me.”
Her watery laugh made his heart lighter. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared, but I’m braver now than I was before I met you, before...all the stuff with Megan.”
“You were always brave.” How did she not see it? “You’d just never been tested before.”
Her lips were sweet and soft as they settled against his. “Thank you.”
“For what?” he asked.
“For seeing things in me that I don’t see in myself.”
“That goes both ways,” he said, stealing another taste of her mouth.
“Let’s go home.” She ran a finger down his chest to his waistband. “I have a few more experiments in mind before you leave.”
His pulse raced. Her touch instantly flipped every switch to on. “Just one question.”
She lifted a brow and looked up. “What’s that?”
“Am I still your end-of-the-world pick?”
“Always.”
Her immediate, unequivocal response buoyed him, and a grin took over his face as he looked around. “Over all these buff volleyball players and runners and—” he pointed to a dark-haired thirty-something sitting shirtless on a towel with a laptop and phone balanced on his lap “—that guy?”
Her laughter sparkled like sea spray in the sun. “Todd?”
“What?”
“Come home with me.”
On a Saturday afternoon in late March, Lindsey picked up Todd at LAX and drove him straight to her home. The last six months had been filled with monthly reunions on alternating coasts, nightly video calls, and thousands of text messages, while Todd and Jason worked with Kurt on a plan for a West Coast office trial run.
They were still a month out from relocating, and Todd’s plan was to spend a few days looking for a place of his own.
His hand didn’t leave her thigh the entire way home, and by the time they walked through the front door of her apartment, she was going to combust if she didn’t get him naked.
The second the door shut behind them, he was on her, kissing her lips, her neck, pushing up her shirt and tugging off her bra. When his hot mouth closed around her nipple, she cried out, overwhelmed by a flood of pleasure and desire. “Todd,now.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He unbuttoned her pants and pushed them and her underwear as far down her legs as he could reach without releasing her breast. Once she kicked off her flip-flops, he used his foot to get her jeans all the way down and off, while his hands roamed her body, lighting her on fire.
Desperate now, she fumbled with the zipper on his khakis.
With a noise of protest, he broke free and undid the fastenings, shoving the pants to his ankles.
He hit her with a hotter-than-hell kiss and slid his hand between her thighs. “God, I’ve missed you.”
She shivered as his intimate touch set every nerve in her body quivering, eager for him to fill her. “I missed you too.” Somehow, it got worse every time. “And I’m ready.” She wrapped her leg around his hip.
“Right here?”
“Yes.” She was tall enough that the angle worked without his having to hold her up. And she couldn’t wait another goddamned second. Thanks to birth control pills and clean bills of health, they didn’t even need to find a condom.
Body trembling, Todd slid inside her, going maddeningly slow to give her body time to adjust after four weeks apart.
