Chapter 26
Life and Love
Lenzin
"I'm just saying, if you feel tired, we don't have to?—"
Hildy cuts me off, her voice a notch lower, eyes dark with a chemical hunger I haven't seen since last summer. "Pregnancy hormones, and your hockey ass… and your words, dictate otherwise."
She grins, actually grins, and then she leans in, grabs two handfuls of my shirt, and yanks me forward. My pulse surges. I laugh as I catch my balance with one hand braced on the wall behind her and the other sliding automatically to her hip, the familiar landscape of that body mapped in every nerve. She presses into me,never shy, not the first night and not now, confidently.
I lean down, our foreheads close enough that I smell the faintest citrus from her shampoo, and she meets me halfway. The kiss starts soft and slides instantly into reckless. There's a new kind of urgency here, not the recklessness of two people who met at a lecture and not enough time, a chance meeting,but something untamed, like the desire in her is explosive to be diffused or to lie wanting underneath. She fits her mouth to mine with an addictive hunger, making me bite back a groan.
My hands move up, careful and reverent at first, because I can't stop thinking about what's new—her stomach, the faintest soft pulse under my palm, the thing that is us and not us, and for a second, I'm too aware, too outside myself. But she nips at my bottom lip, hard enough to taste copper, and drags me back in. I let my hands trail down her arms, mapping the shiver along her skin, and when I reach her wrists, I pin them gently to the wall.
She laughs—short, involuntary—and the sound vibrates through both of us. "You really think you can hold me?" she teases, voice going raspy.
"I'm hoping to," I say, and mean it.
I let her wrists go, because I never actually want to keep her anywhere she doesn't want to be, and the second I do, she wraps her arms around my neck, pulls me in, and stands on tiptoe. I bend to accommodate her, hands now sliding down, mapping the new and the remembered. Her hips, still strong as hell, and her ass, which I always loved, but now fits perfectly into the spread of my hands. I squeeze hard, and she yelps into my mouth.
I use the leverage to pick her up, just an inch, but enough for her to get the idea. She wraps her legs around my waist, locking herself in place, and for a second, the only thing that exists is her thighs, the arch of her back, the heat radiating through every inch of clothing between us. I stagger us backwards, one step at a time, toward her bedroom, and she's laughing again, not because it's funny but because it's good, and real, and she's allowing herself to want things.
She bites my ear. "Watch the wall."
"Not sorry," I mutter, then crash us gently, deliberately, into the doorframe. She grabs the handle and twists, and we spill intothe darkened room, still grappling with the kind of coordination that only comes from practice, and I plan to practice this a lot more now.
Inside, I set her down, but she doesn't let go. Instead, she rolls her hips so that even through my sweats and her pajama pants, I feel the unmistakable heat of her. She kisses me, messy and insistent, and then—because this is Hildy—she takes my face in her hands, stills me for a second, and looks me dead in the eyes.
"Are you okay?" she whispers, voice so soft I almost don't hear it.
"I'm good.”
She nods, satisfied, and then pushes me—literally shoves me—so I'm sitting on the edge of her bed. She straddles me, hands at my shoulders, and for a second, we just breathe the same air. She looks at me like nobody ever has, like she's memorizing the script of my face before it can change again. Then, with a slow grin, she slips her hands under my shirt and drags it up, exposing bare skin to the cool air of the room. She traces my abs, my ribs, the scar from the old collarbone break, and then leans in and kisses the hollow of my throat.
I wrap my arms around her and hook my fingers into the waistband of her pants, but she catches my hands, pins them to the mattress, and leans down, pressing me to the mattress.
Her stunning red hair falls around us, a curtain, and in this small universe she has made, nothing exists but her. She grinds against me, slow at first, then faster, and I can feel her heartbeat through both our shirts.
She slides her hands up my arms, over my shoulders, threading them into my hair. "Take them off.”
I do, tee gone, tossed somewhere off to the side. She follows, peeling her shirt up and over her head, revealing a bra overfillingwith her ever-growing tits. I stare, because I can't help it, and she shakes her head like I'm the dumbest man alive.
She takes my hands, brings them to her chest. Her breath catches, and I feel her shiver. "You can," she says, as if I'd ever need permission. I unhook the bra, slow and careful, and she lets it drop. Her nipples are hard, the skin pink and sensitive, and I want to taste them.
But she doesn't give me the chance. She slides down and starts peeling my sweats off, exposing the truth of how much I want her.
She rakes her gaze over me, and for a second, her eyes go glassy. She blinks, then laughs again, but it's softer, almost bashful. "You are truly beautiful, everywhere."
She kisses me, soft and slow this time, and I let her set the pace. Her hands roam, mapping my chest, my sides, then lower, and when she finally wraps her hand around me, I almost black out from the sensation.
She lifts herself up and lines us together, and I realize she's somehow managed to get her leggings off without me noticing. It shouldn't be possible, but with Hildy, my love and lover.
The first second inside her is like home. We both gasp, clutching at each other, and for a beat, I just hold her there, letting her set the rhythm.
We're both trembling a little, both pretending we aren't, both desperate to hold onto this as long as possible.
Then, she rides me hard, then slow, then hard again, and every time I start to get ahead of myself, she slaps my chest or bites my shoulder, and I laugh, helpless, because she's the only person who can do this to me.
