It felt like an eternity until Hazel regained her senses. Until the sweet heat in her lower abdomen was nothing more than a tingling sensation. Until her breathing had calmed down again.
She had missed him too.
No – it was this. She had missed this.
“I can’t move,” she whispered helplessly. Slumped over, she kissed his neck, his jaw, his cheek, his forehead, everything she could reach.
She hadn’t had enough. He held her in his arms, his lips pressed to her pounding pulse, his half-naked chest against hers, still deep inside her…and yet she still longed for him. For more. She wanted to crawl into his body and set up a vacation home there. Wanted to be enveloped by his scent forever, his voice in her ear.
“God, I think I passed out for a moment,” he whispered.
She laughed and wrapped her arms tighter around his shoulders. “I’m glad you’re still standing.”
“I can’t let you fall. You’ll hurt yourself and sue me.”
Her laughter grew louder. “So, if your first aid looks like the last ten minutes, I’m going to deliberately get a lot of bruises. Hey, I could play hockey with Fox and Moreau.”
“You can’t skate.”
“Exactly, I’d have a lot of injuries!”
His chest vibrated against hers, and she felt his smile against her neck. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself. There’s no need. I’m already at your mercy.”
Warmth flooded her entire body, and her chest felt as if someone had filled it with cotton candy. She felt soft and incredibly sweet. “I don’t want you to be at my mercy,” she whispered. “I like your will. I don’t have to worry about running over you. That you’ll only do what I say because you want to get me into bed.”
He chuckled softly. “Was that a problem with your ex-boyfriends? That you could boss them around too easily?”
Yes. A pretty big one, in fact. They had never argued with her. They had wanted to make her happy by submitting to her, which had been incredibly exhausting. She constantly had to considertheir desires because they never told her what they wanted, for fear of upsetting her. She had rarely allowed herself to get angry or raise her voice, even though that was her damned way!
“You know…” she whispered, leaning back, and stroking Gareth’s face with her fingers, “...most people find arguing exhausting.”
“But you find it exhausting to hold back instead of arguing.”
She smiled. Sometimes she forgot how well Gareth knew her.
“Yes. People confuse discussion and argument.”
Gareth kissed her gently on the lips. “Ah, so you haven’t been arguing with me for the past few years, merely debating.”
Her smile widened. “No, no. I’ve argued withyou. And you were a worthy opponent. This, on the other hand? Pure discussion. No argument.”
“Ah, I don’t know. I was a little angry.”
“Because of Simon?”
“Because you ignored my texts! Well, my anger could have been the cause of an argument.”
She laughed. “Are we arguing about whether we were discussing or arguing?”
“No,” Gareth said earnestly. “We’re discussing it.”
She laughed louder, and the feeling of cotton candy in her chest was accompanied by a new tingling sensation when she noticed Gareth smiling broadly. She felt him gently brush a strand of hair from her face.
“Okay, I’ll let you down now, okay?” he murmured, still amused, and she almost shoutedno.
She didn’t want the moment to end. She just wanted to stay in the utility closet with Gareth and argue about silly things. No, discuss.
But Gareth slowly pulled out of her, and she had no choice but to put her feet on the floor and separate from him.
