He dips his tongue back into my mouth with a long moan, his hands now groping my body everywhere. It’s like all the decorum and restraint he’s been showing since he stepped through the door has gone. Fled. And now he’s taking exactly what he wants, exactly as he wants it.
His hands come up under my armpits and he lifts me easily. I wrap my legs around his waist and kiss his beautiful mouth as he carries me to the sofa. Our mouths don’t detach even as he falls to the soft surface with a jolt. My knees come down either side of his thighs, and I’m yanking at his belt so fast even my brain can’t catch up.
“Oh fuck,” he breathes hotly into my mouth. “Erin, I didn’t… I?—”
He stops when my fingers breach the fabric and drift across the soft, velvety skin of his cock.
“Jesus Christ,” he pants. “Erin?—”
I pull him out and wrap my hand around the shaft, then withdraw my mouth to release a long, lusty breath.
He stares up at me, pupils blown, lips all wet. “That’s not what I came here for,” he rushes out.
A shiver of doubt zigzags down my spine. “What? Don’t you?—”
He places a paw over my mouth.
“I want it,” he says, his eyes darting side to side over mine. “God, I want it so badly I will come in less than a minute my angel. But…”
He swallows and my chest hardens in response.
“I need you to know I didn’t come here for sex. I came here to celebrate Paige and…” Another breath rushes out of him and his lids fall shut. “And to see you.”
I blink, my insides roiling. What is he trying to say?
After a long, agonizing pause, he continues. “I needed to see you were safe and... I needed to see with my own eyes what Paige has been telling me.”
His hand slides from my mouth and comes to rest on my hip.
My words are a vague whisper. “What has she been telling you?”
Another long pause as he regards me. “That you’re a shadow. That you live your life every day guided only by how happy others are. That since you left the safe house, you’ve been… changed.”
I stare back at him. It all sounds frighteningly familiar but I would never have admitted any of this to myself. All in the name of protecting my daughter.
“I needed to see it for myself,” he continues, softly. “To know that, since that day, a part of you has been missing.”
A tear rolls down my cheek and he wipes it away with a coarse thumb.
“Just like…” He swallows again, seemingly afraid of the weight his words carry. “Just like a part has been missing from me.”
Only slightly aware I’m still holding his now-hard cock in one hand, I lift my other to cup his face. I want to capture the sincerity in his features, hold onto it, breathe it in every day.
“I fucking love you, Erin.”
My heart stops, my mouth falls open. Only when I regain some small measure of composure do I reply. “But, it’s been eighteen months…”
“Eighteen months of missing you and loving you deeper and deeper every day. Eighteen months of pure, unbridledhell.”
He finishes the sentence with an angry grunt.
I feel every word in my bones, because they echo exactly how I’ve felt. How I feel.
“God, Augusto,” I whisper, shaking my head. “I love you too.”
He stares back at me for a long moment then leans forward and strokes his lips over mine. It’s so soft and gentle I question it’s even happening.
“Let meloveyou,” he whispers. “Just… let me.”
