Anyone else pinning me down like this for so long would have made me feel vulnerable, panicky even. But not Ward.
Ward made me feel safe.
My fingers tightened in the sheets as Ward put just the right pressure on just the right spot, a jolt of pleasure hitting me in the pit of my stomach. He chuckled in my ear and did it again, and again, andagain, leaving me squirming under him, drooling into the pillow as I moaned helplessly.
“You wanna come?” he asked, and it was so gentle it shouldn’t have sounded filthy, but it did anyway.
I nodded, pushing back against him, encouraging him to grind harder. He hummed in my ear and bore down on me, pushing me deep into the mattress and thrusting harder, faster, trapping my cock between his hand and my stomach.
I came with his name on my lips, seeing stars and sinking deeper still into the bed, riding the waves of it as Ward chased his own orgasm and finishing with a last shiver as he made a cut-off gasp in my ear and spilled a sticky mess between my thighs.
He rolled us both over so I was facing him again while I was catching my breath, too sleepy to object to being pulled against his chest and cuddled like I was the most precious thing in the world.
Not that I would have objected, even if I had the strength.
Ward’s heartbeat lulled me back to a doze, sticky or not. His fingers carded through my hair, soft and rhythmic, and I imagined us ten years from now. Ward picking up his first grey hairs. Both of us with etched-in crow’s feet from all the laughter.
Maybe a dog or two.
Maybe lying there listening for a kid or two to wake up, sharing one last laughter-filled kiss and getting up to start the day.
If I’d been braver when I was a teenager, maybe that was what we’d have now.
I’d wasted ten years not being with him.
I woke again without realizing I’d fallen asleep, still curled up against Ward, still drifting in the fantasy of staying here, with him.
“Ten thousand kisses,” I said once I was conscious enough to speak.
“What?”
“The minimum I owe you. An average of three a day for almost ten years. Say a little over thousand a year all up. Ten thousand in total.”
“Only three?” Ward asked.
“It’s a conservative estimate,” I allowed. “Or maybe I just liked the sound of the number.”
Ward laughed, leaning in to brush his lips over mine, sweet, like we weren’t tangled up naked together.
“Nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine,” he said, ducking in for another soft kiss that made my lips tingle. “Nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-eight...”
“Oh my god.” I laughed as he kissed the corner of my mouth.
“Ninety-seven,” he murmured, kissing the other corner. “Ninety-six. Or does it have to be, like, directly on the mouth? Because I can start again.”
How was he real?
How had I lived all this time without him?
“I think we could count them anywhere,” I said. “But I’m supposed to be giving them to you.”
“Right, but if you owe me ten thousand kisses, then I owe you ten thousand. Figured I could knock a hundred out before we shower.”
How was I meant to say no to that?
“Are we showering together?” I asked.
“You did say you wanted to,” Ward said.
