Page 50 of Break Me Gently

“I missed fucking the living daylights out of you last night.”

“Who said romance was dead?”

“I missed fucking the living daylights out of you last night, while you lay on top of rose petals?”

She chuckled and patted my chest.

“Better.”

She rested her cheek on my chest as we swayed to the music.

“I missed seeing all my cum flow out of your gorgeous holes. I missed scooping it all up and feeding it to you, smearing it over your lips. But most of all, I missed holding you in my arms all night.”

“You should write poetry.”

“At least I’m making the effort in our relationship.”

“I wonder what it’s like inside your head.”

I smiled, spinning her out slowly under the fairy lights before pulling her back against my chest, the hem of her dress catching the breeze from the open marquee flaps.

“It’s probably best that you never know.”

The band shifted into something with more strings, softer now, and the crowd around us thinned as older relatives drifted toward their seats, leaving the floor to the ones who still had energy to burn.

Somewhere near the bar, I caught sight of Rhea holding court with Luke’s friend, one hand gesturing wildly, the other still clutching a fresh glass of champagne. Isabella laughed at something Luke murmured against her ear, her hand pressed flat over the place where their child was growing, hidden beneath silk and lace.

I tightened my hold around Amber’s waist, the two of us barely moving now, just swaying in place beneath the string lights, her breath warm against my collarbone, the whole night stretching out slow and golden around us.

I wanted to tell her how I felt, but something stopped me. That fear of rejection. Never from a girlfriend, but Zoe had left her mark on me, deep and permanent, the kind of wound that never quite closed no matter how much time passed.

Amber slipped her arm beneath my jacket, her palm flat against my back, warm even through the thin fabric of my shirt.

“I love you,” she whispered.

I stopped moving. The music kept playing around us, fairy lights blurring gold at the edges of my vision, but for a moment the whole world narrowed down to just her voice in my ear. The tension I’d been carrying for days—weeks—vanished all at once, and I held her tighter, burying my face in her hair, breathing her in.

This was Amber. I’d known her for a decade.

“I love you too,” I murmured against her temple.

Nothing happened. No lightning. The marquee didn’t collapse around us. The band didn’t stop playing. The world just kept turning, ordinary and steady, like the words hadn’t just rearranged something fundamental inside my chest.

“Let’s go home,” she whispered.

Hell, yes.

I dragged her over to her mother and the thing she married.

❧ ❧ ❧

We didn’t go to Amber’s bedroom. Isabella and Luke were staying at his house before leaving for their honeymoon. I’d offered, of course, to stay with Amber and commute to university for whatever days I needed to be in class. Most of it I could catch up online anyway.

I held her hand as we stepped into my bedroom.

“You know Zoe cleared everything of mine out of her house,” I murmured.

She stopped dead and stared at me, shock written plain across her face. I felt the heat flood to my cheeks before I could stop it, some old, humiliating instinct rising up out of nowhere. Her hands found my face, cupping my jaw, thumbs brushing gently along my cheekbones.