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Maybe for him, nothing ever changed.
His pants come off and I can feel him against me. Skin to skin.
We kiss, touch, push into each other for a long moment, before I press against his shoulder and roll until I’m on top of him again. I lift up, looking at him for approval as I reach back and hold him in my grip. He’s so fucking big it should be frightening, but I’ve never wanted anything more. Because it’s him.
Him, him, him, like a silent chant.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
He nods, but his lips press to my cheek, his hand caressing lightly against my skin. “Please don’t break my heart again,” he begs, then follows it with a watery smile and half chuckle. “I don’t think I can take anymore.”
“Never,” I vow. “I love you,” I breathe, as my hips slip down and I take him slowly into my body.
He jolts, hips arching, and I moan a curse at the sheer size of him.
“Say it again,” he begs. “Please.”
I push up on his chest when he’s still only halfway inside me.
“I love you.”
I breathe in and sink the rest of the way down, huffing and moaning as he takes up every inch of space and then some.
And we stay there, hips flush. Completely connected.
His eyes shine with tears; his cheeks are wet. He reaches up to touch my cheek and I realize I’m crying, too—for the first time, happy tears.
“You’re so beautiful,” he mutters again, eyes in awe of me even as his gaze doesn’t dip to my body. He’s only looking at me. Me.
“I love you.”
“You’re so perfect.”
“Just you.”
“Just you,” he whispers back, picking up the pace. “Just you and me, forever, love.”
Falling in love with Bennett was like jumping into the ocean, expecting the water to be icy and painfully cold, only to be completely encompassed in comforting warmth. A warmth that has never faltered.
“I love you,” I say again, because I can’t help it. He slows again, savoring the feeling of us this close, before he presses his lips to my neck, just below my ear and whispers poems into my skin as he makes me come again and again, until we’re both wrung out.
Love from Bennett Reiner will always be this—perfect and warm. It’s homemade versions of my favorite food, warm blankets, firm hands on sore muscles, and gentle fingers in my hair. It’s slow indie music that’s just soft enough to be a lullaby, but with lyrics so beautiful my ears ache to listen. It’s poems ripped from his favorite books lying on my pillow, with the words he struggles to say splayed on softly crinkled paper.
“You’re the only person who has ever had me,” I breathe, tears still spilling quietly over my cheeks. “All of me.”
My words make him moan into the curve of my neck.
“I’ll take care of you forever, P,” he says, angling his neck to press our foreheads together in the quiet dark. “You just have to let me, love.”
I release a hiccupped cry, overwhelmed by how I feel about him, distraught over the cycle I’ve felt perpetually stuck in that wouldn’t allow me to have him until I could defeat this evil thing I’ve let live in my head since I was fourteen.
Bennett tucks me against his chest and pets my hair, soothing me, whispering soft poetry that I’m almost sure is his, until I’m calm again. Until I fall asleep with him still inside me.
Chapter 66
NOW
Bennett
