The tightness inside her loosened, and for the first time since that morning, she began to relax. She began to hope.
And maybe that was dangerous territory for her to traverse, maybe it was like walking blindly down that single lane highway in the middle of oncoming traffic, but she didn’t know how to be any other way. Lily leaned into his hand, her fingers tracing the contours of his jaw before resting against his mouth.
“So what are we going to do?” she asked softly, loving the play of shadows on his face.
“We explore each other. We enjoy each other.”
His tongue darted out, and she shuddered when he licked the tips of her fingers.
“We respect each other’s boundaries and see where this goes.”
Boundaries. Right. His “no white-picket fence and no kids” boundary.
Could Lily live with the knowledge that she would never have those things as long as she was with Mackenzie?
What was the alternative if not? A life alone and never feeling alive again? Never knowing the joy she took by just watching him? The way he smiled and lit up her world in colors of gold? The feel of him inside her? The sound of his voice?
Could she live a life without love now that she’d experienced it?
That thought whispered through her mind, and for one scary moment, time sort of froze. She saw herself as an old, bitter woman with no babies and no husband…and no Mackenzie.
Holy. Shit.
It hit her then. She’d fallen in love with him. She didn?
??t know the when of it or the how of it…she just knew without a doubt that, that was what the hot, hard thing pressing into her chest was. It was love. It was a scared kind of love that had no idea what it was doing.
Maybe Mackenzie loved her but didn’t know it yet, or maybe there was nothing but strong feelings inside him. It didn’t matter. Not really. Those were things that she couldn’t control.
What she could control was how she lived her life and what choices she made. And just like she’d chosen to cut out the parasite that was her family—her father and her awful sister—she could choose to have Mackenzie in her life, even if it meant doing so on his terms.
And because Lily loved Mackenzie, she was willing to do just that.
So when he groaned and slid his mouth across hers, whispering words of apology, she gave herself up to him. When his arms slid around her waist and pulled her into his body, she melted into him as if she was his second skin.
When Mackenzie slowly lifted her into his arms and headed back into the house, she ran her fingers over his face and buried them in his hair. She kissed him, her mouth open and hot and giving. She kissed him with all the fervent emotion inside her, and when he began to undress her, she let him worship her with his hands and his eyes and his mouth.
They didn’t make it to her bedroom. They barely made it inside.
He grabbed at her clothes with an urgency she hadn’t felt, not even this morning when he’d surprised her in the shower. His hands were everywhere and his mouth soon followed, tongue probing, gliding—teeth nipping and scraping.
By the time Mackenzie got her shorts down, she was squirming, hot with need.
“I want you naked,” she whispered hotly as she yanked on his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. Next came his shorts and, sweet Jesus, but her man wasn’t wearing boxers. Lily pushed him onto his back. She shook her head when he would have pulled her up against him.
She settled between his legs and began to kiss her way up his thighs, first the left and then the right. She traced her fingers over his taut muscles, loving the way they stretched and tightened beneath her touch.
“Jesus Christ, Boston you’re killing me,” he rasped as her mouth hovered over the head of his cock. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as hot as you right now.” He slowly sat up and leaned back against the wall, dragging her up so that he could kiss her. With his hands sunk into her hair, he held her prisoner, his mouth and tongue filling her with fire.
When she pulled away from him, his eyes were flat, dark with desire. And when she slowly slid down him again, when her mouth settled over the silky hardness of his cock, he swore.
“Ah, God,” he groaned when she took him deep into her mouth, and when she began to suckle him, he jerked so hard she had to hold on, digging her fingers into the tops of his thighs.
They each filled a need for each other, a hot, physical need to connect, and later, as she cuddled with Mackenzie in her bed, Lily felt some sort of peace. They’d moved forward today. They’d been honest with each other, and it hadn’t meant the end of the world—or the end of them.
She had no idea what the future was going to bring, but for now, what she had with this man was enough. As she rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes, she ignored the sliver of doubt.
The one that said it wouldn’t be enough for much longer.