What the Heart Knows

“Juni, you can do a lot better than me.”

Oliver looked away and her heart dropped.

“I don’t want anyone else.” She climbed into his lap. “Look at me.”

He lifted his head to comply and she continued to speak.

“If your feelings have changed since I lost the hitchhiker ghost, I’ll accept that. What I can’t stomach and refuse to understand is you lying down and letting her win.” She gripped his t-shirt in her hands and her body shook. “Tell me you don’t feel the same.”

Her voi

ce was low and filled with gravel as she spoke through gritted teeth.

“I can’t, damn it!”

His mouth crashed down and she gasped at the passion he put in that one lip-lock. She sucked air into her greedy lungs when he pulled away.

“I tried to do the honorable thing and give you a chance to walk away from all this madness.” He pressed her body to his as he whispered into her hair. “You refused.”

She shivered at the possession audible in his tone.

“Now you’ve sealed both our fates.”

She squeaked as he lifted her off his lap and laid her onto her back. His movements were slow and methodical as he slipped her t-shirt over her head and kissed a fiery path down her neck to her cleavage. She hissed when he licked her incision scar and massaged her heavy breasts.

“Do you know why I love this scar so much?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Because without this badge of courage you wouldn’t be here with me.”

Only this man could take the mark she found hideous and turn it into something beautiful.

Chills ran through her body when he scraped the raised line with his fingernail.

“I want to lay any doubts you have to rest, Juni. I love you. I’ll always cherish my time spent with Hannah, but that’s in the past. You are my future.”

His hand moved down to slide inside her pants, and her hips jerked when he found her swollen button.

“I think I love hearing the noises you make almost as much as I love making you come.”

He dipped a finger inside her slick entryway and she pushed her hips up in an attempt to bring him deeper.

“Not yet. We’re doing this slow and easy.”

He circled his thick digit inside her and brought the soaked finger back to her nub. Oliver increased the pressure and rubbed harder as her breath came in pants.

“Oh my God!”

“That’s it, baby.”

She laid her head back onto the bed, closed her eyes and swiveled her hips in time with his strokes. Her body tensed. Oliver delivered one final flick of his finger and she barreled over the edge.

“Oliver!”

She gushed a river and her body jerked erratically as she rode out the waves of pleasure. He stripped away their clothing, and slid inside her in one unhurried thrust. Oliver twined their fingers, and their gazes locked. Each plunge took him deeper and embedded him further in her heart. This was more than sex: this was connection on the deepest level possible. They came together in an explosion that took her breath away as her eyes rolled into the back of her head.

In the quiet calm that settled in the afterglow, Oliver spoke. Propped up on an elbow he glanced down as she peered up at him over her shoulder. “I love you, Juni. I won’t say I want to start over because that would mean forgetting all the things that came before. But I do want a fresh start.”