I had never shared a bed with another person until Brett. I didn’t do overnight guests. The few times Charly and I’d had sleepovers, one of us slept on the floor or the sofa. I wasn’t used to waking beside someone, although I had to admit, I liked waking up with Brett. I felt safe and protected. Even before I realized I needed to feel that way, he did it for me.
I gazed up at him, studying his face, his broad chest, the muscles in his neck. Even in rest, they showed. He was strong. Powerful. Yet with me, even in passion, always gentle.
“I feel your eyes on me, Shutterbug,” he murmured, his voice rough with sleep. “You know what happens when you eyeball me.”
I cupped his face, loving the feel of his scruff and the skin stretched over his cheekbones. “You stayed,” I whispered.
He opened his eyes, the clear blue of his irises holding my gaze. “I told you I would.”
“Brett…” I began, then stopped.
He lifted his hand, running it over my cheek, and smiled. “What?” he asked.
“I never meant… That is, I should have said—” I huffed out a sigh of frustration.
“Just say it, Shutterbug. We need to stop keeping the words to ourselves.”
The words poured out before I could stop them. “I didn’t mean to hurt you when I left. I didn’t mean to make you think I didn’t care. I did. So much. So much so it scared me. How I felt about you made me question everything I thought I wanted. How I saw myself. How I saw my future.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me?”
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of me?” he asked, sounding incredulous.
“No. I’m terrified if I allow myself to feel, to become attached, I’ll wind up being my mother. Clingy, needy, focused only on someone else and ignoring the world around her—even her own child.”
He shook his head. “Do you think I would allow that? I love your independence. Your free spirit. I have no desire to crush that side of you. And you couldn’t be that way. You’re too much your own person. And I like you that way.”
“Even if I can’t stay in one place?”
He grimaced then sighed. “As long as you come back, Shutterbug. I need to know you’ll come back.”
“That doesn’t seem fair to you.”
“Let me decide what is fair to me. Just come back to me. That’s all I ask.”
I had no idea what to say. How to tell him I thought one day I would return and not want to leave because he was there.
“I will,” I promised.
He lowered his head, kissing me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, returning his passion. Kissing him back. Moaning in satisfaction as he slid over me, pressing me into the mattress, the feel of his erection trapped between us.
“I want you,” he groaned.
“Then have me,” I replied.
“Slowly.” He drifted his lips over my neck, sucking my lobe into his mouth and biting down. “I want to savor you this morning.”
“Yes,” I replied. I didn’t care how he wanted it as long as he took me along for the ride.
He lavished me with attention. His mouth rarely left my skin as he stripped me then explored every inch of me. His lips, his tongue, his fingers, left trails of heat, whispers of adoration, his touch branding me as if he was imprinting himself on my body. I felt cherished. Adored. Worshipped. When he finally slid inside me, I was sobbing with need, with desire for him. Everything about him. I clutched at his shoulders as he moved inside me—long, leisurely thrusts of his hips, drawing almost completely out then sinking back in, making me gasp. I begged for more, for faster, harder, but he refused.
“Slowly, Shutterbug,” he whispered. “Feel me loving you. Feel what you mean to me.”
He moved and rocked. I wrapped my legs around his hips, in sync with his body. I never wanted it to end. I never wanted to leave this bed and the circle of his arms. I cried out, whimpering his name as my orgasm hit me, building low and branching outward, gaining momentum, gathering its strength like a sudden summer storm. I felt it in every part of my body as I spasmed around him. He dropped his head to my shoulder, lifting me to his thighs, moving fast now, grunting and cursing until he was spent, his body tightening, my name a whispered breath on his lips.
“Mine,” he sighed. “You’re mine.”
I knew he was right. I had to stop fighting it. Fighting him.
I pressed a kiss to his head, and his arms tightened.
“I have you, Shutterbug. Even if you’re not here, I have you.”
Tears filled my eyes, and for the first time in my life, I had a glimpse of real love.
Its name was Brett.