This time when he kissed me, he did it gently, teasing me again and taking my mind off our morbid conversation.
Remembering I needed to mention something and dreading the answer, I tried to pull myself away… but did I really want to know?
Lifting his head, he scanned my face, a slight frown appearing on his forehead. “You stiffened up.”
I licked my lips and grew a pair of lady balls. “I’m clean, and I’m on birth control. There’s a mean bitch who sticks a needle in my ass every three months who can confirm it.”
His eyes squinted slightly. “You’re clean?”
I would have thought he was questioning my honesty if it hadn’t been for the slight hurt in his voice.
“There’s only ever been you,” I admitted.
He slumped down like someone had sapped all of the strength out of him. “Thank Christ.”
I blinked up at the ceiling, wondering if I should tap out because I needed oxygen or just wiggle slightly to see if being able to reinflate one lung would suffice. Fortunately, I didn’t do either because he quickly lifted off my chest.
“Fuck, sorry. I’m just fucking relieved, baby. I had nightmares about you being with another guy, then I’d go and work out until I had to go to work. I think I averaged about two hours of sleep a night while you were away.” I felt my eyes widen at this new information. “I haven’t touched another woman unless trying to pass by them or arresting them counts?”
I grinned up at him. “Uh, no, I’ll let you live. That doesn’t count.”
He leaned down until his forehead was pressed against mine, holding eye contact the whole time. “Fuck, but I love you, Layla.”
Heart confetti or palpitations—either or, it filled my chest.
“I love you right back,” I told him before I turned my head slightly to the side and used my hand on the back of his head to pull his mouth back down to mine.
The kiss was heated from the second it started, and I began tugging at the towel to get it off him as quickly as possible. With him pressed against me, though, all it did was hurt my arm, which was infuriating.
“Towel,” I growled, pulling at it to remind him. “Get it off.”
All he did was lift his hips so I could remove it, and then he was pressed against me again—skin to skin.
Pulling his hips back slightly, he notched the tip of his cock at my entrance without using his hands, a pretty neat magic trick if ever there was one.
“Like this,” he breathed, moving so his forehead was against mine again and then pressed inside, his eyes focused on me the whole time.
He took it slowly, pressing, then withdrawing, until half of him was inside me.
Then it hit me what Mark was doing—we’d been just like this during the first time we’d ever had sex. He was recreating it for me, like a new beginning.
Squeezing him with my thighs, I jerked my hips to try and get more of him inside me. Our first time had been just that, but sometimes you can mix the old with the new and get something just as special.
Telling him this, Mark tensed his jaw as he withdrew, and then he thrust back inside me, using more force and speed than he had been previously. The feeling of him stretching me made me clench down around him and cry out.
“Did I hurt you?” he barked as he grabbed a fistful of the sheet next to my head, like he was trying to hold himself back.
Grabbing him by the ears, I snapped, “No, you didn’t, and if you dare to stop doing it just like that, I’ll—”
Whatever I was going to say was cut off by a quick withdrawal and an even harder thrust back inside me that moved me up the sheets slightly. Mark watched me constantly, making sure he didn’t hurt me, and when I clenched down around him, not even needing his finger on my clit to make me come, I did it pressing my nails into the skin on his back, marking him the way he loved.
Just as my muscles began to relax, the tempo of his thrusts went out of sync until he slammed back inside me and groaned, his body shaking with the force of his orgasm.
There was a massive difference between how we’d had sex previously and now—no condom. I’d expected to be able to feel it, but all I felt was the slight twitching of Mark’s penis as he came inside me.
While he was panting through the aftermath, I pulled him closer to me and just hugged him. It was a ridiculous thing to do after sex, but I needed it. Not that Mark minded. In fact, he slid his hands under his back and wrapped me up right back.
It was beautiful.
And it was us.