She whimpered.
I smiled against her skin. She was so responsive, exactly the way I remembered. I sat back, lifting her, pulling the shirt away from her body. I wrapped her in my arms, holding her tight, needing to simply feel her against me. I knew how big this moment was going to be for us, and I didn’t want to rush it.
She gripped me hard, her fingers digging into my skin. I felt a tremor go down her spine, and I pulled back, tilting up her chin to look into her dark eyes. “Sunny, baby, what is it? Too fast?”
“No,” she whispered. “It’s overwhelming at times. I never thought I’d be here, like this, with you again.”
“I know.” I brushed a kiss to her lips. “I feel the same.”
“Linc…” Her voice trailed off, uncertainty filling that one word.
“Talk to me,” I begged. “If this is too much, we can stop, Sunny. I swear.”
“No, it’s just—” she swallowed “—I might not be what you expect.”
I cupped her face. “What I expect? I expect you. Nothing more.”
“I, ah, don’t have a lot of experience.” She huffed a sigh and looked up. “In fact, other than you, none.”
Her words hit me, and I stared at her, stunned.
“Sunny, you’ve never been with anyone but me? All these years?”
“No.”
For a moment, I said nothing. We hadn’t talked about the years we were apart. The people in our lives. Our experiences. I had assumed…well, apparently, I had assumed wrong.
I stroked her face with my thumb, trying to phrase my words properly. “Can I ask why?”
She shrugged. “Sex was never just about sex for me. What we shared that night meant something. I dated a few guys, but none of them ever touched my heart. I didn’t want them to touch my body if that was the case.” Her gaze looked everywhere except at me. “I just…didn’t.”
I pressed my forehead to hers. “Sunny, baby, you overwhelm me.” I exhaled hard, the air moving the curls around her forehead. “My experience was, ah, different,” I confessed, feeling shame at my words.
She wrapped her hands around my wrists. “It’s fine, Linc.”
“No, listen, please. I dated a few women. I had relationships with two. But they never touched my heart because you still owned it. They were both smart enough to recognize that, and we took the relationship for what it really was. We enjoyed each other’s company, and the sex was an outlet—nothing more.”
“So you only had sex with two other women?”
I nodded. “The last one was two years ago. Like I said, it’s been a long time.”
She met my eyes. “And you’ve been alone ever since?”
“Sunny, I’ve been alone since the day I lost you.”
“I’m here, Linc.”
I leaned my forehead back to hers, shutting my eyes. “I’m not worthy of you.”
“I think you are.”
I gazed down at her, her eyes damp with unshed tears, her lips trembling with emotion. Her confession shook me to the core. This woman, this beautiful woman, had been mine all these years. As alone as I was—and somehow waiting for me.
“I want to tell you everything. All the words, all the thoughts I never got to share the first time around. I want to build a lifetime of new memories with you, Sunny.”
“I want that too.”
“I’m going to make you mine again,” I murmured, tracing her lips with my finger. “Only this time, I’m not letting you go.”
She kissed my finger, a single tear sliding down her cheek.
“I never stopped being yours, Linc.”
With a groan, I crashed my mouth to hers.The girl in my memory was simply that. A memory. A body on the cusp of changing. A mind beginning to explore and absorb the world around it. A girl on the brink of becoming a woman.
That woman was with me now. Beautiful, vibrant, and here in the present—not a shimmering mirage of a ghost from long ago. Real. Warm. Waiting.
Our mouths molded together, reacquainting themselves with everything familiar, discovering all the new richness of the moment. Sunny’s taste filled my senses—sweet, hot, and addictive. She kissed me back, her passion matching mine. I dragged my mouth over her cheek, nibbling on her ear, kissing the sensitive skin behind it, smiling as she shivered. She always liked that.
I explored her with my hands and my mouth. Tasted and teased the juncture where her shoulder met her neck. Licked her sexy collarbone. Keeping our gazes locked, I lifted her arm, trailing my mouth along the inside of her wrist, up her elbow to her shoulder, then doing the same with the other arm. Her breasts beckoned, and she gasped as I licked and sucked at her nipples, teasing them into hard points under my tongue. I kissed my way down her stomach, listening to her whimpers as I worshiped her curves, trailing my fingers over the swell of her hip, gliding them along the indent of her waist and sliding them back to her breasts, playing with the hard nubs as I went lower.