Falling in Love (Rockford Falls 5)

“So you’re gonna stand around busting my balls about whistling when I’m signing the paychecks?” I said sarcastically.

“Fine, back to work. And no busting out in song, even if he goes into the music from the Lion King or something,” John instructed.

The good-natured ribbing was happening all the time now, because I was happy. I was noticeably happy. My brother noticed on the phone. My parents noticed when I brought them cantaloupe from a farmer’s market and took out their trash for them. And I knew that Michelle had noticed. Because we’d been spending every night together.

I was going by the library after work and picking her up. I took her lunch and ate with her if I had the chance. In the mornings, we woke up together, me a little earlier than she had to. The tangle of golden hair on her pillow, fanned out around her face, and the droop of her lower lip, the furrow of her brow as she dreamt. She was too beautiful to be real, too much of a dream come true. It was almost painful to get out of bed and leave her there, knowing that I could steal an hour, stay between the sheets with her.

Last week, I asked John to open the shop so I could come in later. Michelle and I spent the time taking a long hot shower together, one that ended with her palms braced on the shower wall while I buried my cock in her from behind. I had kissed between her shoulder blades and reached around and massaged her clit until I felt the orgasm roll through her, and then I drove my cock home, pouring out inside her. There were no words to describe what it felt like to wake up to Michelle kissing my neck and whispering to me. Nothing could capture that feeling of rightness, of harmony with the entire universe that I felt when I had her legs wrapped low around my hips while I breached her sex with the head of my aching erection. Burrowing into her, tracing her belly and breasts, rolling my hips to hit every sensitive spot, I had never felt more at home than I did when I was balls deep in my high school sweetheart. The way she said my name was enough to tear me apart. She’d made me come more times than I could count just by whispering my name, kissing my mouth while we were in the throes of passion. Her hand, sweet and saucy in my hair while I moved above her, or her palm on my abs as she rode me. Everything about her seemed made for me, made to be my undoing.

The more time we spent together, the more I wanted her. The more I craved a guarantee that she’d stay. We’d been staying at my place, at her place, going back and forth. I knew it was too soon, but I wanted to ask her to move in with me. Noah could build on a walk-in closet for her, make the bedroom bigger, whatever she needed to feel at home. I knew she’d grown up in a big, fancy house that was practically a mansion, but she didn’t act like the house meant anything to her beyond a convenient place to live. If I thought it was important to her, I’d never ask her to give it up. And on the strength of a relationship less than a month long, I didn’t have any right to ask her anything at this point. That didn’t stop me from wanting to.

I’d convinced her to keep some things at my place, and I had a toothbrush and change of clothes at her house. A whole drawer, in fact. And she’d gotten me shaving stuff to keep there, and I noticed a new bar of Irish Spring in her shower that was for me, too. She could’ve had a drawer in my dresser, but I liked having her stuff mixed in with mine, her silky pajamas alongside my t-shirts. At her house, she slept in my t-shirt, a worn gray one that said Casey’s Garage in navy letters on the back. Seeing her in that and nothing else was one of my biggest turn-ons. Not that there were a shortage of those.

Michelle brought me lemonade at work today. It was hot outside, and the window air unit was working overtime just to keep the shop tolerable. I had a bandanna tied over my hair just to keep sweat out of my eyes while I worked. In came Michelle, looking fresh as spring in a white sundress.

“I had to go to the bank and the post office, so I stopped by and got lemonade. I thought you could use a cold drink.”

I had grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to me. She giggled, girlish and happy. Then I stopped myself.