I lean in and rub my nose on his throat. “Sweat.”
His deep chuckle makes me shiver. “Better work on that.”
“No.” I let him peel my dress off over my head. “I like it.”
He unhooks the front clasp of my bra, pushing it open on a groan and kneading my breasts in his hands, head falling forward as if he’s been desperate to touch them. “You should like it. You’re the reason I’m sweating all the time.”
“Who, me?”
“Yeah you,” he says, gruffly. Pausing in the act of thumbing my nipples. “This is me in your bedroom, Taylor. Can you see me here?”
“Yes,” I whisper, shaken down to the ground by what I feel for this man. How is it possible that he wasn’t in my life a week ago? Now that I’m letting myself believe this is real, a wealth of emotion rushes in and chokes my next breath. “I can see you here.”
His eyes close briefly, chest dipping and rising dramatically. “Good.”
In a flash, my back is pressed to the mattress and his hard, heavy body is coming down on mine, our mouths moving feverishly together while he works my panties down to mid-thigh, pushes them down past my knees, where I hook my toe into the waistband and drag them off completely. Our hands clash in an effort to unzip his jeans, my core throbbing for him. Needing him. Weeping over having been without him so long. “Wet, baby?” he asks in between mind scrambling kisses, his hardness finally, finally springing out into my waiting palm.
Transferring to his, mid-stroke.
“Yes,” I gasp—and he enters me in a mighty shove, shouting my name into my neck while my cry of his name resonates in the hazy bedroom, the headboard cracking hard off the wall. “Myles.”
I’m aching for him to thrust. To dominate me. To give me a break from this tension that only he has ever inspired. But he tilts my chin up and looks me in the eye, instead, love naked on his features. Right there for me to witness. No holding back. “This is me in your body, Taylor.” His hips rear back and rock forward, deep, deeper than before. “You feel me here?” he asks, raggedly, pressing my knees up toward the pillows.
“Yes,” I gasp.
And because he’s been vulnerable, because he’s given up so much ground to make me believe, I pull his forehead down to mine and take the biggest leap of all—the emotional one—meeting him halfway. “This is you in my heart,” I say, voice uneven. Kissing him softly. Once, twice. “Do you feel yourself there?”
“Yeah,” he chokes out, eyes suspiciously damp. “Keep me there. All right?”
“There’s no getting you out. I don’t want to.”
Visibly overcome, he drives my body up and down the bed, in that hard, pumping rhythm that we make together, limbs tangling, offering our moans to the ceiling. “You’re inside me for good, too, Taylor,” he says into my neck, just before pleasure tightens its grip on me. “From the first second I saw you to the last second I’m given. Stay with me. Watch me prove it.”
Epilogue
Myles
Two years later
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Expand the diaphragm.
I’ve spent hours of my life ogling my girlfriend while she does yoga on the floor of our apartment and it appears I’ve picked up a few of the relaxation techniques. So why the hell aren’t any of them helping me remain calm? I’m so nervous, my stomach is stuck to my fucking ribs.
I pace the entryway, yanking at the tie around my neck. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn the tie. I never wear these damn things. She’s going to know something is up. Mid-yank, I stop in front of the picture collage on the wall. Every time I walk through the front door of our place—the spacious first-floor apartment of a Boston townhouse—I stop to look at it. At everything we’ve done together over the last two years.
In the upper right-hand corner is a picture Jude snapped that first week in Cape Cod, both of us unaware we’re being caught staring at each other, lovesick, while eating breakfast burritos. A little farther down we’re at a Celtics game with my family and Taylor is heckling the referee after literally one beer. One. It’s my favorite picture. Or maybe my favorite is the one where we’re packing her trunk in Connecticut and getting ready to move to Boston. Taylor was trying to smash a champagne bottle against her bumper, but it wouldn’t break and I captured her open-mouthed amusement.
Oh my God, I love my girlfriend.
I’m whipped and I know it. Every second of it is pure heaven.
It scares me to picture life without Taylor. Maybe that’s why I always stop at the collage. To remind myself our relationship has all been real. That when the private investigation firm needed me in Boston full time, she agreed to apply for teaching jobs here and move with me. Not counting today—and her being held at gunpoint—asking Taylor to relocate to Boston was the most nervous I’ve ever been in my life. What if she said no? What if I hadn’t done enough to prove I’m going to be her man until the end of my life?