“I was scared,” I confess, knowing I don’t have to hide from her anymore, and that I never will again. “When I realized you were gone… I haven’t been that scared in a long time.”
She brushes my hair from my forehead with gentle hands. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I say. “Just don’t leave without saying goodbye again.”
Emotion glows behind her eyes. “How about I just never leave again? Ever. Would that work?”
My lips curve even as my throat goes tight, making my voice husky as I agree, “That sounds perfect.” I lower my lips to hers, and I kiss her with all the love in my heart, so damned grateful that I don’t have to hide or downplay what I feel for her anymore.
I love her, and I’m going to make sure she knows it, tonight and every night that I’m lucky enough to have her in my life.
We fall back onto the bed. Capturing her wrists, I draw them over her head, pinning them to the mattress with one hand as I trail kisses down her neck, tasting the sweet salt of her skin.
“I should shower first,” she says, shivering beneath me as I cup her breast through her shirt. “I’m filthy.”
“I like you filthy.” I move lower, nipping at her nipple through the thin fabric, loving the way she gasps and arches closer to my mouth as my other hand pops the button at the top of her shorts. “I love it when you tell me exactly how you want me to fuck you.”
“I meant literally filthy,” she says, moaning as I slide my hand into her panties, finding where she’s already wet for me. Damn, I love that. So fucking much. “Not metaphorically. I’m still in my hiking clothes.”
“Not for long,” I promise, rubbing her clit in firm circles until she’s bucking into my touch before pulling my hand away.
I reach for the bottom of her T-shirt while she fumbles at the button of my jeans. In seconds, we’re rid of every scrap of clothing between us, and we come back together with a relieved sigh. Our lips meet in a kiss that’s urgent and demanding with a hunger boiling so close to the surface that I know this isn’t going to last as long as I’d like.
But that’s all right.
There’s always tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that.
Because she’s mine and I’m hers, and we’re never going to say goodbye.
“Oh yes, please,” she says as I nudge her thighs farther apart with my knee and press my aching cock between her legs, my head spinning as her wetness kisses my skin. “Inside me. Now.”
“Always,” I promise as I glide into her welcoming body, groaning as she wraps her legs around my hips and arches closer, taking every inch.
We begin to move together, finding that perfect rhythm, the one that brings us closer with every thrust, as in sync as we’ve been since the first time we touched. And as she comes beneath me, her body gripping me tight, triggering a release so intense I’m suddenly in orbit, high in the starry sky above, I make a silent promise to myself.
I will never let a day go by without telling her how special she is, how much she means to me, and how grateful I am to be the man in her bed and in her heart.
“Especially your bed,” I murmur against her lips as we catch our breath after, with my softening length still deep inside the only place I want to be.
“What’s that?” she asks, fingers skimming up and down my back.
“Just thinking about how lucky I am to be here with you.”
“I think I’m the lucky one.” She turns her head, pressing a kiss to my arm.
“I guess we can both be lucky.”
“No,” she says, kissing me again with her eyes closed. “A winner must be declared. We’ll settle this in the way of my people. Co-ed naked shower wrestling to the death. It’s the only way.”
Grinning, I ask, “Oh, yeah? Does it have to be to the death?”
“Yes, but just the little death.” Her eyes flutter open, burning into mine as she adds, “That’s what the French call orgasm, la petite mort.”
I shiver, and my cock twitches inside her. “Fuck. Do you speak French?”
“Oui, je parle français. Ma grand-mère m’a appris,” she says in an accent so sexy I lose all sense of reason.
The next thing I know, I’m taking her in the shower while she laughs and says more sexy-as-hell things in that accent, and I thank God for the French language and sex and love and this woman.
Most especially this woman.
She’s the fucking best.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Colette
When I wake up with the sun glaring into my eyes, I smile, not at all irritated that I forgot to close the curtains before we fell asleep last night.