“It’s okay,” I tell him adamantly. “I’m okay. And I’m sorry.”
“No,” he says, voice getting gravelly. “No. I’m sorry. I know why you didn’t tell me. I know I can get overprotective of you. I know you thought I’d change my mind about the baby. I know all these things. I should have talked to you—instead I didn’t know how to process it…”
“I should have told you everything that was happening.”
He closes his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose. “I was hurt that you didn’t trust me. That’s all. But that was no excuse. Baby, I love you so much.” He puts his hand on my cheeks. “I love you. Forgive me.”
“I love you,” I whisper. “There’s nothing to forgive. It was just a fight. We do that from time to time, you know.”
He kisses me softly, then pulls me into a hug again, wrapping his arms around me. “What happened? The woman at the gym said she heard you had a panic attack?”
I’m almost too scared to say anything, as if talking about it, thinking about it, would invite Samantha into our home. But I won’t hide anything anymore, not from him. “I was in the shower after class. Someone got into the shower next to me. There was all this blood coming over and…I saw her feet. I saw her arm as she climbed over the stall. It was her, Dex. It was Samantha.”
“Shit.” He holds me tighter.
“Yeah. I tried to escape, but I couldn’t get out. I heard her behind me. Thank god a woman came in and got me out. Of course there was no blood, and no dead witch. I had to lie, tell her it was a panic attack. She wouldn’t have believed me.”
It feels like he’s trying to crush my ribs now. “You’re not going anywhere without me.”
Normally I would point out that this overprotectiveness is what I was trying to avoid, but I don’t argue with him. I don’t want to be alone ever again, to be honest.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper, managing to look up at him.
He stares down at me, a million different emotions passing through the depths of his eyes, the line between his brows deepening.
“I hate it when we fight,” he says in a low, rough voice, hands sliding into my hair. “It kills me. I would have never been able to forgive myself if…if it ended like it did.”
“But it didn’t. I’m okay.”
“Doesn’t matter, baby. I…I can’t lose you. I won’t. You’re more than my other half, you’re in my blood and in my fucking bones. To lose you is to lose my very soul. To lose you is death.”
I feel my heart crumbling into tender little pieces, rendered weak by his words.
When I feel strength again, I manage to give him a faint smile. “Don’t be so—”
Dramatic.
But my words are cut off by his mouth on mine. The kiss is sweet and sad and desperate, making my heart expand in my chest. My toes curl in my shoes, my fingers dig into his shoulders. There is safety and solace in the wet slide of his tongue, the hungry fever that spreads from his lips to mine. This kiss is the doorway to becoming whole again, to healing all wounds.
We stumble backward to the couch, moving fast and slow all at once. Like we have all the time in the world, yet there’s an urgency running through us both, that need to come together, to make things right between us again.
We’ve always been very good at making up.
Our clothes are discarded as we go, and thankfully Fat Rabbit gets the hint and jumps off the couch, disappearing into the den.
I press my hands on Dex’s shoulders and push him down onto the couch so that he’s sitting, and I straddle him, my knees on either side of his thighs, the front of me rubbing against his shaft.
He lets out a low moan, one hand going to the back of my neck, the other to my breast where he feels the weight of it in his palm, his breath hitching. His head dips forward, licking over my nipple, teasing it until the fire in my core is building with pressure. He licks me like I’m something to be treasured, cherished, my nipple turning pebble hard under his tongue, nerves sparking like a live wire.
I gasp, leaning forward, reaching down to take a firm hold of his cock, his skin hot and hard and soft all at once. I feel his desire pumping against my hand, growing larger by the second, the heat pressed against my palm.
I should take my time with him, luxuriate in this, in the both of us coming together again, erasing the fight and hurt and anger, but I can’t. I need to be completely removed from what just happened, need all my thoughts and wants and feelings to whittle down to just him, just us.
Slowly, I tighten my fist around his girth and move him into position, and gradually lower myself down until he’s pushing his cock up into me, trying to take control.
He hisses out a breath, his face rising to meet mine in another hot, wet kiss that feels like forgiveness and hope, and I expand around him until he’s inside me to the hilt and I’m breathless again.
God, this is so, so good.
“Perry,” he whispers to me, hands on my face, in my hair, hands trailing down my back, to my waist where he spreads his palms wide, bracketing me.
He doesn’t say anything else, just offers up my name like a prayer and I close my eyes, moving my hips back and forth, up and down, trying to control as much as I can. Every single moment is pure exquisite bliss, the silky slide of his body inside mine, the purity of our connection.
Eventually he can’t handle it. He rarely can when I’m in charge. His grip around my waist turns bruising, and he starts to lift me up and down on his cock, faster, deeper enough that I have to dig my fingers into the back of the couch to stay remotely in control.
“I don’t know how but I keep falling in love with you,” he says, emotion and desire rippling through his voice. His tempo slows momentarily as he brushes my hair off my face, continuing to rock his hips up into me, continuing to make every part of my body feel alive. “I can’t stop it.”
He kisses me, just getting my bottom lip, pulling it into his mouth for a wet moment. Then he breaks away, taking in a deep, shaking breath and resting his forehead against mine. “I don’t think it’s normal to need someone this much.”
I’m about to tell him I know how he feels. That I feel the same, how I can be married to him and yet have these feelings be so intense and deep and permanent that it still scares me. But he tightens his grip at my waist and lifts me up instead.
“Get on your knees so I can take you from behind,” he says gruffly.
And just like that, he goes from sweet to crude, and I’m being flipped over by his strong arms so that my ass is to him, my breasts pressed against the back of the couch. He shoves a knee between my thighs, parting them roughly, and then wedges himself inside me. He’s so hard where I’m so soft, and the change in positions has me wild, like I’m feeling him deeper than he’s ever been before, like we can’t ever be parted.
He shudders a breath in my ear, kissing the back of my neck, his hips moving in tight, controlled circles that has his body straining behind me, trying his hardest to hold back, to keep the pace from getting punishing. I love him at this stage, when all he wants to do is come, when he’s fighting the urge to rush through it, to succumb to the intoxication of it all.