When I was twenty-two, Trevor took me to my first theme park. I’d never been on a rollercoaster until that day, and he took me on this ridiculously extreme snake-themed hyper-coaster that went from zero to sixty in three seconds and had one of the world’s tallest peaks and steepest drops.
I’d never held on so tight in my life.
Screamed at the top of my lungs.
And there were moments I was certain I was going to die before we got to the end.
But when it was over, there was this rush, this sense of calm, this strange sense of accomplishment, like I’d conquered some insanely terrifying monster—and that it was never the coaster I was scared of because the coaster was perfectly safe … it was my beliefs about the coaster.
In my head, I’d convinced myself it was dangerous, that it could hurt me.
Maybe this thing with Bennett is happening fast, maybe it’s terrifying, but maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s the best thing about it. And I’m willing to bet it’s just as paralyzing to him as it is to me—but as long as we have each other, we’ll arrive safely together in the end.
The flames in the fireplace flicker, the mantel clock ticks.
Bennett flicks a page in his book.
Honor snaps a cardboard piece into her Dora puzzle, hair wet from her bath and smelling like vanilla and apricots and dressed in head-to-toe Minnie Mouse. It’s time to put her to bed, but I’m milking every last second of this moment.
Bennett closes his book, watching Honor. I don’t think he realizes it, but he’s smiling.
He does that a lot now—smiles.
Before it was rare. Now it’s constant. It’s like this sweet little thing just waltzed into his life and put his soul a little more at ease, giving him a chance to make things right for Larissa.
“This is what it’s all about,” I say. “Everyone always focuses on the big things. The huge events you can stamp a date on. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Graduations. Milestones. But this is what matters. The precious little moments between the big ones. Think about it. No one ever wants to relive their graduation or some arbitrary birthday. But I guarantee you, if you gave someone a chance to relive a perfectly ordinary day, they’d do it in a heartbeat.”
He takes my hand and pulls me against him. He says nothing, and he lets my words fall where they may as he watches this new version of his life play out before him.
“We should probably get her to bed,” I whisper.
“Right.” He rises, places his book aside. “Honor, why don’t you put your puzzle away and meet me in your room for a story?”
I make my way to his room to get ready for bed. Last weekend, he cleared out a few drawers for me as well as some space in his bathroom—that paired with the key he gave me, and he’s all but asked me to move in with him.
I don’t think I would, though.
One thing at a time.
I tie my hair up, wash my face, brush my teeth, and slip into one of his t-shirts before climbing beneath the cool, slick sheets of Bennett’s enormous bed.
Less than five minutes later, he joins me.
“She’s out.” He slides in next to me, drawing me into his arms. “Didn’t even get to finish the book before she was snoring. Didn’t think the book was that dull, though I will say it was noticeably repetitive in parts.”
“Most children’s books are …”
I roll to my side and hook my arm over his chest, inhaling the bleached cotton scent of his crisp t-shirt as it mixes with the faded cologne on his warm skin.
“I don’t know how much time I have left, Astaire …” His chest rises and falls, and in the dark, I see the whites of eyes, gaze fixated on the ceiling above. “Could be a year or nine years or thirty-three …”
“Let’s try not to think about that.”
“We don’t have a choice, Astaire. We can’t ignore the fact that my … life … is a ticking timebomb.”
I press my ear against his chest, close my eyes, and listen. The strong thump on the other side fills me with hope.
“Before I met you, before any of this … it never mattered to me. The future never mattered to me. But now … it’s all I think about,” he says. “I want the fireplace and puzzles and bedtime stories. I want the meaningful little things. The quiet nights. My life was void of meaning until I met you, Astaire. I can never go back to that.”
His heart beats faster now, trotting to a gallop.
“I want to come home to you every night. I want to sleep next to you, always. I want to talk about our days. I want to teach Honor what love, real love, looks like. What it means to be a family.” He cups my face in his hand and tilts it upward.
I open my eyes, breath catching with each inhalation. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m asking you to do life with me, Astaire.”
There’s no ring. He isn’t on bended knee. And there’s no mention of marriage. But in its own way, what he’s asking of me is so much bigger than any of that.
“So what do you say?” He pulls me into his lap, sits up, and clicks the lamp on beside us. “Are you in?”
His gaze surveys mine, his breath slow and steady, patient—unfitting for a man who doesn’t have all the time in the world.
I don’t how this is going to end, but I can’t imagine walking away from the beautiful life we could have together, be it tragically brief or wonderfully everlasting.
“I’m in,” I say through clouded vision.
His mouth arches at the sides and he claims my mouth with a kiss that sends tingles from the top of my head to the bottoms of my feet. My lips part to accept his tongue, and I slip my hands over his shoulders. A moment later, he’s peeling his t-shirt off my shoulders. The outline of his cock grows harder, thicker as our mouths connect and I grind against him.
Sliding the gusset of my panties aside, he slips a finger between my seam, teasing my clit before pushing it deeper inside me.
But I want more.
I want his heat filling the ache between my thighs.
I stifle a moan before whispering into his ear, all but begging him to have his way with me.
His kisses turn biting and greedy as he flips me onto my back and shoves my panties the rest of the way down. And his mouth grazes mine before he moves south, teasing a pert nipple with his tongue as his fingertips trail my inner thighs and stop at the apex.
I pull him close, reaching for his cock and freeing it from the confines of his low-slung navy sweats. He fills my palm, hot and hard, pulsing with matched desire.
“I want you so bad …” I grind beneath him, impatient and willing.
Our eyes catch in the dark.
“I’m on the pill …” I remind him.
Bennett slides his hands beneath my ass, pressing his hardness against my wetness, and flips us over, until I’m straddling him and he’s got the million-dollar view.
“Show me how bad you want me.” There’s a glint in his shadowy eyes and a tease in his tone.
I rock my hips over his throbbing erection, teasing him back, and then I slide myself over his length, slow inch by torturing inch, until he fills me to the hilt. His hands search my body before settling at my hips, and I rock back and forth, fully intending to ride this out to the end—in every sense of the word.