Chapter 26 Forrest
26 FORREST
Home. Home. Home. The word pulses through me with every beat of her heart, and all I can do is follow it. We’re going back to California together, and it’s too new to feel real. Like we’re a couple of kids pretending. And that feels reassuring because the idea of actually leaving my dad shoots an arrow of panic straight through me. Logically, I know he’ll be thrilled. Logically, I know his health and mobility have made slow but steady strides. But logic isn’t what made my thumb hit that send button.
Every single touch, every faint suggestion of her dimples, every needy gaze she sends my way has me by the throat, dragging me deeper into something I spent my whole adult life carefully avoiding. I’ve seen what losing someone precious can do to a man. Felt the cold shadow of it as a bystander when my mother passed away in my father’s arms. I know better than anyone that all good things—even the greatest things of all—eventually come to an end. But when Margot confessed tonight that she didn’t want to go home without me, it tipped the scales just enough. Just enough for me to make what was either the best or worst decision of my life.
And right now, with her body wrapped around mine as I carry her out of the hot tub, it feels like a no-fucking-brainer. Her wet skin is sunlight in my mouth, and every small gasp she makes is an X on a map I’m charting. Her lips find mine, and she’s licking into me softly. Nipping my bottom lip and pulling away before I can taste her like I want to. She’s a goddamn tease, and usually, I love it, but tonight it’s the last thing I want. I want reassurance that accepting the grant and watching her share her letter with the world mean what I need them to mean. That she’s mine. For as long as I can have her, she’s mine .
We’re both shivering by the time we make it inside the suite, our robes hanging haphazardly off our wet bodies. I barely have time to close the heavy door behind us before she’s up against me, dragging down my gift-shop swim shorts and standing on tiptoe to press open-mouth kisses to my collarbone.
“Why—are—you,” she complains between frustrated kisses, “so— tall ?”
“So I can do this,” I answer, scooping her up and holding her to my chest. Her gasp is cut short as I kiss her, carrying her a few short paces to the fluffy white cloud of a bed. Her laugh as I drop her on the mattress is the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.
“How dare you toss me around,” she scolds with a smile, shrugging out of her bathrobe. She slides her top off as my fingers hook into her tiny, wet bikini bottoms and drag them down to her ankles. “And how dare you undress me. How dare—”
I don’t find out what else I’ve dared, because her words dissolve into a breathless moan as I fling the bottoms over my shoulder and yank her naked hips to the edge of the bed. My eyes travel down every inch of her body, taking in every supple curve that seems divinely designed to drive me batshit. At the sight of her bare pussy—so slick and needy before I’ve even touched her—my knees drop to the goddamn floor. She’s already given me so much tonight. But if I’ve learned anything about myself when it comes to Margot, it’s that I’m fucking greedy. I steal one decadent lick of her, relishing her shuddering moan, before taking one knee in each hand and pulling them over my shoulders.
“Demanding, aren’t you?” she says breathlessly.
But I can’t answer her, because she’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen, and my mouth is already on her, my muffled moan mingling with her sharp intake of breath. She’s so fucking delicious, I’m drowning. Licking into her softly—then hungrily—until my tongue is pushing into her, and my hand has to put a choke hold on my jealous dick.
“ Forrest, ” she whines. With every needy squirm of her hips, she tries moving me higher, but she’s right—I am demanding. Only because she loves it. Only because I’m trying to draw this out for as long as I can stand not being buried in her. “Please,” she begs me, her pretty pink fingernails digging into her thighs. “ Please— ”
I give in to her reluctantly, moving upward with slow, teasing licks. When I meet her frantic gaze and finally suck her swollen clit between my lips, she lets out a sob. Her beautiful body arcs, wire-tight, and I know I have only seconds before she detonates. I’m desperate to feel her spasm around me, and when I fill her hard and fast with two fingers, I get my wish.
Her heels dig into my back, hands tearing at the sheets, and still I need more. I can’t stop pumping my fingers. Can’t stop lapping her up—not until she’s limp and jolting through the aftershocks. Not until she’s closing her trembling thighs and making little whimpers like she can’t take one more kiss.
“Come here,” she says, her voice hoarse and weak.
I obey, letting her hands draw me closer until I’m positioned over her, caging her perfect body between my arms. Her lashes lift slowly, her honey-colored eyes dazed and dreamy as she slides her hand down to notch me against her soaked entrance. My head drops with a curse as her palms slide to my hips, urging me forward. I only barely manage not to plow into her.
“Wait, sweetheart. I’ll grab—”
She cuts me off with a shake of her head. “I have an IUD,” she breathes, bringing a hand up to touch my cheekbone. My lips. “I need you closer,” she says, and fuck—I know she doesn’t mean just physically. This is about trust, and when she kisses me softly, it splits my heart wide-fucking-open. Then she goes in for the kill. “I want you on top,” she whispers against my lips, and I groan. It’s not the first time she’s asked me. In fact, she’s asked me every single morning and night this week, but I can barely maintain my self-control when she’s riding me—I might hurt her if she isn’t the one setting the pace.
“I can’t,” I rasp, but my dick is already nudging against her snug entrance like it didn’t get the fucking memo.
Her thighs spread wider as she squirms against me. “Please, Forrest,” she whimpers. “I trust you.”
I trust you . Her words leave tracks in my bloodstream, marking me permanently. But her trust isn’t the issue here. The problem is trusting myself. Then her hands slide from my hips, and I feel her touching herself. When she slicks her own need over my aching cock, pulling away becomes a nonoption. She moans, rubbing the head over her clit before stroking it back down to her entrance, and my need to be inside her turns molten.
“Jesus Christ,” I bite out, and with a helpless groan, I drive halfway into her, more than I’ve ever given her to start. She cries out against my heaving chest, and for a moment, I freeze, terrified I’ve hurt her. But a second later, she’s lifting her legs to wrap around my waist, her hips pumping in hungry little movements that turn my insides to ash.
“More,” she begs, teeth sinking into her plump bottom lip, and I’m fucking done.
“ Margot, ” I grind out, almost angry with her for making me lose it like this. All my life, I’ve been able to keep it together under any situation. Any situation but her. From the second she crash-landed into my life, she’s had me wrapped around her manicured finger. I try holding back—try stretching her out nice and slow, like she deserves. But she moans, “ Harder, ” and the undomesticated part of me that she loves stroking to life chews through its fucking muzzle.
My growl is feral as I rear up onto my knees, lifting one of her ankles to my shoulder as I thrust into her the rest of the way. Spread wide and filled to the hilt, she arches her head back with a sharp gasp, her chest flushed and shaking.
“Is this what you wanted, sweetheart?” I pant as I begin rolling my hips in earnest. “You needed me to lose all fucking control?”
She nods, hiccupping a broken “ Yes, ” and I can’t help it. My hand comes down, splaying possessively across her chest and pinning her to the mattress like she’s mine. And she’s taking it. Loving it. Meeting my every thrust until I’m bottoming out in her tight little channel and seeing spots. Until my heart’s ready to explode with how much I fucking love her. The words are stretched across my wrist on a bracelet I’m never taking off, and they’re branded inside my chest. The truth is, I’ve been loving her this whole time but was too goddamn scared to admit it.
Because I love her, because I need her to feel a fraction of the pleasure I’m feeling, my hand slides down her sweat-sheened body to where we’re joined. My fingers press firm, tight circles right where she needs them, and the effect is instantaneous. She clamps around me like a vise, her eyes slamming shut, and her cry is a wild, beautiful thing. My hips thrust harder through every wrecking spasm until I’m staring down my own completion like it’s the barrel of a shotgun. When she opens her desperate eyes and says “ Forrest ” like I’m the only thing she needs, that gun goes off, as annihilating as I expect it to be.
She’s the end of me but also the beginning. The liability I never wanted but always craved. And when she pulls my shaking body down to hers, kissing my face, she’s all the comfort I never knew I needed. Accepting the grant might have been a mistake, but right now, with our hearts trying their hardest to break free of the walls that separate them, it’s a mistake I’d make again, and again, and again.