Chapter 9 #2
The way she kissed me wasn’t like anything I’d expected.
Not hungry, not rushed, just thorough. Like she was mapping the shape of my mouth with hers, memorizing the weight of my jaw in her palms. Her thumbs brushed the roughness of my beard, and I felt the calluses on her fingertips from gripping her camera all day.
Those hands knew how to hold things steady.
I kissed her back the same way.
Her skin was warmer than I’d imagined. Softer where my palms ran down her sides, firmer where my fingers found the dip of her waist. She made a sound when I touched her there, something that came from deep in her chest. I did it again just to hear it. Her nails dug into my shoulders.
The bed was small. We fit anyway.
She rolled us so I was on my back, straddling my hips with hers, and the shift in weight made my breath catch.
Her hair fell forward, brushing my chest. I reached up and pushed it back behind her ears, then left my hands there, framing her face.
She looked down at me with her lips parted, her eyes dark in the low light from the window.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
She didn’t answer with words. She leaned down and kissed me again, slower this time, her mouth moving against mine like she was savoring something rare.
Her hands slid down my chest, tracing the lines of muscle, the old scar near my ribs from a fence post when I was sixteen.
She knew exactly where to touch to make me tense underneath her.
I flipped us over before she could decide to take more control than I could handle giving.
She laughed against my mouth. Not a nervous sound but something richer, like she’d been waiting for this.
Her legs wrapped around my hips, her heels digging into the backs of my thighs.
I could feel the heat of her through the thin fabric of her underwear, the way her body arched up when I pressed against her.
I kissed her throat. The pulse there was fast, steady.
I followed it down to the hollow between her collarbones, then lower, my mouth trailing over the swell of her breasts.
She made that sound again when I took one nipple between my lips, her fingers tightening in my hair.
I spent time there, learning the way her breath hitched when I used my teeth, the way her back arched off the bed when I switched to the other side.
Her skin tasted like salt and something sweet, like she’d been out in the sun all day and then showered with vanilla soap.
I could’ve stayed there for hours, just mapping the way her body responded to mine.
But she was pulling at my shoulders, her nails scraping down my back, and I knew what she wanted.
I slid a hand between her legs.
She was wet. Hot. Ready. Her thighs trembled when I touched her, her breath coming in sharp little gasps.
I found the rhythm she liked. Her hips lifted and her hands gripped my wrists like she was trying to hold me in place.
I watched her face as I worked her, the way her eyes squeezed shut, the way her lips parted on a sound she couldn’t quite let out.
“Jace—”
I kissed her before she could finish. Swallowed the sound she made when I added a second finger, the way her body clenched around me. She was close. I could feel it in the way her muscles tensed, the way her breath came faster.
“Not like this,” she gasped against my mouth. “I want you.”
I didn’t need to be told twice.
I reached for the nightstand, found a condom in the drawer where I assumed she’d left them earlier.
She took it from me and tore the wrapper with her teeth.
Her hands were steady as she rolled it on, her eyes locked on mine the whole time.
There was no hesitation. No second-guessing. Just pure, certain need.
I pushed into her slow. She was tight, hot, perfect. Her nails dug into my shoulders as I filled her, her body stretching around me. I stopped when I was all the way in, giving her time to adjust. She didn’t need it. Her hips lifted, demanding more, and I gave it to her.
We moved together like we’d done this a hundred times before.
Her legs wrapped around me, her heels digging into my ass, pulling me deeper. I set a rhythm that made her gasp, her body tightening around me with every thrust. She was close again. I could feel it in the way her muscles clenched, the way her breath came in sharp little pants.
I reached between us, found the spot that made her cry out and sent her back arching off the bed. She came with a broken sound, her body pulsing around me, her nails raking down my back. I followed her over the edge, my release hitting me hard, my hips stuttering as I buried myself in her.
We stayed like that for a long moment, my forehead pressed to hers, our breath mingling in the space between us. Her heart pounded against my chest, our skin slick with sweat.
I rolled us to the side, holding her close. She curled into me, her head on my shoulder, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my biceps.
Neither of us wanted to break the magic spell we’d fallen under. There wasn’t anything to say. Not yet. The quiet between us wasn’t awkward. It was comfortable but charged. Like the air after a storm, when everything’s been washed clean and the world feels new.
I pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
She tilted her face up to mine, her eyes soft in the dim light. “That was—”
“Yeah.”
She smiled. A real one. Not the careful, professional kind she gave everyone else. This was just for me.
I kissed her again, slow and deep, my hand cupping the back of her neck. She melted into it, her body relaxing against mine.
We had time.
For the first time in years, I had time.
Later, she was lying with her head on my shoulder and one of her legs across mine and her hand flat against the center of my chest the way it had been on the ridge, except this time her own pulse and mine had finally synced.
"I have a question," she said. Her voice was sleep soft.
"Yeah."
"How long have you been leaving the granola bar and the water on my step."
The question caught me sideways. I hadn't known she knew.
"Since the second week."
"Why."
"Because you were getting up at five thirty to photograph my horses and not eating breakfast, and I wasn't going to ask you to take care of yourself because you would have hated that."
She didn't answer for a long moment.
"My grandfather did that," she said finally. "For my grandmother. He'd put crackers and a glass of water on her bedside table every night for forty years because she got nauseous in the mornings and he never wanted her to have to ask."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah." She breathed out, slow. I felt her go heavier against my shoulder. Sleep was coming for her. Sleep was coming for me too, but I needed to get back to my own bed before it found me.
Tomorrow was Father's Day and Rory was going to wake up with hope that didn't deserve to be hoped and Dana was going to do whatever Dana was going to do, and I had a daughter to walk through that and a woman in my arms who had just been told something I had never told anyone, and I was not in a position to do any of it well.
I'd been doing it badly because I'd been doing it alone. I was going to do it differently in the morning.
"Bella."
"Mm."
"Tomorrow's going to be hard."
"I know."
"I want you with me."
She turned her face into my shoulder. Her arm tightened across my chest. She didn't say okay this time. She just stayed exactly where she was, and that was its own kind of answer.
I let her fall asleep, watching her longer than I should have. Then I let myself out, so I'd be back at the house before my daughter arrived home.