Chapter 30
Miller
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
The word rings endlessly against my eardrums and down into my bones and across my ribs that might as well be the framing of that house she built and probably across the whole lake.
My skin feels too hot, like she lit a match with a three-letter word, and I shift in the leather seat, giving my head a jerky shake. “Uh, sorry—what?”
“Yes,” Ren repeats, her shoulders rolling back as she lifts her chin, but she shoves her hands underneath her thighs.
“Yes?” My throat dries out.
“Yes?” The word turns up at the end, and she starts blinking, before her eyes go wide, full lips bowing down. “Are you—rescinding your offer?”
“No. No. Not a fucking chance.” I shake my head, exhaling into a closed fist. “Just, uh, can’t believe my luck, actually.”
Her lips tug into a flat line, and a singular brow flicks up her forehead. “Your luck? Oh, yes, how lucky for you to be having pity sex with a thirty-two-year-old woman!”
“It’s not pity sex.” I clench my jaw hard enough I think I might crack a tooth.
It might be one of the worst things I’ve seen out here on this water, actually.
Her—beautiful, smart, shining her—sitting there and tearing herself down so resolutely because some loser told her she should.
“You know how you tell me all the time not to talk down to myself? Not to call myself dumb?”
“Yes,” she says, softer this time.
“Great. This is the same thing.” I nod, pushing to stand.
I’m across the boat in no time, hand reaching for hers.
Her lips flutter with a breath, and she looks up at me from underneath lashes that kiss her skin.
Her fingers find mine, warm. The swell of her chest brushes against mine when I pull her from her seat.
My other hand cups her cheek, fingers twining into the still-damp hair at the back of her neck.
“Stop acting like this couldn’t be something I’ve wanted really, really bad.
Long before you ever put it on some list. That you aren’t someone worth dreaming about.
That you aren’t worth someone waking up for, too. ”
Her eyelashes flutter again with her blinks, the smattering of freckles across her nose look like stars, and she nods, soft. “Okay.”
“Great,” I say again, swallowing down a ragged breath. “Can I kiss you?”
“Please.”
My mouth is halfway to hers before she finishes the word.
It’s better and worse than when the corner of her lips touched mine, and everything and horrible and wonderful and more horrifying than anything that’s ever happened all at the same time.
Better, everything, wonderful—because she’s her and I don’t think a kiss in the history of the entire world has ever felt like this for anyone, and I feel sorry for them.
Worse and horrible and horrifying because I don’t think I’m ever going to be the same.
But an asteroid could hit like it did all those years ago, and maybe it’s nuclear winter and maybe dust is trying to eclipse the sun, but it never could because it’s her, she’s the sun, and I don’t think I could stop kissing her even if I tried.
Her tongue sweeps against my bottom lip, and I’m groaning into her mouth, tugging her backwards towards my seat.
The backs of my knees hit the leather and I drop down, one hand around her neck, the other still interlaced with hers.
She follows, straddling my lap like she was always meant to be there.
“Can I?” I roll the tie of her bathing suit top between my fingers.
“Yes,” she breathes, eyes wide, all flushed, and lips swollen from mine.
One pull and the strings come undone, the top slides down over the swell of her chest.
“Perfect.” I press my mouth in the centre, tongue dragging along the curves, taking each nipple into my mouth.
Her breathing hitches when I do, hips rolling forward against me, and I’ll probably die before I can show her how much I want her.
It’s like that for a while—my mouth and tongue all over her chest until she starts panting my name, and I pull back, voice cracked and ragged when I ask, “Are you sure?”
She drags a singular finger across the line of my jaw, nodding. “Very.”
“Uh, great.” I nod quickly, and not for the first time, and probably not for the last—she’s a woman who makes me feel like a boy. “Stand up.” A frown creases her brow and I widen my eyes, tugging on the strings of her bathing suit bottom. “Bottoms off.”
She sniffs a laugh, and before she can climb off me, my arms are around her back and I stand, keeping her upright and our bodies touching.
“Feet on the ground,” I say roughly, and her legs unwind from my hips, all of her pressing against me.
I try to take a careful exhale, in and out, but Ren stands there, red-wine hair spilling across shoulders, pink from the sun, her chest swollen from my mouth and tongue.
I don’t know if she’s somehow got a hold of some sort of mirror and can see herself the way I do—but with these precise, confident movements, like she realized, just for a second how fucking beautiful she is, she tugs on the strings on either side of her waist and lets the rest of the suit fall to the floor.
Pressing my eyes closed, I do work on breathing in and out before I tell her with a slow shake of my head, “I think I made you up.”
She blinks, a bit in surprise, and maybe, the ghosts of tears shine across her lash line, but they’re gone as quickly as they came, and she smiles softly up at me, fingers twirling the string of my swim shorts before her palm drags along my impossibly hard cock. “Yours too.”
“Fuck. If you keep doing that—”
She tries to swallow a laugh. “Are you—usually that quick?”
“For you?” I nod, kicking my shorts off. “Yeah, probably.”
She does laugh this time, and then it’s her hands scrambling over my back and mine tangling in her hair, lips crashing together when she wraps her legs back around me, and I pick her up, walking the few steps backwards until my knees meet the leather and we’re back in the seat.
“I don’t have—uh, fuck—I don’t have a condom.” I press a fist to my mouth.
“I don’t either. Obviously.” She waves a hand to her discarded bathing suit, and she looks back at me, studying, before her she offers tentative words.
“But I haven’t been with anyone, and I got tested at my last physical.
I do have an IUD . . . for some reason.” She frowns at that before she snorts a laugh that makes my cock ache even more.
“Yeah, uh, I haven’t—I had a test at the start of the season. Haven’t been with anyone.”
“You haven’t?” She pulls her head back.
I jerk my chin. “Nah, just me alone in the shower with my hand and thoughts of some messy redhead who stole my favourite jersey.”
“You think about me?” The corners of her lips curl upward, teasing, before her eyes sharpen. “Wait—hey! I didn’t steal your jersey. That was a gift, Miller.”
“Doesn’t matter. You can keep it either way,” I tell her, swallowing a groan when her hips shift. “Are you—you’re okay like this . . . just—”
“Us?” she finishes.
I nod. “Yeah, if it’s just . . . us.”
She doesn’t hesitate. “I trust you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Alright.” I exhale. “Lift your hips.”
Her forehead presses against mine, so close I can see all those swirls of colour in her eyes, but they blur into nothing when she does, her chest arching into mine. One of my hands finds her waist, the other grips the base of my cock, and she lowers slowly down onto me.
She lets out a tiny whimper, eyes closed, and it is just us now. Her, in my lap, stretching around me, heavy breathing mixing together under the stars.
“You’re okay. I’m right here.” My palm splays between her shoulder blades. “I’ve got you.”
“I know,” she says, lips brushing over mine.
Her nails bite into my shoulders when I shift my hips.
“Fuck.” I drop my head back against the seat, and her hands paint down my chest when she starts to move.
“Do you like—” Nervousness flashes across her face, and her teeth dig into her full bottom lip when a moan catches in her throat.
“I like you.” I groan, hands digging into her waist. “Whatever you want, Ren. Use me.”
She does.
Slowly, at first. Hesitant, almost, until I guide her hips with my hands while she learns what she likes all over again.
“Fucking perfect.” My fingers bruise her skin, and I sink my teeth into her neck when her chest arches into mine.
I swallow her moans when my thumb finds the centre of her, moving in slow circles.
“You’re so beautiful,” I murmur, tongue tracing along the shell of her ear.
She likes it, when I talk to her. Noises get louder, her fingers scrape my skin, her teeth catch my lip, her hips move faster.
So I keep talking. Telling her all the things I wish she knew about me and mostly about her. How good she is. How she feels wrapped around me. That I could do this with her forever. That I’m so fucking lucky.
There are these other things I wish she knew, too, but I keep those to myself.
“Miller—” she breathes when I can feel her start to tighten around me. “Are you—I want you to feel good, too.”
“I do. Really, really fucking good,” I tell her through panted breaths, hands still on her waist, hips moving to meet hers.
“Are you sure?” she whispers against my neck, fingers scrambling across my shoulders.
“I’m good to go anytime.” I look down to where our hips meet; another groan scrapes up my throat when I see my cock, entirely soaked with her.
She slows, a tiny noise of disbelief in the back of her throat, and my eyes, hazy and blown out entirely, flick up to hers. She looks like I feel—swollen lips and flushed skin, but so, so beautiful. My fingers grip her chin. “Baby. Trust me. I’ll go when you do.”
She gives a tiny nod, but her eyes never leave mine and mine never leave hers.
Not when her hands slide up my shoulders, fingers skating over my neck until she cups my face.
Not when her forehead falls against mine again and she tightens around me when I drag my teeth and mouth against the sensitive skin of her wrists, telling her to ride it out.
Not when she finally lets go and when she does, she makes me come so hard I can really only see the stars that live in her eyes.
And not afterwards, either, when she blinks at me, fingers twirling in the waves at the nape of my neck.
“I’ve never—” she says softly, clear eyes surveying my face. “I’ve never had—it’s never been like that for me.”
I press my mouth to the inside of her wrist, and I feel her pulse, this thing made to keep her alive by a heart that sits in her chest I want so fucking bad, and I whisper, “Me either. It’s never been like that for me either.”
Her teeth scrape into her bottom lip, her fingers carve across my forehead, pushing back my still sweat-damp hair, and she places one under my chin, so she can tip my face up to hers.
“Miller,” she breathes.
“Ren,” I murmur.
It’s just us, all alone, and there’s no way that out here—in this place, on the water, sitting in a boat—the scene of the worst crime where the universe stole something from me, that I’d be lucky enough for it to give me something I’d get to keep.
It feels a bit like I might get to keep her when her mouth moves against mine, and I think, maybe, she was supposed to belong to me and I was supposed to belong to her all along.