Chapter 27
Chapter twenty-seven
Miguel
A.M. Aches
I wake as my alarm starts and I silence quickly. Laney stirs in my arms but doesn’t wake.
The soft pre-dawn light filters in and I take the moment offered to quietly just be. To feel all of the places our skin melds together. To hear the soft inhales and exhales she makes in her sleep. To see how each individual strand of her hair seems to vary slightly in its golden hue.
My lips press to her forehead and I smell the hotel’s shampoo in her hair. It isn’t her usual rose petal sweetness but the essence of her is there underneath.
And, that is the truth of it all.
Who Laney is, down to her very being, is the thing that makes me want to slow down. To stop running. To simply be here instead of chasing the next achievement.
My sense of accomplishment is so tied up in her; her training efforts and her results. And I feel her success like it was my own.
Absent-mindedly my hand has started to caress her side.
“Morning.” Her greeting is muffled as her cheek stays planted on my chest.
“Good morning sunshine.”
“Not ‘Princess’?” She asks before a yawn.
“Always my princess, but this morning?” I lift the braid off her back, “this looks like rays of sunlight.”
Laney pulls her head back to look up at me. I stare down into her ocean blue eyes and smile.
“You’re being mushy. Are you feeling okay?” She asks and she slowly brings the back of her hand to my forehead.
“I’m perfectly fine. Just admiring my girl.”
“I’ll allow it.” She smiles against my chest as she settles back in. “Did the alarm go off?”
“Yeah, I silenced it already.”
“You did?” This time when she turns up to me she looks truly concerned.
I laugh. “Yes. I did. It’s the day after a race, you went full out yesterday. We’re going to take it easy today.”
“I didn’t know you knew how to do that.” She mutters.
“I used to do it all the time.”
“What changed?” She asks as her fingers trace circles around my abdomen.
“Habits mostly.” I answer. The day has barely started and I want to ride the high of the words I shared with her last night. I want to get back to the place where she feels how deeply I love her.
Because I do.
Desperately.
Laney’s quiet and I feel her eyelashes brush gently along my skin as she blinks.
“Miguel?” She asks, keeping her head against my chest.
“Yes?”
“You meant it, didn’t you?”
“Meant what?”
“That you love me.”
I tuck my chin and use my knuckle to lift hers. The pleading look in her eyes calls out to the depths of my soul.
“Yes Laney, I do. I love you.”
“I think, I love you too.” She whispers. The look in her eyes shifts to one of disbelief, of surprise.
“That’s good.” I smirk.
She smiles. “Yeah, good.”
“You want some breakfast?” I ask. We don’t need to get into it anymore. I love her, she thinks she loves me, and I’m going to live off these exchanged words for a while.
“Really? You go straight to breakfast after that?” She laughs as she rolls away to the other side of the bed.
Well that won’t do.
“What else is there to do?” I say as I roll after her.
Naturally our bodies fit themselves against each other and the desire explodes in Laney’s pupils.
“Oh, I dunno…” Laney trails off as she adorably lifts a shoulder in a shrug.
“I guess I can have an appetizer first.” I say and I lower myself as I lift her shirt and press kisses along her stomach. Her legs fall open and she groans.
“I’m sore.” She complains.
“I bet.” I reach up and pull two of the pillows down from the headboard and place them outside her knees. “Let your legs rest into these, I’ll hold them too.”
“Okay,” she sighs with a smile on her face and I help guide her shorts down and off. She fell asleep while Dee was still here and after I cleaned up what was left of dinner, I got her under the covers and crawled in next to her.
“Relax Princess, I’m going to take care of you.”
Laney’s arms cross and rest over her eyes. She hisses as I take one long pass through her soaking wet center.
“Fuck baby, so good.” My entire body tenses with need.
With hunger.
But it’s deeper than a craving. It’s consumption. I want to both be consumed by her and to consume her completely. If our bodies could truly become one, I would gladly end my solitary existence to share hers.
Laney’s hands find my hair and she grips tightly as her pelvis rolls up to meet my mouth. I feast on her, enjoying each available inch of her body. Lavishing it in an electric sort of love.
Sparks and energy, different from the steady coal ember burn type of love I feel for her.
“Miguel, oh, yes.” Laney whines and her nails scrape against my scalp. The pain is a familiar sensation and I want to associate it with Laney, not with pushing myself to the ultimate physical limit.
I want to feel the pain she inflicts on me as I push her over her cliffedge.
Quick, concentrated flicks of my tongue have her arching off the bed and her heels dig into my back.
“Yes, fuck, yes, oh gods, Miguel!” Laney calls out as her legs quake and her hands fly away to grip the sheets.
I slow my ministrations and guide her back down to earth. Her breathing slows and her touch becomes gentle as she pulls me up to her.
“How are you feeling, love?” I ask.
“Exhausted and electric.”
“Mmm, yes.” I smile as I kiss along her collarbone.
“What are you thinking about?” She asks.
I position myself behind her and pull her into my body. “Looking up a bagel place for breakfast, getting it for you so you can get a little more rest, maybe showering again before we have to check out, and then getting you back to Chicago.”
“That all sounds good to me.”
“Why, what are you thinking about?” I ask her with a kiss to her shoulder.
“How I can’t believe how lucky I am to have you on my side.”
I smile into her skin. “Same Laney, same.”
I don’t know what I possibly did to deserve this but I am not taking one single moment for granted.