Chapter 22
[Trinity]
On the ride back to the house, Dart has his hand on my thigh.
However, he isn’t simply resting his palm there.
He’s gently squeezing my leg, like he’s adjusting and re-adjusting his grip.
Fingertips kneading my flesh, massaging it.
Every press of his fingers sends a shockwave of desire up the inside of my leg and straight to a part of me that’s only been touched by me.
For three years.
He doesn’t move any higher up my leg, keeping his hand respectfully mid-thigh, but all I can think about is how disrespectful I want him to be.
How I want his hand to slip underneath my dress and his fingers to tickle my skin. How I want him to brush where I’m damp and desperate and feel how much my body responds to his.
I shift only slightly, spreading my legs a little wider but not wide enough. If he senses the hint, he doesn’t act. Just keeps toying with my thigh and winding me up until I nearly rocket from my SUV in desperate need of some alone time.
A battery-operated date is required.
Only, when we enter the house, Dart pauses in front of the staircase, blocking the hasty retreat I planned. We stare at one another, the tension between us as tight as his fingers gripping my thigh only moments ago.
“I need a shower,” I state as an excuse. Fisting my hands at my sides, like I’m ready to implode from sexual tension.
Everything seems to collide at once. The way he was with Mirabelle. The way he doted on me. All the back-touching and forehead-pressing and the anticipation of another kiss. The way he handled my family. And forgave me for Spencer Reid.
I want to kiss you like you deserve to be kissed.
I wanted that too.
He’d also asked me earlier if I still wanted a divorce. Something I’m not ready to discuss, but I want him. Right now. Right here. I want him again.
And I haven’t felt this feeling in years. This buzz beneath my skin. This flutter in my belly.
His nostrils flare as if he senses my desire. His shoulders rise. He looks like a bull ready to charge.
Do I want him to charge? Should I charge him? Could I have sex with him again?
One farewell fuck, I’d thought earlier. One more time to just feel him between my thighs. See if we still fit in the ways we fit for years.
I collapse against the closed front door, almost like I’m blown back by the force of my thoughts. The idea of him inside me again. Touching me where I haven’t been touched.
My back meets the wood with a soft thud.
“Tell me what you want.” His voice is ragged, sounding as desperate as I suddenly feel. “I’ll give you anything.”
Anything. He’d always been like this with me. Promising, and coming through on it.
This house. Attempts to have a baby. His love.
His love was always there, underneath it all.
I want him to love me again. I want to love him again.
“Sit,” I quietly command.
He steps back, catching his calves on the first riser of the stairs and lowers to take a seat. The same place he once took me when we first moved into this house.
It’s exactly where I want him.
Dart keeps eye contact with me the entire time. “Be sure about this, Trin. Because once we go there, I can’t go back.”
He wasn’t setting demands. He was making promises again.
I don’t respond, just keep my focus on him.
The strength in his forearms. The span of his chest. The spread of his legs.
He leans back, settling his elbows on the wooden tread, watching me, waiting.
We continue to stare at each other for another long minute before I cautiously step forward. One foot in front of the other until I reach his bent knees. His legs are already spread but he spreads them wider to accommodate me, although I have no intention of standing between them.
Instead, I press his legs together and slide my hands up his sturdy thighs, spreading my legs to climb over his. I hitch up my dress, so my inner thighs meet the denim covering his outer ones. At first, I situate myself near his knees, taking time to run my hands up his lap and along his belt.
His eyes flutter shut until I glide forward, dragging my body over the tops of his.
We don’t speak. Nothing needs to be said. This is my moment.
Once I’m settled more firmly in his lap, the hard length of him directly beneath where I’m soft and tender, I rock forward.
Dart hisses. He moves his arms so one hand is plastered to the wall and the other grips the spindle of the railing, like he’s holding himself back from taking over, taking control.
I rock again, rubbing my hands up his chest. His T-shirt is warm from the sunshine and heat of his skin beneath the worn cotton. His chest rises and falls with his shaky breaths.
I lean forward.
As if some of the tension in him snaps, he meets me halfway, kissing me hard. His tongue immediately invades, sweeping into my mouth and stealing my breath. He sucks on my lower lip, before popping off it.
“Don’t you ever kiss someone else again.”
God forgive me, but that command ripples down my middle, exploding in my lower belly.
I could snap at him. Demand he never leave me. Demand he never kiss someone else.
Instead, I cup his jaw and bring his mouth to mine again, kissing him back just as hard, thrusting my tongue forward, meeting his again. He cups the back of my head, keeping me attached to him, commandeering this kiss until we fall into a natural rhythm. Tongues twirling. Lips sucking.
And my hips have a mind of their own, as I rock faster and faster as the kissing grows more intense.
This is that first kiss. And the second one. And all the ones in between.
This is Dart and me.
Zero to one-hundred in a blink.
His other hand comes to the small of my back, and he presses on me, holding me in place to grind harder over him.
Eventually, I break free from our mouths, letting out a gasp as my body comes alive like it hasn’t in years. In a way I cannot achieve on my own. This only happens with him.
Dart. My husband.
He’s hard beneath my clit. His length eager to fill me. The desire between us is so visceral I can feel it through his jeans and my damp panties.
He releases my head and slips his hand to my bare thigh. “Let me touch you.”
“Please,” I beg as his mouth comes to my chin, my jaw, my neck. I cup his head as I move to allow his hand deeper between my thighs.
He brushes his fingertips over the damp fabric of my underwear, forcing a small whimper from me before he pushes the panel aside and the tip of his finger instantly finds where I need him most.
Like he’s never forgotten. As if he remembers every trigger on my body.
At the same time his fingertip teases my clit, he nips at the juncture of my neck and shoulder, and I cry out, melting into him.
“Yes,” I moan, as his fingers rub small circles, then dip lower, slipping into me. I groan at the easy glide of the sudden intrusion. He’s so familiar with how to work my body.
One finger dips deep before pulling back. A second one immediately joins the first.
Dart adjusts his wrist, so I’m practically in the palm of his hand, riding his fingers until his thumb flicks, catching on the most sensitive spot.
“Dart,” I gasp, like I haven’t ever been touched like this, when he’s already touched me a thousand times. It feels like it’s been a thousand years ago.
I flatten my hand on his cheek and tilt his head, needing his mouth again, but I’m terrible at multitasking in this manner. All my concentration goes to where his fingers have entered me and his thumb plays me. I grip his shoulders, mouth agape, and rock faster.
“Dart,” I whimper, in shock and awe, and out of control as the orgasm barrels through me like a lightning bolt, striking fast and bright. I cry out one more time, and Dart captures my mouth, breathing in the ecstasy as I break apart over his fingers.
“Forever,” he breathes into my mouth.
Hastily, I reach for the buckle of his belt.
Dart gently removes his fingers and glances between us. “Baby, we don’t have to—”
“Shush.” My fingers shake as I fumble with the buckle and unsnap the button of his jeans.
He chuckles. “Did you just shush me?”
“No talking,” I growl.
“Yes, ma’am.” His hands land on my hips as I push myself upward so I can pull his jeans and underwear lower.
We’re a mix of rushed fingers as he releases me and lifts his hips, shoving down his pants himself, forcing them over his knees. I grip his thick cock.
The touch is like an electric shock. The familiarity of my hand causes his eyes to roll back.
“Trin,” he groans, tipping back his head, as I stroke up and down the steel-like length, swiping my thumb over the tip that weeps with desire.
All movements are based on instinct. I know this man. He knows me.
We both hiss when I bring his tip to my entrance.
His head whips forward, eyes bright and blown. “Trinity.” Restraint sizzles out of his mouth, mingling with my name.
Slowly, I lower, taking him in, inch by excruciating inch, until I can’t hold the base of him anymore. Then I fall. Drawing him the rest of the way into my body.
Dart snaps forward and wraps his arms around me, holding me tight. Pinned to him. His forehead meets my shoulder, and he exhales.
“Never thought I’d be here again.”
We’re here, but we aren’t. This is different. While we might have fucked on these stairs before, that was another time, a different us, and a totally new position.
This time, I’m in control.
“So good,” he whispers.
I run my hands around his head and then gently tug his hair, so he tips back. My mouth crashes against him in a kiss that’s almost painful at first.
Then I release him and shift, lifting my hips.
Dart falls back again. His elbows land with a thud on the tread. His fingers dig into my hips.
He lets me lead.
And I lose control.
With my hands on his belly, with only the faint dusting of his former bruises present, I nearly bounce up and down on him, drawing him deep and then balance on the tip, threatening to release him.
The threat is merely seconds before I fall over him again, bringing him back into me before repeating the motion.
Gliding up his length. Dripping down his shaft.
I’m so wet, and the sound of our skin smacking faintly fills the front hallway.
This is what I’ve missed. This unrestrained feeling. This sense of freedom. The safety of him.
Dart lets me play with his body. Use him, like the song we heard at RiverFest.
“So good,” I whimper, riding up and down him. A rush of counteractive motions that result in the most delicious pleasure.
“So good,” Dart echoes me, gripping my hips harder and adding to the rhythm by slowly bucking his hips upward.
“So deep.” He grunts. “Never—”
I crush my mouth to his again. I don’t want to think about the past. Don’t want to think about the future.
I just want to be present.
And I am.
Through the spiral winding up my belly.
Through the tingle in my legs and a cramp in my toes.
Through the thundering of my heartbeat.
Until I finally let go.
The release is so sweet. Flower petals raining down on me. The burst of a firework. A wild jump straight into the river.
I’m soaring in a way I’ve never soared before.
With my fingers digging into Dart’s shoulders and my head tipped back, I practically howl.
And Dart follows me.
He lifts his hips faster, tapping into me harder, until he slams me down, pinning me to his lap. He tilts back his head and lets out his own deep sound of pleasure. His eyes close tight. The vein on his neck extends.
Then he flashes me with those amber eyes, and his mouth crashes mine.
His fingers pinch my jaw, holding my lips against his.
He kisses me as deeply as he did when we first settled on these stairs.
Only the kiss is a little kinder. The sweep of his tongue softer.
His lips curl into a smile against mine.
“Forever.”
The nickname snaps me out of the moment. A rubber band pulled taut then released.
I flinch at the term and pull back, staring at Dart.
So familiar. So far away in the same instance.
What was I thinking? I’ll never be over him, and a moment like this only renews the heartache.
Because I’ll never be with someone else the way I am with him.
Nothing will feel the way it does when I’m with him.
Never.