Chapter 32
[Trinity]
That night, I’m exhausted from my first day back, but unable to unwind.
I take my time giving Mirabelle a bath and tackling the nightly feeding, absorbing more of her love.
The day was long but passed quickly enough.
I held Mirabelle a little tighter that night, full of gratitude for her arrival and good health. She is such a blessing.
As much as I want to keep Mirabelle in the bassinet near my bed, I set her down in the crib.
She’ll be three months old this week, and it’s time to move her on to the bigger space.
Not to mention, her little coos and coughs and squirms easily wake me.
Or maybe I wake her, like I did last night. She’s ready for her own space.
As I enter my bedroom—our bedroom again—Dart is coming out of the ensuite bathroom. His hair is damp, his chest bare. He wears only black boxer briefs. As he’s aged, Dart only grows more handsome. The scruff on his jaw. The powdery effect of gray here and there in his hair.
He gives me a smirk, catching me in the act of ogling him.
“I know you like to read before bed,” he begins. “Maybe we should read that book.” He eyes the top one on my nightstand.
The one my mom recommended.
Dart stretches across the bed, giving me another sexy view of his toned side and the length of his biceps.
When have I ever been attracted to a man’s obliques? And yet, here I stand, transfixed by Dart’s muscular physique.
When he pushes into a seated position, propped on pillows against the headboard, he holds up the book and pats the bed beside him. “Bedtime story.”
I snort and shake my head. He’s so ridiculous sometimes.
Earlier, almost immediately after returning home, I took a shower to wash off the hospital stench and germs, and I’m wearing soft shorts and a tank top without a bra. I’ve caught Dart checking me out throughout the night, chewing his lower lip a time or two.
He’s just as attracted to me.
We haven’t done anything sexy since the other night.
We don’t need to have sex once a day, the way we did in our twenties, but I also don’t want sex to fall into a routine like it had become before he left.
Brush teeth. Have sex. Read a book.
I want spontaneity, and Dart wanting to read a romance my mom recommended feels a bit spontaneous.
Crawling up the bed, I drop to my side, propping up my head on my hand.
To my surprise, Dart flips immediately to a passage, like he’s already been reading this book. However, it didn’t appear to be bookmarked. It’s like he knew exactly where to turn.
He begins to read.
“Dennis,” she cried out as her husband teased her entrance, dragging his seeping tip through her wet folds. Her nails dug into his firm ass, suggesting she wanted more from him.
Dart does a very bad impression of the woman.
“Not until you admit it,” he demanded, continuing to tease her with the bulge of his head, toying with her clit. “Give me the words, and I’ll give you my cock.”
Dart glances at me like the word is so scandalous.
“Dennis,” she ground out, teeth clacking while desire rushed up her midsection.
He moves his hand down his bare belly as if acting out that rush.
“Say it, and I’m all yours again.”
He arches a brow, glancing at me like he’s on the edge of suspense about what the woman must say in order to earn Dennis’s dick.
“I love you,” she blurts.” Dart gasps in false shock. “Despite how much she hated him, she still loved him.”
“Finally,” he continues, now in the role of Dennis. Then Dennis surged forward, filling her channel with his firm length.
Dart glances back at me, snapping the book shut around his finger.
“Wow, that Dennis is a ballbuster. Holding out until she says I love you before he fucks her.” He blows out a breath, like he’s just read the most profound literature. He tosses the book to the side and shifts to mirror my position. Elbow on top of the pillow. Head propped against his hand.
“Is that the kind of romantic hero you want?” he asks. “Where the husband is one big tease.” He runs his fingertip down my nose and around my mouth, then under my chin. He continues his trail along the side of my neck, and I tip my head, lowering my arm to rest my head on the edge of the pillows.
“Was he teasing? He sounded kind of serious,” I mock of his reading.
Dart lowers to the pillows as well, running his fingertip along my shoulder, brushing aside the thin strap of my tank top.
“All the guys in those books have big cocks and hard lines in the sand, don’t they?”
I shrug. “You watched Bridgerton.”
He hums, remembering, and I close my eyes as his finger continues to trail down my arm. When he gets to my hand, he takes my fingers, tugging gently at each one of them, massaging them in a sense. He flips my hand, digging his thumb into my palm before bringing my hand to his mouth.
“Let me be your romantic hero again.”
A soft laugh rumbles from me. “How?”
He turns my arm and peppers my inner wrist with kisses, moving up to the crease of my elbow. Then he moves to the outside of my arm, working up to my shoulder before nipping me softly in that sweet spot he knows sends wicked tingles through my body.
“For one, I won’t hold out on you,” he says.
I laugh a little harder, my eyes closing again. He pinches my chin, and my eyes flare wide.
“I’ll give you anything you want.”
We’ve already made those kinds of promises to one another, knowing they can’t always be upheld.
“The only thing I want is you,” I whisper. I want him to stay, but it’s still something I can’t ask and don’t want to assume will happen.
He hums again and moves to my chest, stamping kisses on my skin as he moves toward my breasts.
I fall to my back, scooting lower on the pillows.
Dart pauses over my heart, holding his lips there, as if speaking directly to the engine in my body.
“I’ll love you like no other,” he whispers. “I’ve never not loved you, Trinity.”
I gasp at his words and cup the back of his head, tugging at his hair, but Dart charges up my body and captures my lips, preventing me from responding. As if he’s afraid I can’t say the words back to him.
But the truth is, I’ve always loved him. Never stopped.
I hated him while I still loved him, like that poor wife in the romance novel.
And I want him.
Thankfully, the kiss distracts us both, and his hand moves up my middle, lifting the hem of my tank. He glides higher, toward my breast, slipping his hand beneath the material to massage the heavy swell. Then plucks at my nipple.
He shifts and removes my shirt, then falls back into position beside me, running his fingers around one breast and over my nipple before skating around the other breast to the tip of my sharp nub.
Quietly, he strokes around and over and back, until I realize he’s making an infinity symbol on my chest. The entire time he watches his fingers move, and I melt beneath the gesture.
He’s marking me as his. Forever.
He leans forward, cupping one breast and bringing his mouth to it. His tongue twirls around my hard peak before he opens wide, taking more of me. My belly flutters. My eyelids shut again.
The homage is slow, calculated, like he’s taking his time to sculpt me, memorize me.
I haven’t really changed in three years, and yet I feel completely different.
More confident. Much bolder. Demanding even. Deserving of this attention.
He takes his time, like we have all night, and I allow him to play my body like only he can.
Running my hands through his hair, I massage his scalp, reminded again of that fictional couple.
I’d been hurt. The break painful. But I meant what I said to him a few weeks ago. I have no regrets about our relationship. Our marriage. My only regret is that we let ourselves drift apart. We got lost in what we lost.
And I’m grateful we’ve found our way back to one another.
As Dart moves lower and lower, he hooks his fingers into my shorts and tugs them down, taking his time to undress me until I’m bare on the bed. We haven’t been in this position yet.
Where we face one another.
Where we’re missionary again.
Where I feel so raw and exposed to him.
I whimper, uncertain where the noise comes from as he tickles his fingers up my ankle to my knee.
“I know, baby,” he says, as if he understands somehow. The need for him. The vulnerability I feel in this position.
“Let me love you,” he says.
Once upon a time, I crassly joked that we were only hooking up. Only fucking.
Dart argued then that he was never fucking me, he was loving me.
He spreads my legs and takes me with his mouth like he did the other night, only slower.
Torturous teasing. Frisky flirting. He’s meticulous, purposeful, like he’s painting me.
Stroke by stroke, he’s memorizing the spaces, the folds, the flavor.
Like that poster that hangs in the entryway.
Petal folds of black, blue, and yellow outlined in gray.
Where the lavender shades are distinct, and the pink fold stands out the most.
Dart slices his tongue into me, and I whimper at the softness of his licks. The depth of his strokes. I spread my legs wider, allowing him to go deeper. He hooks his hands around my thighs and holds me open to him.
When I finally break, shattering like splatters of paint in vibrant colors, he pulls back and removes his boxer briefs, revealing how hard he is. How eagerly he wants me. How desperate he is to bring us together.
“All I need you to say right now is yes.” His voice is rough, raspy and low, as he holds his base and drags his tip through already wet folds. He catches on my clit, toying with me there.
“Yes,” I whisper.
Yes to this.
Yes to him.
Yes to us. Again.
Dart easily slides into me, releasing a deep moan of relief as we come together.
Slowly. Sweetly. Us.
When I’m full to the hilt, he pauses over me, staring down at me.
“I’m always going to love you,” he says, before lowering and taking my mouth, cutting off my response once again. Or saving himself from a lack of one on my part.
We don’t need to talk. Our bodies read the message.
He loves me. And I love him.
He lowers to his forearms, kissing me tenderly while he pulls back, dragging his heavy length to my entrance. Teasing me with release, before rushing inward again.
Like he shifts forward to pass in a race, then slips back, letting me lead.
Accelerate, then brake.
The tension is unnerving.
Eventually, we set a new rhythm. One familiar yet different than anything we’ve experienced before. Both of us are falling in line with a well-practiced dance that we haven’t done in years. A dance with new steps.
The rush of his hips. The response of my own.
His hands are in my hair, and I cling to his shoulder blades.
He slips lower to cup my shoulders, and I slide my hands to his firm backside.
His forehead rests against mine, and I close my eyes, breathing in this moment. Feeling how much he loves me. Sensing him holding back from saying the words. And yet, I don’t feel lacking.
He’s loving me as best he can.
I cannot ask for more.
“Trin,” he grunts, straining at the pace.
I languish in the moment, feeling incredible and relaxed, lulled by our movements. I’ve already orgasmed, and I want this moment for him. I want to feel what I do to him, deep inside me.
“Yes.” Take what you need. What you want.
I cling tighter as he moves faster.
He grabs one hip, glancing briefly between us.
“A perfect fit,” he mutters, hammering quicker. “Always so perfect.”
He’s a liar. We weren’t perfect. We were human. But he’s correct on one matter.
We have always fit together.
“So perfect,” I whisper
His head whips upright, his eyes the brightest I’ve ever seen them. Sunshine in the night. Full of hope and love . . . for me.
He moves even faster, digging his fingertips into my hip as he leads me to match his pace. I hook my leg over his hip, heel against his lower back, opening myself up for him.
“Trin.” He grunts when I grab his backside again, tugging him deeper.
He skyrockets from sweet to desperate, and then he grunts, “Forever.” He stills all but one part of him, which thunders inside me, filling me up like he used to do.
Dart falls over me, smothering me a second before spinning to his side, taking me with him.
“Holy shit, Trin.” He breathes heavily. “I’m seeing stars.”
I giggle at the break in tension. The tenderness that grew too intimate. I kiss his shoulder, and he grabs my hand, bringing it to his chest, where his heart races.
Then he moves my hand to his mouth, stamping a kiss into my palm, lingering there.
He has something to say, but he holds back, tucking the words away.
I love you, I whisper in my head, knowing I’m not ready to share them yet either. I’ve always loved him and always will.
He’s been my romantic hero in so many ways.
Maybe he truly can be one again.