Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-two
Zara
“You want something to eat?” Cormac asked, gentle as a lamb.
I sat up in his lap so I could look at him.
Really look at him. His face…I couldn’t get enough of his face.
His perfect, pink cupid’s bow, a jaw that could cut glass, and little glimmers of red and blond in his dark scruff.
It was his eyes that did me in, though. They should have been icy and cold, but this was Cormac, and everything about him was warm.
His cool blues were a summer day, bright and clear.
I could have lain down and basked in them forever.
The way he was looking at me now, like he wanted nothing more than to take care of me, if only I’d let him, made me want to kiss every inch of his perfect face at least twice.
My chest was bursting with the need to give him something. He wasn’t in crisis. I couldn’t swoop in and rescue him the way he kept doing for me. But I needed to show him.
“In a little.” I shifted to straddle his legs and took his face in my hands. “I’ll make us something.”
His hands came to rest on my waist. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. I wish you hadn’t heard those digs he made about you, but—”
He shook his head. “It didn’t bother me.”
“It bothered me.” I leaned in, kissing the tip of his nose. “You’re such a good person, Mac. You always have been. And you’re so good to me.”
I kissed each of his cheeks then his eyebrows.
“I want to tell you to go run into a door or trip and skin your knee so I can take care of you, but I really don’t want to see you hurt.” I kissed his chin then along the sharp line of his jaw. “I just want to take care of you the same way you always take care of me.”
“You do.” He caught my lips with his as they passed, pressing a fleeting kiss. “Come back here.”
“You’re the sweetest man alive, you know.” I squeezed his cheeks with my palms and kissed his eyelids. “I’m so happy you’re in my life again. Like, super, very happy.”
His mouth hitched, and something in my chest fluttered. Not my heart, but something close by. It felt like a pile of snakes slithering around so much I could barely stay still. What was that?
“I’m super, very happy too,” he said, making me groan.
“God, Maccie.” I squeezed his face a little harder and kissed him all over his forehead. “You’re so cute, I can’t stand it.”
His laugh was sharp and sudden. “Cute? Is that the kiss of death?”
“No, no, no.” I tipped my face to kiss beneath his ear then dragged my lips down the long column of his throat. “I love that you’re cute. If you were just sexy, I might be able to resist you. The cuteness is what clinches it for me. I can’t stay away.”
His arms banded around me, flattening me against his chest. “You can call me whatever you want, as long as you keep coming back for me.”
I lapped at the beating pulse in his neck. “Show me your tattoo.”
He tugged his shirt to the side, revealing our words. “Here you go.”
I fell on them, rubbing them with my lips, then kissed each letter. By the time I got to the end, Cormac took my head in his hands, bringing us eye to eye.
“Tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.” I looked back at him, steady under his blue sky. “I really am. We have a plan, and a small part of me is relieved Jackson’s going to his parents. I want him out of my life, but I don’t want him hurt.”
“I get it. You’re human. It makes sense you care, even if you’re done with him.” He carved his fingers through the sides of my hair. “You are, right? Done, I mean.”
“So done,” I whispered. “My feelings for him were trampled so thoroughly I don’t think I’d recognize them if I ever ran across them again.”
I scooted closer, settling my core over his. “You spent your day putting out my fires, Cormac.”
“It’s what I wanted to do, sweetheart.”
I dropped my lips to his, pressing a long kiss there. “I know that. It’s who you are, and why you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“You’d do it for me,” he said simply.
“You’re so sure.”
He nodded. “I am.”
“Lucky for us, you’ll never get yourself into trouble. I won’t be tested.”
“No.” His fingers tangled, guiding my face down to his again. When our lips grazed, he murmured, “I don’t need you to be tested. I know what I know.”
Then he kissed me hard, his tongue sweeping between my lips to claim mine. His hands tightened at my waist, not rough, just sure, like he knew he had every right to touch me this way now. I kissed him back with all the squirmy, slithery need inside me, urging me closer and closer to him.
I broke away just long enough to breathe, “Bedroom.”
His eyes darkened, that warm summer blue turning deep and intent. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Cormac stood in one smooth motion, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, laughing into his mouth as he carried me down the short hallway.
He nudged my bedroom door wide with his foot and set me on the edge of the bed.
I threw my T-shirt off and lifted my hips to tug off my shorts and panties.
For a second, Cormac watched me, his eyes raking over every inch of my body.
“Come here,” I said, tugging him by his belt loop.
He yanked his shirt over his head, toed off his shoes, and crawled over me, bracing his weight on his forearms so he wouldn’t crush me. I slid my hands into his hair and kissed him again, slower. We smiled against each other’s mouths, bumping noses, trading small, breathy laughs between kisses.
“You’re smiling,” he murmured.
“So are you.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Good,” I whispered. “Don’t.”
Every time he kissed me, it was like he was checking in, like he needed to make sure I was still with him. And I kept answering. With my hands. My mouth. The way I pulled him closer even when he was right on top of me.
“I like you so much, Maccie. So, so much.”
His eyelids went half-mast, and his mouth fell open with a whoosh of air. “Christ, Zara…I don’t know what to do with you.”
“Just be with me. That’s all.”
He lowered himself the rest of the way, chest to chest, and let his weight settle carefully over me. I wrapped my arms around him and held tight.
He exhaled like he’d been carrying something heavy all day.
“There,” I whispered, kissing the corner of his mouth. “I’ve got you.”
He groaned softly as I kissed his neck, and the sound carried all the way through me. Every brush of his body against mine made my breath hitch, but it wasn’t frantic. We were moving together with intent. Building piece by piece instead of chasing an ending.
Cormac cupped my face, slowing us down when things threatened to tip into urgency, and pressed his forehead to mine.
“Still okay?”
I smiled, brushing my nose against his. “Super, very okay.”
That made him laugh before he kissed me again. Deep. Unhurried. He shed the last of his clothes, our skin seeking and finding. Every touch was a question, every kiss the answer to everything.
Any time he wasn’t kissing me, he was looking at me. I was over him now, taking him between my legs. He held on to me, helping me fit him inside and roll my hips against him.
“Zara,” he whispered, for no other reason than to say my name.
“I’m here,” I breathed. “You feel so good.”
I traced his face with my fingertips and leaned in to kiss him everywhere I could reach. His fingers slid over my hip—over the words we shared.
“I love this.” His forehead crinkled.
I touched his collarbone. “I love this more.”
He pulled me down and buried his face in my neck, and I held him there, stroking his hair as I moved over him, the snakes in my chest slithering to the point I could barely breathe. I gasped as he plunged to the end of me and exhaled when he retreated.
My fingers dug into his skin, and I stared at him like I could find the answer to this…this unknown question he’d stirred within me. The question that didn’t make sense but plucked at my mind. Words that wouldn’t form. A thought I couldn’t quite gather.
Cormac looked back, guileless and so stunningly beautiful, it was all I could do not to yell it out.
He’d riled me up, and there was no settling.
No matter how deeply I took him or how much I quickened my pace.
I plastered myself against him, breathing in the scent of his skin.
He held me close, bringing me with him when he fell.
Releasing deep inside me with a shuddering groan as my inner walls closed around him, we were one sweaty, smiling, sated heap, holding on to one another for dear life.
“I like you so much,” I whispered into his neck.
“Yeah.” He brushed my hair off my face, kissing my temple. “You too, sweetheart. Like you so much too.”