Thirty-nine
Heath
“I love you.”
Teagan’s words hit me right in the chest, knocking the wind out of my lungs and the latte out of my hand. “I love you too.”
Teagan holds my face in her hands as she kisses me. Her breath is still quick from whatever she did to get here. The desperation behind her lips surprises me, but I’m thankful for it. Thinking I had kissed her for the last time has been killing me.
Her lips slip from mine too soon. She looks at me with intensity. Her eyes are wide and wet with tears. “Don’t move away,” she says.
As I hold her in my arms, I can’t think straight. “Don’t move? I just sold my car. I have a new lease and—” Her mouth crashes onto mine again. Mmm . Yeah, I’ll shut up.
She grabs the front of my shirt with both hands. “This doesn’t have to end. No, we can’t go back to what we had before, but that’s the point. We can start something new. Now . Not wait to see if we’ll get another chance next summer.”
I open my mouth to give a reason why I can’t, but nothing comes out. There is nothing good enough to make me want to walk away from her. “You love me?”
“Yes, dumbass.” She smiles through her tears. She pulls me close and we kiss again. I can feel the passion behind her lips, the warmth and comfort I’ve missed. A sense of being exactly where I’m meant to be, with the only person I want to be with.
“Yo!” We both turn to the driver. “This is a sweet moment or whateva, but I ain’t got all day. Are we goin’ or not?” His heavy Bronx accent cuts the tension.
“Move in with me,” Teagan says.
“Move—? What? ”
“Jeremy is gone, I need a roommate anyway, and . . . I don’t know, just move in with me. We can figure it out later.”
I don’t know if I want to laugh or celebrate. “You want to live with me? I just learned how to clean a toilet, like, two weeks ago.”
Luckily, that makes her laugh instead of cringe. “I didn’t say it was a good idea. But let’s do it anyway.”
That’s more than enough reason for me. “Okay. Let’s fucking do it.”
~
Moving up the street is a hell of a lot easier—and cheaper—than moving out of the city. The movers have all my shit inside her place in less than an hour. My furniture looks ridiculous in her— our —apartment. Three sofas piled on top of each other in the living room, bags of bedding on the floor beside them, boxes stacked taller than me in the kitchen. But, as she said, we’ll figure it out later.
The movers take their tip and leave. We’re finally alone. Teagan stands in the doorway with me, appraising the mess we’ll have to sort out over the next few weeks. I watch her lips twist to the side while she takes it in.
“Regretting your decision yet?” I ask.
Her sneer melts into a grin. “Not yet.” She wraps her arms around my neck, pressing herself against me. “Are you?”
When her body is against mine, it reminds me how perfectly we fit together. She is mine, the way she always has been, and now there are no contracts or secrets forcing us to deny it. The only regret I can have is being clothed. “Not yet.”
We kiss again, more passionately than before. I pull her in for another, then another, poised and ready to show her just how happy I am to be here with her. She tries to pull away but I’m already feral for her, and have missed her too long to hold myself back.
“So, what’s the first thing you want to do as room— eek !” She shrieks when I pick her up by the back of her legs and toss her onto my shoulder. I kick the door closed behind us. “Heath! I need to lock—”
She stops when I drop her onto her couch and lie on top of her. Finally, she gets the message.
“This is what you want to do first?”
“It is,” I tease her, then lower myself between her legs.
I push up her knees and rip her panties up her thighs. Breathless, she smiles down at me as she waits for more. When I finally taste her, it doesn’t take long for her giggles of amusement to melt into sighs of pleasure. She’s sweet and wet already. Clearly, she has wanted this as long as I have.
She blossoms for me and I can’t take it anymore. I pull up my shirt and rip it over my head. She tugs at my fly, but not quickly enough. I take over, ripping it open and pushing my pants down my hips. She lets out a little gasp when I yank her hips to me and, with barely a pause, push my way in.
Her body welcomes me, wrapping me in her snug heat, melting away every worry and regret I’ve ever felt. Finally inside her, skin against skin, I inhale my first calm breath in days. I could lose myself right now—fill her with everything I’ve been holding back since she walked away—but I want more. I want all of her. Forever.
I start to move, slow, long, and deep at first, listening to her body as it tells me everything she needs. In the right spot, with the perfect pace, I unravel her piece by piece until she’s moaning, shaking, and begging for more. Her legs still tied together by the panties on her thighs, she’s trapped, powerless, mine .
She arches back with a moan, gripping the arm of the couch above her head, her perfect body on display just for me. My dick strains in response. “Fucking hell, babe.”
The rest of my self-control leaves me. I fall forward, pressing her legs onto my shoulders. Her hips curl up off the couch and she lets out a loud moan. I drop my hips down harder, stroking deep, still drowning in her and the incomparable pleasure she gives me.
We linger together in that blur of ecstasy, both of us holding on to a feeling we thought we lost, neither of us wanting to let go. My vision darkens. My desire to come is all consuming. The air fills with our heavy breaths and the sounds of our colliding bodies.
“Don’t stop,” she begs.
“I won’t. Don’t worry.” There’s nothing I wouldn’t give her, and I will do anything it takes to show her that.
Her back arches, her fingers dig into my skin. “Ahh!”
My pace slows as I watch her come apart for me, feeling her body grip me as tight as a fist. I shrug her legs from my shoulders, letting them drop to my waist. She looks up at me, speechless and panting, and I know I’ve done my job right. Lowering myself onto her, chest against chest, my face hovering just an inch above hers, I take her how I want. Fast. Hard. Unrelenting.
Her eyes find mine. I can tell she’s in shreds, still lost in the feeling I give her. With a moan, I pull out just before I lose myself too.
As my soul leaves my body and spills onto her stomach between us, I thank every particle of stardust in the universe for bringing her back to me. It was meant to be this way. The pleasure, the pain, the time needed for us to grow before we came back to each other. We can’t change the past, but we have this moment and every moment we choose to be together from now on.
She pulls my face to hers and places a luscious kiss on my lips. “I love you,” she whispers.
I smile against her lips. The words make me feel higher than my orgasm. “Say it again.”
The front door clicks. I sit up and pull up my pants a second before Jeremy and Chet walk in. Chet’s little “Oh” lessens the blow.
“Hey . . . ” I awkwardly greet them, my fly still unbuttoned, Teagan doing the best she can to hide the evidence of our fuck from their view, and covering the embarrassment on her face with a hand.
Jeremy’s eyes shift between the two of us. “Just leaving my keys, don’t mind us. Wouldn’t want to interrupt your ‘one-night stand.’”
Teagan lets out a little laugh when she sits up. Resting her chin on the couch’s back, she sighs. “I’ll miss you, Jer.”
“No, you won’t,” Jeremy jokes. On their way out, he stops and looks over his shoulder. “I’m really happy for you two. Seriously,” he says, then closes the door.
“One-night stand?” I ask.
She drapes an arm over her eyes and laughs.
~
Feeling thirsty after round three, I pop the bottle of champagne I stole from the wedding, and pour it into one of my glasses I’m sure Teagan will have in the recycle bin tomorrow. The sun went down an hour ago, but we still haven’t unpacked a single box. Lying together in bed is enough for us right now. I hand her the glass and curl up next to her beneath the blankets.
She looks exhausted and so goddamn beautiful. The dim light of some candles mixes with the halogen glow from the streetlights outside. It’s some dreamy, romantic shit I hope I never wake up from.
“I know it’s the first day,” I muse, “but this roomie thing is pretty lit.”
“Give it time.” With a smirk she turns to face me, her hand on my chest, her nose brushing against mine when I wrap her in my arm. “So, about our situationship . . . ”
“Yeah?”
“My contract was immaculate, obviously, but it’s void now.”
“What are you saying?” I let out a sarcastic gasp. “Am I your boyfriend?”
She gives me a weak shove and lies back down.
“We should go over some house rules,” she says.
Of course. “Should have seen this coming. Hit me.”
“No outside shoes in the house.”
“Duh, that’s gross.”
“Clean up after yourself.”
“Yep.”
“Toilet seat down, every time. No unwashed dishes in the sink. No dirty underwear on the floor.”
“Unless we fall asleep after you take them off me?” I smirk but she doesn’t look amused. “Okay, fine. What else?”
After a moment of pondering, she adds, “Cook breakfast for me on the weekends? Those eggs you made?”
“I can do that.”
She gnaws her lip to pin her smile. “What about you?”
“I get to make rules too?”
“Two parties doing life together should agree on the terms, right?”
Agreeing on terms we’ll likely break almost instantaneously will be our inside joke from now on. “Right.” I run my hands along her waist, ignoring the movement happening against my leg. “When you come home from studying at 2 a.m., only wake me up if it’s for sex.”
“Okay.” She laughs.
“Clothing should be kept to the bare minimum while we’re home. Bras are for outside use, not indoor. Pants too—except when we have guests.”
“Seriously?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are all of your rules sex related?”
“No.”
“Okay, then. What else?”
I wrap my arms tighter around her, pulling her as close as possible. “Kiss me when you get home and every time you leave, whether you’re mad at me or not. And talk to me. About everything. All the time. Even when it hurts.”
She gives me a knowing grin. “Deal.”
As I brush my fingers against her cheek, my eyes trace every captivating detail of her face. “No breaks, no pauses. Just you and me, forever. We can make it work this time.”
She nods. Her smile and soft kiss fill me with bliss. “Should I draft up the new contract?”