Chapter 17
BILLIE
“Who was?” Adam asked the question so abruptly that it startled me out of my emotional spiral as I stood at my closet.
I blinked away the tears, trying to get a grip and not to let my heartbreak and need leak out everywhere.
“What?” I sniffed, buying time by twisting my hair behind my ear. I turned to face him, but he’d already closed the rest of the distance between us, rooted in my tiny bedroom, now perilously close to the edge of my open suitcase.
He angled his head, softer this time. “Who was your first?”
The air in the room thickened by the second, a dense fog of lust ate up all the oxygen. I knew I should tell him to mind his own business, that he had no right to ask—not now, not ever—but the words crumbled to dust before I could get them out.
I could have lied. Instead, I gave him the only truth I had. “Just a guy. It should have been you. I wanted it to be you.”
I half expected him to step back, hang his head, and stammer out another apology.
Instead, Adam’s hand came to my cheek, fingers warm and deliberate, and he tipped my face up, so our eyes met.
It was the same touch from earlier—the one that had me all but melting in the middle of the church.
The same touch as that night, so long ago now, the one I’d replayed a thousand times and tried to block out a thousand more.
His thumb moved along my jaw. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, low and rough.
“So am I,” I said, my voice surprising me with its steadiness.
His forehead dropped to mine, his breath fanning my cheek, one hand braced at the side of my neck. We were so close that I felt the shake in his arm, the tension in his jaw, and the heat that radiated off him and wrapped around me like a blanket.
“I missed you.” His voice was rough and gritty.
I let my eyes fall closed for just a second, allowing myself to feel the ache, the longing that had stretched between us across time and heartbreak and distance. “I missed you, too.”
Maybe it had been building for years, or maybe it really was just the intensity of this one moment, but the next thing I knew, his lips were on mine, and every cell in my body was screaming, “Yes.”
I thought I remembered the feeling of his mouth from that night so long ago, but the reality was so much better.
Adam’s lips were as soft and firm as I remembered, but the way he kissed me was even more sure, more masterful, than before.
He tasted sweet, like he’d just bitten into a peach, and he kissed me as if he were savoring that first bite of fruit in the middle of summer.
I drank him in greedily, the way you do when you’re certain the glass will be yanked away at any second.
My hands reached up and wrapped around his shoulders, then up to his head, my fingers sliding into his silky hair, loving how silky the strands felt.
Adam’s hands were everywhere. My jaw. The back of my neck.
My hips. My waist. He wound them around me as if to make sure I was real, that I wouldn’t vanish if he let go.
He tugged me up against him, and I felt him, hard and urgent, and the shock of wanting him—of being wanted—after all these years made me dizzy.
It sent a current through me that was equal parts nostalgia and the present moment.
I felt myself tipping, losing my footing, and suddenly we were stumbling across the room toward the bed, his arms a cage and a cradle all at once.
The edge of the mattress caught us, and we toppled onto the comforter, a tangle of limbs.
For a split second, I remembered all those years of watching him from the sidelines, the ache of knowing I could never have him, and that desire had not dissipated, if anything it had increased over time.
He hovered above me, and the look in his eyes—dark, reverent, so hungry it almost hurt—made my stomach freefall.
I’d never had anyone look at me like that before, not even him, not when we were kids and everything was simpler.
“Are you sure?” he whispered, his voice gritty and rough, and for a second I remembered being sixteen and absolutely sure of nothing except him.
I nodded, but it wasn’t enough, so I pulled him down, crushing my mouth to his, letting him know that if he stopped now I might never forgive him.
My hands mapped his body—the body of a man, heavier and stronger than the boy I remembered.
He’d grown more muscle, sure, but there were also new lines and edges, a grown man’s heft and presence.
There were tattoos now, a bold black line running along his bicep and a geometric shape on the inside of his forearm.
I ran my hands over them like braille, memorizing every new secret.
His hand found the hem of my shirt and slipped beneath, palm hot against my belly. He held still, searching my face for objection, for hesitation, for regret, but I arched up to meet his hand, desperate for more, and he slid it off completely, taking my bra with it.
He kissed my collarbone, my shoulder, the slope of my breast, and then his mouth closed around my nipple, and I nearly levitated off the bed.
I let out a sound I’d never made before, half sigh and half whimper, and when I glanced down at him, he was grinning at me, the softest and most genuine smile I’d seen on his face in forever.
Positioned above me, his strong arms on either side of my head, he stared down at me like a man seeing his last sunrise. “I missed you,” he murmured again, like it was an apology and a confession rolled into three words.
“I missed you, too,” I confessed again.
We took our time. We had to—there was too much ground to cover, too much we’d both, well, missed. I was hyperaware of every detail, the weight of him on top of me, the way our legs tangled, the heat of his hands, and the cool of my sheets.
He moved over me with a kind of reverence, exploring every new place and old memory, mapping out what had changed and what had stayed the same. His hands, always so careful when we were young, were confident now, and I let them guide me wherever they wanted to go.
My own hands learned him, the grown man instead of the teenage boy, and they lingered at his waist, up the ridges of his stomach, and down the line of his hip where a new scar ran pale against his skin.
I ran my fingers over it, and he shivered, exhaling slowly, and then he kissed me again, rougher this time, like he didn’t want to let me get away.
He was still fully dressed, which felt unfair, so I yanked at his t-shirt until he got the hint and pulled it over his head.
That’s when I got my first look at his chest, more muscular now but still with that same small scar by his ribs from when we were kids and he’d jumped off the neighbor’s roof.
I remember how scared I was when he did.
“Still have this.” I ran my finger over it.
“I have worse now,” he replied, leaning down, kissing me and swallowing my search for them.
I didn’t want to think about him being hurt, about what could have happened to him the years he served. I used to lie awake at night and wonder where he was in the world and if he was okay. And now he’d just confirmed he had worse scars than the one that had punctured his lung.
Strangely, it only made me want him more. Only made me want to feel just how alive he was right now.
He pressed open-mouthed kisses down my neck, my breasts, stomach, and lower, across my hips, until I realized what he was about to do.
His hands reached for the waistband of my jeans.
He made quick work of the button and zipper, but then he slid them off, taking my underwear with them, his eyes drank in every inch of skin as it came into view.
Then he sat back on his heels, his breaths coming in short pants. For a second I wondered if he’d changed his mind, but then his hands slid under my ass, and he lifted me just enough to fit his shoulders between my thighs.
He started slowly, kissing the inside of my knee, then the sensitive skin of my thigh, then finally, finally, his mouth was on sex.
The first touch was so gentle it almost tickled, but it rapidly became something else entirely, and I swear I saw colors behind my eyelids.
He spread me apart with his fingers, then with his tongue he traced up and down my folds.
I’d been with other men, of course, and I’d had sex that was good, great even, but this was different.
He was focused, methodical, relentless—like he wanted to make up for every lost day in a single act.
His tongue moved in slow, deliberate patterns, then quick, fluttering licks, and just when I thought he’d found a rhythm, he would change it up, surprising me into another gasp or moan.
He brought me to the edge so fast I almost didn’t see it coming, and then he backed off, holding me there and letting the tension coil tighter and tighter until I thought I’d lose my mind.
I grabbed at his hair, his shoulders, anything I could reach, desperate for something to hold onto.
When he finally slipped a finger inside me, curling it just right, and then sucked my clit between his lips, I came so hard I saw stars and forgot my own name.
I didn’t want to let go, but my body had other plans.
The orgasm hit me hard and fast, and then again, and again, until I was shaking and crying out his name, something I’d only ever done in my head before.
When I finally came down, I found myself breathless and stunned, opening my mouth, but no sounds came out.
He pressed several kisses to my thigh, belly, and hips before he crawled up beside me and gathered me into his arms like I belonged there, like he’d been waiting for this moment as long as I had.
I buried my face into his neck, breathing him in, the sweat and the sweet citrus of his aftershave mixing with something that was uniquely him.
I tried to make sense of the universe having the audacity to give me this moment after so many years. I was sweating and shaking and happier than I could remember being, and all I could think was that I didn’t want this to end.
I just lay there, letting Adam hold me, replaying every second over and over in my mind, until I could finally breathe again.