Chapter 22 #4
His hand slides between my thighs, fingers parting me with deliberate slowness. He circles my clit, just enough pressure to make my back arch off the bed. "You're so wet, Mal. Show me what you need."
I whimper, my hips rocking against his hand. “Rourke?—”
He pulls away just long enough to strip off his shirt, then mine, leaving us bare in the lamplight. The air is cool against my skin, but his body is fire. He settles between my thighs. “I’ve got you.”
His mouth finds mine, and this kiss isn’t gentle.
It’s desperate, hungry, like he’s trying to pour every apology, every I missed you, every I love you into the press of his lips.
His hands roam, cupping my breasts, teasing my nipples until I’m writhing beneath him, then sliding lower, lower, until his fingers are inside me, curling just right.
“More,” I breathe, my head tipping back.
“That’s it,” he praises, his voice a growl. “Take what you need.” His thumb works my clit in slow, maddening circles. “I've got you. I'm not going anywhere."
Something about those words does me in. I come with a cry, my body clenching around his fingers. Pleasure crashes over me in waves, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t let up, drawing out every shudder until I’m boneless beneath him.
“Rourke,” I pant, reaching for him. “I need you inside me.”
He groans, his forehead pressing against mine. “You sure?”
I nod, pulling him down for another kiss. “I need to feel you.”
He reaches down between us, notching himself at my entrance. Then he steadies himself above me, looking down at me. "Look at me, Mallory."
I do. His eyes are dark, intense, full of everything unsaid.
"I'm never going to take you, this, for granted again. You have me just how you want me, how you need me, forever."
Then he pushes inside, inch by slow inch, giving me time to adjust. The stretch is perfect. It's been so long and he fills me up, overwhelming my senses.
I gasp, my nails raking down his back.
“You feel incredible,” he grits out, his hips rolling in shallow thrusts.
I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. “More.”
He obeys, his pace picking up, his hips snapping against mine.
The bed creaks beneath us, the old wooden frame protesting, but neither of us care.
The world narrows to this: the slide of his skin against mine, the way his breath hitches when I clench around him, the filthy, reverent words spilling from his lips.
“That’s it, love,” he groans, his hand sliding between us to rub my clit. “Come for me again. Let me feel you.”
I shatter, my body trembling as pleasure tears through me. He follows with a broken curse, his hips stuttering as he spills inside me, his forehead pressed to mine.
For a long moment, neither of us move. Then he rolls us onto our sides, his arms wrapping around me, his lips finding my temple.
“You’re everything,” he whispers, his voice raw. “I’m never letting you go again.”
I bury my face against his neck, breathing him in. Our baby inside me. The man who chose me beside me. The life I chose holds us, warm and real and ours.
And for the first time in so long, I believe in second chances.
After, he doesn't move away. His arm is around me. His hand rests open on my hip. The night air cools the sweat at the back of my neck, and his heartbeat slows beneath my cheek.
I fall asleep with my husband breathing beside me.
Morning arrives without a skyline. No glass towers catch the sun. No elevator chimes beyond the bedroom door. There's only pale light through ordinary curtains, the distant sound of Dale’s truck starting somewhere outside, and Rourke’s arm warm around my waist.
His clothes are folded badly over the old chair by the window. The ultrasound picture rests beside the baby booties.
I wake slowly, my body tender from our lovemaking.
Rourke is awake. He hasn't moved. He lies beside me with his head on the pillow, watching me with the kind of attention I used to ache for across gala rooms, breakfast tables, and the blue light of his phone.
I recognize the look. He looked at me this way before I knew his last name.
Before hotels and Jocelyn. Before the silence that came with neglecting one life for another.
On a coastal weekend, with sand on my ankles and a scavenger hunt list in my hand, he looked at me like the rest of the world had become background.
“How do you feel?” he asks.
I consider the question.
“Happy but terrified,” I say.
Rourke’s eyes soften. He presses a kiss to my hair and stays there, breathing me in. “I’d like to stay,” he says. “If you still want me here.”
I look around the room: the faded curtains, the uneven dresser, the chair with his clothes on it, the picture of our child, the tiny booties that no longer feel like evidence of a ruined night, but the promise of something wonderful to come.
He isn't asking me to return to his world. He's asking permission to remain inside mine.
I turn back to him. “Stay,” I say.
His breath leaves him.
I settle into my husband’s arms in the small bedroom of the farmhouse I chose for myself, with morning opening warm against the curtains and no part of me left behind.