Chapter 49
LARISSA
For a moment his hands hovered a fraction of an inch from my face like he was still afraid to touch me.
Then he closed the distance and softly cupped my cheeks in his warm palms and it was all over.
I was sand between his fingers. I was his girlfriend and his wife.
I was the mother of his children, the witness to his existence, the last word he breathed. All in one second. All in one kiss.
I don’t know how we thought we could fight this. Nobody could.
I dropped the handle to my luggage and wrapped my arms around his neck and he backed me into the doorframe, kissing me hungrily, like a man who’d just given up trying to starve himself.
I wanted to climb him, bite him, tear off his clothes. I wanted to do all the things I couldn’t do for so long, run my hands over every inch of his body, snuggle him, taste him, watch him sleep.
But more than that, I wanted to take care of him. Be for him what he was for everyone else, give him what he deserved, the life he deserved. I cherished him. Every part of him. Because he was worthy of it.
He broke away after a few minutes to catch his breath.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you too,” he breathed. “I’m terrible at not loving you.”
“Don’t ever get good at it.”
I tilted my head up and kissed him again.
He drew my bottom lip between his teeth and sucked gently. A shallow inhale, and then opening, nipping, his tongue brushing mine. We whispered and smiled and breathed each other in. He twisted my hair absently in his fingers, took breaks to nuzzle my neck and graze his mouth along my jaw.
I slid my hands down his chest and pulled up the bottom of his sweatshirt.
I ran a palm across the heat of the bare skin of his stomach and felt his body react under my touch and his breath hitch.
Then his hand moved over my hip, slid behind my knee, and wrapped my leg around his waist. He lifted me against him and carried me to his room.
I don’t know how we thought we could fight this. But I was glad we’d finally stopped trying.