Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
GAbrIEL
The only kind of addiction I’ll ever have again.
Avery . Her skin, her taste, her touch, her scent. I want to drown in it.
I know her by heart, but somehow she is new.
Her gasp when I tip her head back is committed to memory, but the first time I’ve heard it.
Her soft moan when I press my lips to her neck is imprinted on my soul, but the vibration has never been felt before.
Her heavy-lidded gaze when I bring my mouth down on her is tattooed on my heart, but the sight of it feels like another beginning.
I lift Avery, setting her down on the table without breaking our kiss. Her arms wrap around my neck, fingers dragging through my hair.
I work my way down to her jaw, kissing a path over the ridge that leads to her throat. She tilts her chin up, giving me access. Dragging my lips along the delicate length of her neck, I pause when I feel her pulse, racing beneath the tip of my tongue.
I groan at the feeling of this vital part of Avery, so exposed to me. Fuck. I fucking love this woman.
Avery responds to my groan by pushing into me, pressing her breasts against my chest, eliciting from me a groan that sounds half-crazed.
“I’m trying to take it slow,” I murmur, running my tongue over her collarbone. Honestly, I don’t know if I can. It doesn’t feel possible right now. I’ve waited so long for this moment I thought I’d never have again.
Avery's fingers curl in my hair as my lips skim lower. “I don't want you to take it slow,” she says raggedly. “I want you to fuck me like you used to.”
Her words have me pausing, my lips hovering at the top of her breasts. I lift my gaze to find hers already on me. I know she’s thinking what I’m thinking, about all the times I encouraged her to speak up and say what she wanted from me when we were intimate.
Here she is now, doing what I asked of her.
The least I can do is exactly what she’s asking of me.
Avery reaches down, dipping her hand into my waistband, gripping me. I work her shirt over her head, kissing her neck while unclasping her bra. I mutter an expletive at the sight of her, and she smiles.
“I won’t last long if you keep that up,” I murmur, looking down between us. “The last time with you was the last time.”
Understanding dawns, and she slows but doesn’t let me go. “Take them off,” she instructs. “My leggings. Take them off.”
I peel them away, along with her underwear. She releases me and lies back on the table, wincing at the hard wood against her back. I shake my head. “Bedroom. We deserve a bed.” I bend over and scoop her up, and she wraps her legs around me. She is wet and warm against my stomach. Palming her backside, I lift her up an inch, down an inch, over and over. She whimpers the softest, sweetest little moans into my ear and hangs on to me.
The sound of her, my Avery, making noises I know by heart is nearly enough to finish me right then.
It takes everything I have to hold off. I manage to get her down the hall and into her bedroom, inching her up and down my midsection the entire way.
Her hair fans out around her when I lay her on the bed, and my breath sticks in my throat at the sight of her, naked and rosy-cheeked and here .
Avery is here, with me.
“What?” she asks.
I shake my head in disbelief. “You… You're stunning. You take my breath away. That’s what you do. You always have.”
Her eyes shine. Her lips curl into a smile.
I crawl up onto the bed, kissing her, kissing my way down her body, kissing my way to the apex of her thighs.
“Gabriel,” she whispers, her hands in my hair. Every inch of this woman’s body has a place in my memory, but especially right here. This is my woman, my wife , and I know exactly how to make pleasured cries sing from her lips.
That’s what I do, until she’s squirming and twisting, and I’m smiling against her.
“Need you,” she manages to say. “Right now. Please.”
I crawl up her body. She runs her hands over my chest, my abdomen, around to my back. Her gaze locks on mine as I come over her, holding my weight with my forearm as I reach between us. She reaches with me, her hand wrapping over mine as I guide myself to her.
She gasps at that first inch, then wraps her legs around my lower back and urges me along, until there’s no part of me that isn’t inside her.
My forehead drops to hers. “Fuck,” I groan.
“I know,” she whispers. “I feel you… everywhere .”
This woman. She is a part of me, an extension, to a point where I cannot tell where I end and she begins.
Each movement, every stroke, is better than the last, and I wish I could press a pause button and linger in this moment with her.
“Come,” Avery whispers. “I know you need to.”
Supporting myself on my forearms, I wind my fingers into her hair and run my thumbs over her cheeks.
She waits until she knows I’m coming, then she captures my lips and kisses me through the crescendo.
When my orgasm ebbs, I stay where I am, dotting her face with soft kisses.
I don’t know what she’s ready to hear, so with my body I tell her I love her.
I issue her a promise.
I will never, ever again be the person responsible for hurting you .