33. By Her Side
BY HER SIDE
“Can you do something for me?” Skye asked two hours later.
It was close to seven and she was worn out mentally.
Her belly was full along with her mind. It was crowded, noisy, and refused to slow down.
She just needed to shut it all off.
She needed to live in the moment.
To put the arguments, the hard words, and the hurt feelings aching under her skin aside.
She needed the man in front of her who made her feel more alive than ever before.
“I can do anything you ask of me,” he said, dropping his overnight bag on the living room floor.
They’d stopped to get his uniform for work tomorrow. There was no telling him she wanted to be alone.
The truth was, she didn’t want to be. Not because she was scared. Not even because she didn’t want to worry anyone.
But because she needed him by her side.
“I want you to take me to bed. I want you to just pretend it’s only us. Only the two of us that exist.”
“That’s an easy ask,” he murmured.
He didn’t rush her. She knew he wouldn’t.
The thing about Ash. The guy had more patience than she thought was possible.
He slowly and confidently stepped closer, like he understood exactly how fragile the moment was. Exactly what she needed without the words leaving her mouth.
When his arms came around her, it wasn’t tight or possessive, it was just warm. Solid. A place to rest.
A place to let herself sink into him.
Her forehead pressed to his chest, her breath evening out as his hand slid up and down her back in an easy rhythm. The noise in her head dulled. The edges softened.
The light almost darkened around them, like black coming in from the edges and only framing them in the world.
“Just this,” she whispered against him. “Just us. No talking. No thinking.”
His chin dipped, resting against her hair. “Then that’s what tonight is,” he said quietly. “The world can wait.”
She tilted her head up, and he met her halfway, their mouths brushing in a kiss so gentle it felt like a promise instead of a question. Unhurried. Tender. Like neither of them needed more than the reassurance of being chosen in that moment.
Something she’d never felt. Not before Ash.
No one chose her. Only him. Again and again.
She kissed him once more, a little longer this time, her hands fisting lightly in his shirt. Not desperate, just wanting. Wanting him. Wanting this moment.
He smiled against her mouth, his thumb tracing her jaw. “Come on,” he whispered. “Let’s shut everything else out. I can make you forget.”
He led her toward the bedroom, his fingers laced with hers, the apartment falling quiet behind them. No phones. No headlines. No fires or fear of tomorrow pressing in.
Just the two of them.
For tonight, that was enough.
He kicked the door shut with his foot. There was no need to. They were private enough, but it was as if he knew that one more layer would give them what they needed.
His hands framed her face, his lips landing on hers, brushing back and forth. “Are we good?”
“We’re good,” she whispered. “Sometimes I think you’re the only good in my life right now. And maybe I don’t show it enough. Maybe I don’t say it either.”
“Shh,” he said. “Don’t talk about it. That’s not shutting it off.”
She silently shook her head and let him just take over.
He knew what he was doing.
Never once had he disappointed her and she didn’t think tonight would be any different.
His mouth opened, hers followed, his tongue slipping in, tasting her, the sweetness of the apple pie they’d eaten, the rich vanilla of the ice cream next to it.
It was like coming home.
Being with Ash, being here with him, like this. It was home. Her home now.
It was the only home she’d ever need.
And maybe it was time to stop holding back.
To stop fighting what she’d been feeling for so long and let him know.
But when his hands slid under the bottom of her shirt, lifting it up and over her head slowly, those thoughts disappeared.
For now, his heat, his touch, his presence. That was what she needed more of.
Those strong fingers of his slid up her back, found the clasp of her bra, undid it and dragged it off her body so slow and sure, that it amazed her someone with his level of confidence wanted to be with her.
His mouth never left hers, the weight of his body pressing her back so that her feet moved until the back of her knees hit the bed and she went down on it, his body covering hers, then sliding until his mouth found her nipple.
Hard, puckered, just waiting for him to latch on and take her to the place she’d asked him to.
Her back arched into him, wanting more contact, more... anything.
His fingers found hers, threaded them together and held them at her sides.
“I want to touch you.”
“You can when I’m ready to let you.” Then he went right back to what he was doing.
Licking, sucking, pulling her taut skin in, stabbing at it with the tip of his tongue.
Making her body sing and feel alive.
Her hips were lifting, grinding against him. Trying to find some kind of relief that he just didn’t want her to have.
“You like to torture me, don’t you?” she asked.
“It’s all part of the fun.”
His mouth moved down her ribs, his fingers releasing her hands, then going to her jeans and making quick work of removing them and her underwear.
Then his mouth landed between her legs, where she was hot, burning up and soaking wet at the same time.
He gave her the same attention there.
He nibbled. He bit. Stabbed at her with his tongue.
But she didn’t want it to end that way.
“Fuck me now, Ash. I mean it. I want to come around you and I want it right now!”
He reared back and looked at her face. Must have seen she was dead serious and started tearing his clothes off as if he feared if he didn’t, she was going to rip them off herself.
He grabbed a condom out of the bedside drawer, covered himself quickly and gathered her in his arms.
He braced himself over her on the bed, his knee nudging her legs apart.
She was already waiting for him, her legs wide, and lifting, going around his hips and telling him to hurry up.
His mouth crushed hers, his tongue invading at the same time as his cock.
She drove up high, sending him deeper, making him move faster, harder than maybe he wanted.
But this was about her. This time. This night.
It was all what she wanted. What she needed.
What he could give her. Only him.
Her bed was squeaking with the movements, their bodies were meeting and retreating, a collision ready to explode.
It wouldn’t be much longer. It couldn’t be.
Not with the pressure burning in her gut. Between her legs. Right at her very core.
“That’s it,” she said. “Just like that. Don’t stop.”
Her abs were hurting, her thighs burning with how tense they were keeping her locked tight to him.
He put his fingers through hers again, held them over her head and kept her pinned in place.
Trapped by his body. By him.
It was how she felt and where she wanted to be.
And when he moved one more time just right, just so deep, touching almost to a place in her chest, she started to come.
Hard. Throbbing. Pulsing.
Her body twitching to take everything he was willing to give her.
Then he just stopped and dropped on her.
She burst out laughing. “You’re squishing me. And with all that food you ate, it’s a few extra pounds.”
He rolled and took her with him. She was resting on his chest now, his hand moving over her back.
“That’s mean. I’m hurt. I think you ate more than me.”
She shivered. From his touch. From the cold. From the words she was going to confess.
“I might have,” she said, her voice low.
She didn’t want to lose her nerve, but she was afraid she might.
Ash reached over and grabbed a fistful of the comforter they were lying on and flung it over her back. “There. Better?”
Like he knew what she needed once again.
“I am,” she whispered. “Ash.”
“Yeah?” he said just as quietly back.
“Sometimes what I feel for you is so hard to explain.”
“For someone with your writing talent, it shouldn’t be,” he said.
There was no humor in his voice.
If anything, it might have sounded like nerves.
Apprehension?
Did he not want her to say more?
Or was she thinking too much about this?
She was going with the second.
“That’s the thing. When I write, the words come into my brain and go out through my fingers, but if I opened my mouth, they wouldn’t sound nearly the same.”
“How is that possible?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It just is.”
“How about you close your eyes and just talk as if you’re in the room alone? I do that sometimes. I think it helps. Or it helps me.”
“But I’m not alone. What if I say something you don’t want to hear?”
He kissed her neck. “I think what you want to say I need to hear. Maybe it’s trapped inside me too. Maybe I’m just afraid of scaring you as much as you are me?”
And that told her everything.
Every fear she had wasn’t needed.
Every thought she doubted could go away.
“I love you, Ash. I love how you make me feel. Even when it ticks me off, surprisingly, I still love you. But more than anything, I just love how you are there for me. How I’ve got you in my corner.”
“Even when you tick me off,” he interrupted.
“I think right now, we’ve got that talent with the other.”
“But like I said earlier, we can get through it as long as we are together.”
Her fingers ran over his back. “Then maybe you can say the words back so I’m not wishing I didn’t say it first.”
“I love you, Skye Lancaster. I’m pretty sure I loved you when you were Skye Murphy, but I didn’t know what love felt like.
It sure the hell didn’t feel like it does now because if it had I would have chased after you.
I would have left this area and traveled wherever you were to make sure you knew how I felt. ”
“Wow. And you say I’ve got a talent with words.”
“I’m just speaking from the heart,” he said. “I really do love you. And I love even more that you said it first so I didn’t have to doubt that you only said it back to me as a reflex.”
With the words coming out of his mouth, she didn’t have that concern.
“I don’t think this kind of love was ready for us before.”
“No,” he said. “But it’s ready and it’s waiting for us now.”