Chapter 23 #3
“Just give me this for one minute,” he whispered, his arms tight around her.
Hope gave him what he needed, because she needed it just as badly.
Paul raised his head off her shoulder to kiss her, a soft, sweet caress that made her want so much more.
There was that word again—more. He always made her want more of him, and she’d begun to suspect that she’d never get enough. With his arms still tight around her, he eased her onto the bed and leaned over her. “I thought I’d memorized every detail, but I forgot a few.”
“Like what?”
“This,” he said, laying his finger over the mole on her breast. He replaced his finger with his tongue. “I don’t want to forget that or the way you go crazy when I do this.” With his thumbs on her hipbones, he pressed down.
She cried out, and her legs fell open.
Paul dropped to his knees next to the bed, his hands flat against her thighs.
“Paul… Wait…”
“I don’t want to wait. I only got one little taste of you while we were away, and I kept thinking I didn’t get nearly enough.”
All the air left her body in one long exhale that he took as permission to proceed.
Holding her open with his thumbs, he stroked her with his tongue until she was writhing on the bed and pulling his hair so hard, he worried he’d have bald spots.
But that didn’t stop him. He slid two fingers into her, going slowly to draw out the pleasure.
“Are you still sore?”
“No,” she said, sounding breathless. Her legs trembled, and her internal muscles clamped down on his fingers.
Blowing on her clit, he said, “Mmm, so hot.” He sucked on her clit, and she screamed as she came.
Paul stayed with her until she began to relax. Then he replaced his fingers with his cock and triggered a second wave. “Hope…”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him into a kiss as he worked his way into her slowly.
He was so afraid to hurt her by driving in hard the way he wanted to.
Her hands moved down his back to cup his ass, pulling him toward her.
Groaning, he began to move in her while keeping his lips close to her ear. “Hope… You feel so good. This feels so good. Stay with me. Be with me.” He kissed away the moisture that leaked from her eyes. “We’ll figure it out together. Don’t leave me.”
A sob escaped from her lips as she continued to move with him.
“Do you feel how great it is, too?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “God, yes.”
“I can’t let you go.” He pressed into her, looking for the spot that had set her off before and knowing he’d found it when he felt the telltale tightening of her internal muscles. “Yes, sweetheart, come for me. Let me feel you.”
Her release led to his, and he came down on top of her, gathering her in close to him. “Don’t go, Hope. We’ll make it work.”
She shook her head. “I have to get another job.”
“I’ll take care of you and Ethan. You’ll have everything you need.”
“You’re wonderful and sweet to want to do that, but I can’t.”
He wanted to scream with frustration. “What we have here doesn’t come around every day.”
“I certainly know that.”
“We can’t give up without a fight.”
“We’re not doing that. We’re acknowledging that it can’t go anywhere.”
“What if I came with you?”
“You can’t do that, Paul. Your life and your business are here.”
“I don’t want to be here if you and Ethan aren’t here with me.”
She caressed his face with both hands. “I wish things were different. You have no idea how much I wish that.”
“I bet I do.” He forced a smile for her benefit and withdrew from her. Lying on his back, he stared up at the ceiling as if he might find the answers there.
“I should go,” she said after a long period of silence.
“Not yet.” Paul turned on his side and put his arm around her. “Spend the night with me.”
“It won’t make anything better.”
“Maybe not, but it’ll make tonight better.”
She turned into his embrace, her hand resting on his chest over his heart. “You have to know if I could have anything I wanted, it would be you.”
“You can have me. We can have it all.”
“I can’t have you and a job, too. There’re no jobs here for nurses. I have to go where the work is.”
“There’re other jobs here. Maybe you could find something else.”
“I’m still digging out of the hole Carl put me in. I can’t afford to take a pay cut.”
Paul took hold of her hand. “I hate that it seems so hopeless.”
“Ha. No pun intended.”
“I don’t want to be hopeless or Hope-less.
” As he played with her fingers, he tried to gather his thoughts.
“In all the time I’ve lived here, I never looked forward to the day I could get out of here the way Alex and so many of the other kids we knew did.
They all counted down the days until they could get the hell out.
That was never me. But now, with the thought of all that water between where I am and where you are, I want out of here for the first time. ”
“I hate that I’ve caused that to happen.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I’m sorry it’s worked out this way, but I’m not sorry it happened.”
Paul pulled her in closer to him so he could kiss her. “I’m not sorry, either.”