Jake Marleigh
They kneel facing each other on the bed like they’d done a hundred times before. For a moment, they stay where they are. No script, no next thing. Just him sitting on his heels, looking at her.
She stares back. Doesn’t say anything.
She knew this, had always known this about him, the way he needed to look before he could believe. She lets him, straightening up, letting him take her in whole. She watches his mouth quiver, open slightly, his breathing becoming heavier. Then she looks into his eyes.
She’d been carefully trying to avoid those eyes all evening.
It was easier when she was angry, but now she looks properly.
He is still, after everything, the most familiar thing she’d ever seen, and he is looking at her the way he always has.
She knows she is in trouble then. There is no going back.
Her hands find the hem of his shirt before she’s made any conscious decision about it. Old habits. Removing his top over his head, Jake allowing her to do so, slowly, fingers trembling, taking her time, his hands finding her waist as she kneels back down.
They take their time undressing each other. He pulls down the zip of her dress, planting lingering kisses on her neck as the pale pink silk falls around her waist. She undoes the button of his trousers. She has to remind herself to breathe. Then she lies back as he pulls the dress down her thighs.
His thumb finds a scar on her ribs that he doesn’t recognise. It’s small and neat. He doesn’t ask, but his fingers linger there longer than they need to, as if each second that passes could catch up with the years that he’s missed.
He touches her like he hasn’t forgotten a thing. The same place, the same grip. And he touches her the way he always had. Not carefully or like something fragile. Like someone who knows.
Belle really did love everything about him.
Not just his strong hands, his thick hair, or the fire behind his eyes.
But also his soul. His ability to make her laugh in the hardest situations.
His fierce loyalty. How, after ten years, after seeing her at her worst, his love hasn’t wavered.
She feels a simple certainty that this is exactly where she is meant to be.
And now her hands are nestled in his hair, legs over his shoulders as he licks between her legs.
Small kisses at first, then heavy laps, then panting and thirsty and famished as he flicks his tongue across her clit.
One hand is used to hold her legs open and it occasionally reaches up to pinch her nipples – the way that always drives her crazy – and the other working his fingers inside her.
Between body shudders and back-arching moans into the air, she watches him, his brow furrowed in concentration, his mouth wet from the taste of her.
She calls his name through breathless gasps, fingers gripping the sheets as she tells him to stop – she’s close … She wants to, needs to, feel him.
She moves into his lap without being asked, facing him.
His hands find her hips and guide her onto him.
She gasps and for a moment they stay like that – his hands steadying her, their foreheads almost touching, breath shallow and uneven, but neither of them moves.
He feels her tighten around him, but his eyes never leave hers.
She watches him try to hold still.
She watches him decide to try to hold it.
She thinks the effort of it is the most intimate thing she’s ever seen.
And then he can’t take it anymore.
His touch slides down her body, and he thrusts – her head thrown back in total ecstasy, his grip tightening, fingers digging in, and she rides and rides and his mouth hangs open as he watches her breasts jump and he can’t stand the beauty of it, of her. They tessellate. They always have.
He pulls her closer to him, her warm body flush against his, and they kiss – breathless, starving – his hands in her hair and hers gripping his shoulders, and nothing between them, nothing neatly managed, nothing held back.
For once, she has nothing left to hold back. So she doesn’t.