28. Juliette #2
“You’ve always had it.” His hands slide up my back, dragging the fabric with them until cool air finds my skin. “I just stopped pretending otherwise. Fuck, Juliette, do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to stop pretending?”
“About as long as I have.” I rise onto my toes and kiss him again, harder this time, pouring years of swallowed want into it.
He makes a low sound in his throat and walks me back until my shoulders find the wall beside the couch.
The impact is gentle but not accidental, and when he presses his body fully against mine I feel every hard line of him. My pulse kicks. “Zachary-”
“Tell me to stop and I will.” He says it against my jaw, mouth trailing hot open kisses down the side of my throat while his hands keep exploring the bare skin of my back. “But Christ, I don’t want to stop. I’ve been going out of my mind.”
“Don’t you dare stop.” I tug his shirt up and he helps me yank it over his head, tossing it somewhere behind him.
My palms map the warm plane of his chest, the rise and fall of his breathing, the way his stomach muscles jump when I drag my nails lightly down.
“New term. You don’t get to be careful with me tonight. ”
He huffs a breathless laugh that turns into a groan when I scrape my teeth over his collarbone. “Yes, ma’am. Any other amendments to the couch contract I should know about?”
“You’re ridiculously talkative for a man who’s supposed to be ravishing me.
” I nip his bottom lip and soothe it with my tongue, feeling him smile against my mouth.
The playful edge doesn’t hide the tremor in his hands as he unhooks my bra and eases it down my arms. When the cool air hits my bare breasts his expression goes tight with want.
“Can you blame me?” His thumbs brush over my nipples, slow and reverent, and the spark of pleasure makes my back arch off the wall. “I’ve got the woman I’ve been in love with for years half-naked in my arms and she’s making jokes about pizza. I’m trying not to fuck this up by moving too fast.”
“Moving too fast would have been six years ago.” The angst slips out raw.
I catch his face between my hands so he has to meet my eyes.
My voice drops. “We lost so much time, Zachary. I’m tired of slow.
I’m tired of safe. I want you so badly it scares the shit out of me, and I’m done letting the fear win. ”
His expression breaks open. He kisses me like he’s starving, deep and filthy and full of every unsaid thing, while his hands drop to the button of my jeans.
“Then we’re on the same goddamn page.” The zipper rasps down.
He shoves the denim and my underwear over my hips in one impatient push.
I kick them away, already reaching for his belt. “Tell me what you need.”
“You. Inside me. Preferably before I lose my mind.” My fingers fumble his jeans open and wrap around the hard, hot length of him. He curses softly, hips jerking into my grip. The feel of him - thick, already leaking - makes my mouth water and my core clench around nothing. “Fuck, you’re hard.”
“Have been since dinner, and you know it.” He spins us with surprising grace and lowers us onto the couch, me straddling his lap, knees bracketing his hips.
The worn leather creaks. His hands grip my ass, pulling me down so the slick heat of my pussy drags along his cock.
We both hiss at the contact. “Jesus Christ. You’re soaked. ”
“Your fault.” I rock against him deliberately, coating him, teasing us both. The friction is electric. My hands brace on his shoulders and I can feel the tension coiled in every muscle. “All that ‘I love you’ and ‘rest of my life’ talk. What did you think was going to happen?”
“I was hoping for exactly this.” He leans in and sucks one nipple into his mouth, tongue flicking, teeth grazing just enough to make me gasp.
One hand slips between us so his fingers can stroke through my folds, gathering wetness, circling my clit with a lightness that should be illegal.
“God, the sounds you make. I’ve dreamed about these sounds. ”
“Less dreaming. More doing.” I reach down, line him up, and sink down onto him in one slow, unbroken slide. The stretch steals my breath. He’s big and perfect and I feel every inch until I’m seated fully, hips flush to his, fuller than I can stand. My forehead drops to his. “Oh - fuck-”
Zachary’s hands clamp on my waist, holding me still while he breathes through gritted teeth. “Jules. Give me a second or this is going to be embarrassingly short.”
“Don’t care.” I roll my hips in a tight circle and watch his eyes go half-lidded with pleasure. The angle rubs him right against that spot inside me, and I stop breathing. “We’ve got all night. And tomorrow. And the day after that. Couch privileges include repeat performances.”
He laughs again, broken and fond, then thrusts up to meet me. The dual movement punches a moan out of both of us. “I’m going to frame that contract. Hang it over the goddamn couch.”
“Shut up and fuck me.” I kiss him to swallow whatever clever reply he had, and then there are no more jokes for a while - only the wet slide of my body on his, the slap of skin, the shared breath and broken curses.
His hands roam everywhere: squeezing my ass to pull me down harder, sliding up to cup my breasts, tangling in my hair to angle my mouth for deeper kisses.
Every touch feels like a claim and an apology and a vow all at once.
“Missed this,” he pants against my throat, hips snapping up in a rhythm I stop trying to control. “Missed you. Every fucking day. Used to stand at the bottom of your lane with a coffee like an idiot, just to be closer.”
“I know.” My voice cracks on the admission. I dig my nails into his shoulders and ride him harder, chasing the heat coiling tighter and tighter at the base of my spine. “I watched you from the kitchen window and hated how much I still wanted you.”
“Want me now?” He slips a hand between us and rubs my clit in tight, perfect circles that match every upward thrust. The dual sensation makes me cry out. “Tell me. I need to hear it.”
“I want you.” The words tumble out messy and true. “I love you. I’m so in love with you it hurts, and if you ever disappear on me again I will revoke every privilege you have and then some-”
“Not going anywhere.” He surges up and flips us so my back hits the couch cushions, never pulling out.
The new angle lets him drive deeper, harder, one hand braced beside my head, the other hooking my knee over his elbow so he can sink impossibly far.
“You’re stuck with me. Towels on the floor and stolen pizza and all of it. Fuck, you feel like home.”
“Say it again.”
“You feel like home.”
“The other thing.”
“I love you.” He drives the words home with his hips, slow and deep. “I love you. I’m going to say it until it stops sounding new.”
“It’s never-” His thumb finds my clit and my sentence dies.
Fuck the sentence. The sentence knew the risks.
“There’s eleven.” His mouth curves against my jaw, insufferable even now, especially now. “Told you I was ambitious.”
“Who’s counting?”
“Me.” He doesn’t lose the rhythm. “Always.”
The raw honesty in his voice plus the relentless snap of his hips undoes me.
I come with a broken sob of his name, clenching around him so tightly he curses and buries his face in my neck, fucking me through every wave until I’m shaking and oversensitive and still greedy for more.
He follows a handful of thrusts later, hips stuttering, groaning my name like a prayer as he spills deep inside me, pulsing heat that makes aftershocks flutter through my core.
We stay locked together afterward, sweaty and breathing hard, his weight a comforting press along my front. His fingers stroke lazily through my hair. My hands map the damp curve of his back.
“So,” I manage eventually, voice hoarse. A breathless laugh escapes me. “About those couch privileges.”
Zachary lifts his head, hair a disaster, mouth swollen, eyes soft and shining and certain. He brushes a kiss over the tip of my nose, then my mouth, lingering. “Yeah?”
“I’m amending the terms again.” I clench around him just to watch his eyes lose focus. “Wet towels are still a deal-breaker. But you can eat my leftover pizza whenever you want.”
He grins, slow and crooked - the grin from the library, the one I thought we’d lost. “And the rest?”