Chapter 34
Carmello
Now
We fall into each other slowly. I keep her close to my body as we kiss beside the bed.
My senses are heightened while we explore each other with lips and tongues and teeth, and I think of how much I’ve forgotten about her over the years.
With as much as I have to do these days, my mind usually lets go of anything it finds unimportant, but I know it’s working overtime to process this in an attempt at playing keeps.
Memorizing her soft skin, the width of her hips, the dip at the small of her back.
Every touch and caress feels like it’s pulling on something deep inside of me.
She tastes like mint and she’s small in my arms. When she sighs against my lips, it signals my brain to move even slower to savor her sounds.
She hooks her arms around my neck, pitches up on her tiptoes to kiss the hollow of my throat. Nips the skin there, sucks with a pressure that has my eyes rolling back.
“Off,” she says, tugging at my shirt. Time is lost to me when I’m with her, so I do as I’m told, and I’m swiftly rewarded with the feel of her nails scraping against my skin.
She digs them into my back and pleasure shoots straight to my middle.
I’m harder than I’ve ever been, and she reaches between us to touch me through my pants, whining a little and pulling my waistband after she feels it.
“I need you, Mello,” she whispers. I put my fingers in her hair, tilt her face.
With access to her lips, I stroke my tongue over hers and she moans into my mouth.
“So you’ll have me,” I say, and palm her ass with both hands while pushing her backward toward the bed. Once we reach it, I tug on her pajama bottoms and repeat, “Off.”
She smiles into a kiss, then does as she’s told. Drops her panties too.
But before I can make my next move, she sits on the bed and gazes up at me with want in her eyes. For the past week, I’ve fantasized about having her like this, and I hope she can see the want in mine too. I run my thumb over her bottom lip and she takes it into her wet mouth.
Fuck.
When she reaches for my belt, I grow thicker just watching her work to unbuckle it.
Once I’m standing in front of her naked and fully erect, she sucks in a breath through her teeth and wraps her hand around my swollen shaft.
The tips of her fingers aren’t touching when we both examine the view.
“Oh damn,” she says, and I know that feeling.
That was me staring at what I could see of her earlier and realizing she looked even better than I remembered.
Or maybe we just weren’t looking at each other the same way a decade ago.
She doesn’t even have a good grip on me, and it still feels heavenly to throb in her hand. When she places a kiss on the head, I have the urge to thrust myself into her mouth. But I check my watch. Time is already eluding us. I take a breath and touch her shoulder instead.
“As much as I want you to do that,” I say, “I want other things more first.”
She nods in understanding but still leans forward to encircle me with her mouth.
Gives me one good suck. Steals a groan. I’m already seeing stars when I hear her release me with a pop.
She smirks and pulls her tank top over her head.
I take in every inch of her beautiful body and, while I’m telling her how stunning she is, something pulls at my heart, knowing we’re back here and how badly I want it.
I swore she was out of my life. I told myself I wanted nothing to do with her.
But when she looks up at me with soft eyes, I think maybe I should stop being ashamed to admit that I’ll always be a sucker for this woman.
She could tell me all she wanted from me for the next few weeks was my face between her legs and I’d let my tongue go numb if it meant pleasing her.
I bend low to cup her face. Her eyes fall closed, waiting for a kiss, and I realize the answer to Zeke’s question earlier is this: I never really did fall out of love, I just learned to live without her.