Chapter 31 #2
“God, you’re perfect,” he all but groans as his fingers grab my waist, almost as if he’s keeping me away from him. But the heat in his gaze tells me he’s holding me still for closer inspection.
“No compliments,” I tease. “That’s a rule.”
“It’s a fact. A scientific, evidence-based fact. These hips. God, I want to eat them.”
It takes only a moment for our lips to find each other’s like some Hail Mary pass.
Like all this time, neither of us were sure we would ever make it to this point.
Yet here we are and the sound coming from him almost sounds like humming, or a whispered reverent prayer.
Every corner of my body, every joint and nerve ending is fuzzy with warmth and need, and not a need I have known before.
I have wanted men before. I wanted Ethan. I wanted the casual hook ups, but the need in my body now has my knees trembling in a loose discomposure under the warm water and Tanner’s hands.
His fingers follow their favorite trail across my collar bone, around my chest, down my hips, until his hand finds its place between my legs, making my hips languidly roll toward him.
My hands grip his shoulders because otherwise I would be on the ground.
The water misses me to only to cascade in tiny rivulets down his face, shoulders, stomach and every other delicious part of his body as his fingers discover the most hidden parts of mine.
“Hannah,” he groans as he drops his mouth to my ear. “Baby.”
My head falls back against the wall, and his lips don’t waste a second finding the tenderness of my ear lobe and biting down while his fingers dance in raveled movements.
The fingers and hands I have spent the summer watching and studying and committing to memory are the ones I would die for in this moment.
“God, I’ve dreamed of this. The moment I saw you on that damn rooftop in Chicago I’ve wanted you in ways I shouldn’t have then.”
As I feel the pressure mounting, I find myself doing the thing no girl in her right mind would ever do. I reach down and grab his wrist, stopping him.
He pulls back, alarm in his eyes. “I’m sorry, did I—”
“Take me to bed,” I cut him off, letting this deep-seated desire take control.
“What?”
“Tanner.” I bring his hand to my mouth. “Please, take me to my bed.”
“Shit,” He grunts and, in a flash, he has the water off and me up over his shoulder like one of his damn dish towels.
When he steps over to my bed, he doesn’t throw me down like I expect.
Instead, he slides me down and lays me down ever so carefully, then steps back.
His eyes trail over my body, lingering on my neck, my chest, my thighs.
He shakes his head and drags a hand over his jaw where a callow blush is creeping up. “My God.”
“Tanner,” I whimper, missing his touch. Needing his touch.
He reaches down and grips my thighs with less gentleness now, pulling me closer to the edge of the bed.
With his lips starting at the inside of my right knee, then shifting to the left, I am absolute liquid mercury in his grip.
Soft and utterly unable to stay together.
I interlock my fingers with his as he kneels before me.
He goes back and forth, lacing kisses up the soft tender flesh of my inner thighs, his mustache brushing along my skin and the scratching sensation has my eyes rolling.
Then the sudden absence of his lips on my body, has me whipping my head up where I find a damn smirk on his face. He leans up over me only to sink his teeth into the roundest part of my hip.
“Oh my God, Tanner,” I gasp out in delicious pain.
“What’s that baby? Aren’t we supposed to be using our manners?”
“Tanner,” I command, as a literal electrical current courses through my body.
“Come on.” He trails his tongue up the inside of my thigh. “Let’s hear it, Mama.”
Holy shit. Who is this man between my legs?
“Please,” I beg. I implore. I pray.
The word comes out as a whimper and with one wicked smile and a lick of his tongue, my head falls back onto the bed as my insides nearly combust. My muscles are useless and weak as he’s getting to know me in a brand-new way. A way that no man has ever bothered to try before.
Though our hands are still grasped together at my thighs, I feel his thumbs massage the skin on my legs while his mouth does absolute sinful things to my nervous system.
I can hardly breathe as my fingers only tighten within his and my head swims as I grow closer and closer to an edge I’ve only been able to get to alone.
An edge that this man is about to throw me off of and catch me at the bottom.
“Tanner,” I gasp. “I want you.”
“You have me,” he gasps against my center. “You’ve always had me.”
“No. I need you. Right now.”
Something in his brain must click, because his eyes flick up to mine, then he pushes himself up, so he is hovering before me.
The feeling of him resting himself there alone almost undoes me.
His eyes gaze into mine and my chest thrums with a potential energy that is borderline primal.
His sharp inhales of breath tell me he is feeling the exact same way.
“Are you sure?” he asks, using his hips to drag himself against me. Teasing. Plotting.
“I have never been more sure.”
The smile lifts the corner of his mouth before he slowly centers himself.
“Fuck, Hannah,” he grunts as he slowly pushes forward.
I gasp as my body arches to meet his. To accommodate his.
“My God.” This time when he comes back, he comes back deeper. And harder.
My name, a red lettered declaration, drips off his tongue and it tangles with the taste of his name on my lips. The sensation that is pulsing through my body is unlike anything I have ever felt before. Never has my skin felt this close to catching on fire.
I could tell myself it’s because maybe he’s more experienced, or maybe because I’m not. But really, it’s just because it’s him. It’s Tanner. It’s us. He’s mine and I am utterly, devastatingly his.
My body rocks against his as I drag my nails across his back like it will get him closer, deeper.
His silver chain necklace sways in my face as he grunts my name and curses interchangeably.
I lift my hand from his back and like a woman possessed I use the silver chain to pull him down to me to kiss me again.
The kiss is sloppy and messy and entirely sacralizing.
The sound of the breaking tension fills the air as the knots inside me unfurl around him just as he does the same.
In the quiet moments after, with him still inside and his eyes fluttering shut, I wonder how I could ever live without this.
Eventually, he stands and I prepare myself for him to make an excuse to leave. Having to go get some work wrapped up only to fall asleep in the guest room or come back in long after I’m asleep.
But this man isn’t my ex-husband. This isn’t that story anymore. In this story, this man stands, pulls back the covers, and motions for me to get under.
“I’ll get us water,” he says.
He pulls the blankets back up, watching me like I’m something precious. Something worth protecting. Something worth tucking into bed and getting water for.
He brings back a glass and sips from it before handing it to me.
“Do you want me to go?” he asks quietly.
I shake my head. “I would rather you stay. In fact, I would prefer it.”
The smile on his face tells me that was exactly what he wanted to hear. I open the covers, and he slips in next to me. Our bodies finding their place against each other’s, like the final letters in a crossword, waiting for the right time. For everything else to fall in line first.
“I love you, Hannah,” Tanner whispers into my hair.
“I should have said that sooner, but it’s true.
I am totally in love with you, I have been.
I have been fighting myself from saying it for months now because I didn’t want to scare you, but,” he presses his lips against my head, “I love you more than I thought was possible.”
Those words change everything. As I lay here, tracing the ridges of his fingers on my chest in the dark, I realize that since I met Tanner Auclair, a million little things have shifted, moved, budged and now here he is.
The person I look for at every party, the person who saves me a seat at every table.
The person I call when I have a great day and the one I call on a boring day.
I have spent over a year trying to translate this feeling.
The feeling I have when I catch him watching me from across the room, or when he feels the fabric of my dress or when he laughs with Winnie.
Turns out it feels this simple because it is this simple.
“I love you too,” I tell him, meaning it more than he even knows. “I love you more than I thought was possible too.”