Chapter 44
Reed
Olivia stares at me, her brown eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears. For a moment, I feel as though all of the air has been sucked out of the room as I wait for her response.
Then, after several seconds, she throws herself into my arms.
Relief courses through me, and then I’m kissing her, my hands twining into her hair and wrapping around her back. All of the longing that I’ve felt for her, all of the desire between us, comes to a head instantaneously, like a sudden burst of flame.
I pull her up into my arms, my lips locked against hers, and then tip her back onto the bed.
I pull Olivia as close as I can, pressing myself to her, wanting to feel every inch of her body connecting to mine.
Her hair fans across the pillow. Her lips mold to my mouth.
Her hands travel through my hair and scrape down my back.
She releases a contented sigh, and the sound makes relief flood through me.
Olivia is right where she belongs, in my arms, kissing me, touching me. Every trace of her fingertips across my skin solidifies that I’m making the right choice to put her first—above everyone and everything in my life.
“I’m addicted to you,” I murmur against her throat. “There’s no way I could ever live without you.”
“I feel the same way.” Olivia’s whisper grazes against my neck. Her lips flutter over my jawline. A chill of desire jogs through my bones.
“I love you so fucking much, baby,” I growl against her mouth, hovering over her, hugging her possessively, my arms unwilling to release her.
Her kisses are soft and delicate, sending a tremor through me. Her fingers blaze across my back, leaving a thrilling heat that lingers on my skin. I shudder with arousal.
She lays beneath me, and when I hear the crack in her voice when she tells me she loves me too, I lift myself up and gaze down at her. Her eyes are deep wells. Tears track down her face, rolling off her chin.
“Baby,” I whisper, my heart sinking to the pit of my stomach. “What’s wrong?”
“Tell me again.” Her chin quivers, cleaving my heart. I stroke her hair and brush my thumb across her cheeks to wipe the tears away.
“Tell you what, baby?”
Another set of tears spills from her eyes. “That you love me.”
I feel the tension drain out of my shoulders when she says that. I clasp my fingers with hers and sink my mouth down to meet with her lips.
I whisper against her mouth. “I love you so much, Olivia. You’re the most important person in the world to me. I would be nothing, completely lost without you. I’m hopelessly, ridiculously in love with you.”
As I chant this mantra to her, in between words, I kiss her lips, her face, her nose, her forehead, the hollow of her throat. I shower her with kisses, raining them down on her because she deserves them. She deserves the whole world and I intend to give it to her.
Olivia’s eyes are vulnerable as she looks up at me, seeking the validation of my words and that I earnestly mean them. I want her to know she’s safe with me.
“I’m so sorry about everything,” I tell her.
She chews her bottom lip to keep it from trembling and swipes at her damp face with the back of her hand. She lets out a long and shaky breath. “It’s not all your fault, Reed. We both made mistakes.”
I feel my features harden into stoic resolve. “I will never make another mistake when it comes to you. I know what I want. What I need. When it comes to you, Liv, it’s about survival, and I can’t survive without you.”
Her face melts into bliss and she swings her arms around my neck, hauling me closer to her, where our lips lock again.
“Thank you,” Olivia whispers in a cracking voice. “You are saying all the words I need to hear right now.”
“I know, baby. You have no idea how much I love you. You’re so sweet. You have a beautiful soul. You have such a kind heart. I love the way you dance to music while you’re knitting, the fluffy socks you make and wear as you slide around the house. I love your sticky notes.”
Olivia tilts her head to the ceiling and laughs. The sound is light and dreamy, like a sunrise. “I can’t believe you kept all the sticky notes I wrote to you.”
I take her chin in my hands and tip her head back down. She meets my gaze. “Of course I kept the notes. Why would I ever throw away something so special. These things mean something to me. They have sentimental value.”
Olivia’s eyes skip across my face, and she lifts her head to give me a delicate kiss. Her tongue moves in my mouth, gliding across my teeth, massaging against my tongue.
She lets out a soft moan, and I’m ready to snap. I need her now more than I ever have before. The sensual gaze in her eyes makes me unhinged with lust.
“Reed?” Her eyebrows arch, and she plants her palm on the side of my face. Her hand is warm and tender.
“Yes?” My hammering heart takes a brief pause while the world stills around me.
“I love you so much too.” Her eyes hold on mine, and the raw emotion of the moment takes root inside me, spreading through my chest. Her love is a vine, attaching itself to me, bonding us forever.
I feel that fierce link when I look into her eyes and see the affection shimmering back at me. My lips crush against hers. My hands are needy as they skim through her hair. I can’t stop kissing her. It will never be enough. A tide of desire washes over me.
“I was so scared,” I murmur against her mouth.
She tilts her head and gazes at me. “About what?”
I swallow hard. “About losing you.”
Olivia’s face softens. “You could never lose me completely. You still owned my heart and consumed my thoughts, even when we were apart.”
I groan against her mouth and lift her shirt over her head, unable to hold back any longer. The need has been building too long. I can feel it in my hands as they shake against her ribs.
“I want you so bad, baby. I missed you so fucking much,” I murmur, my mouth finding the curve of her throat.
She trembles under me with a soft sound as my teeth catch at her pulse. Her hands slide up under my shirt and tug it free, then over my head, and I help her get it the rest of the way off.
I reach behind her to work her bra open. My fingers fumble at the hooks, and she laughs quietly at my impatience. I catch the sound against her mouth and answer it with another kiss, finally getting the clasp loose. I slide the bra off her shoulders and toss it aside.
I work my belt and pants open while I keep kissing her. She helps me shove them down along with my boxers, her hands working faster than mine. I kick everything off the edge of the bed and reach for the sides of her panties next, peeling them down her legs in one motion.
For a long moment, I have to stop and just look at her. Bare and flushed beneath me, her hair tangled across the pillow. I almost lost this. I came so close to losing her.
“What?” she whispers, her brow furrowing.
“Nothing.” I lower myself back over her, settling between her thighs, my bare skin sliding against hers for the first time in way too long. “I just can’t believe you’re here.”
She breathes out and pulls me down for another kiss.
I reach between us and guide myself to her. When I start to push in, the slow stretch of her around me draws a low groan out of both of us. Her fingers dig into my shoulders. Her thighs lift to bracket my hips.
“Oh my god,” she breathes against my mouth.
“I know,” I groan, my forehead dropping to hers as I work my way in. When I’m fully seated, I stay there for a long moment. Her hands move to my face. Her breath is warm against my mouth.
It feels like coming home.
“I love you, Olivia.”
“I love you too.”
I start to move. Easy strokes at first, deep and unhurried. Her breath stutters against my lips with every drag of me inside her, and her hands slide down my back, her nails scoring my skin in a way that makes me bite down on a curse.
“You feel so good,” I groan. “So fucking good.”
“Don’t stop.”
I quicken the pace, my hips rocking harder into hers. Her thighs grip my waist, her heels pressing into the backs of my legs, pulling me deeper with every thrust.
She makes a desperate sound against my mouth, her voice catching when she begs me not to go anywhere.
“Never. I’m not letting you go again, baby. I promise.”
Her arms tighten around my shoulders. I shift my weight onto one forearm to free my other hand and slide it down between us, finding her clit with my thumb. She gasps sharply, her back arching off the bed.
“There. Right there, Reed.”
I keep my thumb working on her in slow circles in time with my thrusts. Her cheeks are flushed and her lips are parted, her eyes slipping closed and opening again to find mine.
I shift back enough to bend her knees up so her thighs press closer to her chest, and the new angle has her crying out softly. The change lets me drive deeper. Her hands fly up above her head and fist in the sheets above the pillow.
“That’s it, baby. Just like that.”
Her eyes drift, then catch on something below her on the bed. She laughs softly, and her gaze comes back to mine, teasing through the haze.
“I love this blanket,” she says, her voice unsteady. “But your knitting really does need work.”
I let out a low laugh, even as I keep moving in her. “What’s wrong with my knitting?”
“It has holes in it. Big ones.”
I look down at the blanket beneath her—the lopsided one I spent weeks making for her, full of mistakes and uneven stitches—and the love I feel for this woman lands so hard I have to slow my hips just to take a breath.
A grin pulls at my mouth as an idea forms in my head.
“Holes serve a purpose.”
She blinks up at me. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Like this.”
I reach up to where her hands are still fisted in the sheets and tug a section of blanket loose, pulling it up beside her wrists.
I find the largest of the holes I made—uneven, embarrassingly big—and slip it over both her wrists, twisting the fabric so it holds them loosely together against the pillow.
She looks up at me, her wrists framed by my own bad knitting, her eyes bright and a little dazed. I have to bend down and kiss her before I can speak again.
She laughs against my mouth. “Hm. I guess you have a point.”
“Damn right, I do.”
I start to move again, harder this time, my hand returning to her clit. Her bound wrists flex against the blanket above her head but she doesn’t try to pull free. Her hips lift to meet every thrust. Her breath comes faster, ragged against my mouth.
I’m not going to last long. Not with her looking at me like that. Not with her tied up in something I made for her.
“I want you to come for me. I want to feel it.”
She nods against my mouth, little sounds that aren’t quite words spilling from her.
I press my thumb harder against her clit, drive deeper into her, and it pushes her over the edge.
She falls apart with a sharp cry, her back arching off the bed, her bound hands fisting against the pillow above her head.
I’ve been fighting against myself not to come until she did, and before the first shudder of her orgasm ripples through her, I’m joining her.
My thrusts turn uneven as I bury myself deep and pulse inside her, a ragged groan tearing out of me as jets of cum fill her pussy.
For a long moment, neither of us moves, hearts pounding together. Her bound hands rest above her head, her fingers loosening. Then I lift up enough to look at her. She’s flushed, her hair a mess, her eyes wet.
“Are you okay?” I murmur.
She licks her lips, smiling despite the tears. “Never been better.”
I reach up and work the blanket loose from her wrists.
Her arms drop, and I bring each of her hands to my mouth, pressing a kiss to the inside of each wrist before settling them against my chest. She lets out a breath, her eyes meeting mine.
Her expression is exhausted, sated, and content, her eyes half-lidded.
I shift onto my side and pull her with me, her petite body molding against mine.
“I love you so much,” I tell her again, just because I can.
“I love you too.”
Her words dance over my skin as I hold her close, vowing to never let her slip through my fingers again. She’s too important to me.
When it comes to thinking about my future, Olivia’s face is the first one I see.