Chapter 33
The kiss consumes me. I don’t know how else to describe it.
It possesses me the way a wildfire ravages dry brush, fast and total and irreversible.
And I know, with a certainty that terrifies me, that nothing will ever be the same after this.
I’ve wanted this for so long, imagined it innumerable times.
In the dark of the cottage, in the shower, in line at the grocery store.
I’ve replayed the idea so many times the fantasy’s worn smooth, become predictable and safe.
This kiss is nothing like I imagined.
It’s somehow softer, messier, and infinitely more dangerous. Her fingers twist in the front of my flannel and there’s a desperation in it that I wasn’t prepared for—a hunger that matches my own—and the ground shifts beneath my feet, the last solid thing I was standing on crumbles away.
She tastes like the coffee I know she had earlier and something sweeter underneath, something that’s just her. I think I could spend the rest of my life learning this taste and it still wouldn’t be enough.
My hands slide from the back of her neck down to her waist, pulling her flush against me, and the sound she makes against my mouth nearly undoes me. I’m coming apart at the seams, and yet I’ve never felt more whole.
It’s not our first kiss. We’ve done this before.
That night we watched Charade. The following morning when she wouldn’t stop talking.
Both an easy brush of the lips that I replayed for weeks.
But this one is different. This one carries the promise of something more, something I feel land in my chest with the weight of a future I didn’t know I was allowed to want.
It has her pressing closer, her body fitting to mine like she’s trying to climb inside my skin.
And when I feel the gentle swell of her belly between us something fierce and protective flares in my chest so bright it blinds me, the thought drawing me up short.
It’s too much, too soon, too everything.
I can’t pretend this is anything but love—raw and unmanageable.
Scary, because I know, with absolute clarity, that I will never recover from her. I don’t want to recover.
I pull back gently, keeping her tucked close.
My forehead drops to hers and I breathe her in, trying to get my bearings.
My heart hammers so hard I’m sure she can feel it—hear it—but I want her to.
I want her to know what she does to me. That she’s destroyed and rebuilt me in the span of a single kiss.
She opens her eyes, slow and glazed over. The sight of her like this, her cheeks flushed and her lips kiss-swollen, looking at me like I’m something she’s been starving for nearly pulls me back in.
I open my mouth to ask if she’s sure, but she stops me with a peck. It’s quick and deliberate, meant to keep the words from tumbling free.
“If you’ll have me, baby and all, I want to do this. For real.”
The words land in my chest—right behind my sternum—and settle there. I don’t hesitate. I can’t. There’s no part of me that exists anymore that doesn’t want this—her, the baby, the life I can suddenly see stretching out before us.
“Of course I want you.” My voice comes out rough, scraped raw from emotion. “Both of you. You have to know that.”
I see the moment her face softens. Feel the way her grip on my flannel loosens just a fraction, like she’s no longer afraid I’ll disappear.
Like some knot inside her finally lets go.
I don’t give her time to second-guess it.
I kiss her again, slower this time, and she melts into it.
The last of my resistance dissolves and the last barrier falls to this, to her, to us.
It’s terrifying and perfect and I never want it to end.
Her hands release my shirt, slipping up to my shoulders to push it off.
I help her, shrugging the fabric down my arms and letting it drop somewhere behind me.
I don’t care where. Nothing outside of her exists in this moment.
Her fingers are back on me immediately, skating across my shoulders, and I pull away again.
I need to ask, to make sure we’re not barreling past something we should talk about first. Part of me still can’t believe this is real, that I get to have this.
“Madison, we should talk—”
“I don’t want to talk,” she says, her words firm, almost defiant. “I’ve been getting off to my imagination of you for far too long. I need to experience the real thing.”
Her entire body goes taut, and I watch the horror spread across her face in real time. Her eyes go wide and a flush crawls up her neck as her mouth opens like she wants to take it back or apologize, maybe die of embarrassment.
I chuckle. I can’t help it. It’s low and warm. I let it roll through me because the honesty of it, the raw unfiltered truth is the most attractive thing she’s said to me.
“I love the honesty,” I tell her, my arms tightening around her, holding her like I will for the rest of my life if she’ll let me. “And for the record, I’ve thought of you the same way for just as long, if not longer.”
Her blush deepens but the horror fades, replaced by something heated and needy. She pulls me back to her, our lips meeting in another kiss. It’s slower this time, but no less heated—no less world-altering.
My hands map the curve of her waist, the dip of her lower back, and I murmur against her mouth because I need her to hear this. “We need a bed.” I press the words into the corner of her jaw. “I want to cherish you and I can’t do that on a couch—not for our first time.”
She nods against me, a small breathless move, but doesn’t move any other part of her body.
My patience snaps and I bend, lifting her with one arm under a knee and the other bracing her back.
Her belly bumps against mine as she wraps her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck.
The trust in the gesture, the way she lets me carry her and the life growing inside her, hits me so hard I have to close my eyes for a second.
I will protect them, spend every day of my life earning moments like these.
My lips trail from her mouth to her neck, pressing open-mouthed kisses to the sensitive skin below her ear. She shivers against me and her fingers tighten in my hair.
“Upstairs. First door on the left,” she breathes against me.
I don’t wait. I take the stairs carefully, each step measured, wanting to make sure the precious cargo I carry is safe.
Madison’s quiet against me, her face tucked against my neck where she peppers her own open-mouthed kisses, her breath warm and uneven against my skin, and I think this is what I was made for.
Not the work, not the music, not the careful life I built alone. This.
I find her room, the door already open, and carry her straight to the bed. Lowering her gently, I brace my arms on either side of her and meet her eyes.
The sight of her hits me like a freight train. Golden hair fanned across the bed, lips swollen, eyes dark and wanting, the soft curve of her stomach visible beneath her shirt. She’s beautiful in a way that makes my chest ache.
“You’re so beautiful,” I say, the words rough, almost pained because those words don’t begin to cover it.
She stares up at me and something charged moves behind her eyes. “I’ve never seen a man more beautiful than you.”
I groan, letting my head drop to her chest, the words ingraining themselves upon my ribs.
Her fingers slide into my hair, nails scratching across my scalp and the sensation ripples down my spine.
I breathe against her, trying to collect myself.
I’m scattered, completely unmade and remade entirely around her.
When I lift my head, my eyes meet hers. “I’ve never had sex without a condom and I haven’t been with anyone since my last check-up.”
Her gaze holds mine, her fingers moving over the stubble lining my jaw.
“I got tested at my first OB appointment, and I obviously can’t get pregnant while I already am.
” She smirks, and I love that she’s joking at a moment like this, but the idea of being bare inside, of spilling my cum inside her makes my already hard cock pulse with need and something deeper—the innate certainty that I want to mark her, claim her as mine, and bind her to me in every way that matters.
I search her face, looking for any sign of doubt. “You’re sure?”
“I need to feel you. All of you.”
I can’t help the growl that escapes my throat, the sound coming from somewhere deep and primal.
I take my time undressing her, starting with her shirt. Standing, I pull Madison up to sit on the edge of her bed and lift her shirt up over her head. I find her bare beneath and the sight makes me groan again, low and helpless.
“Lie back and scoot up the bed,” I demand in a low voice, my eyes glued to hers as I follow her.
I pepper kisses across her chest, between the valley of her breasts and down the plane of her stomach, only stopping when I reach the growing curve of her belly. I rest my hands on either side of her, my touch gentle and reverent as I press a kiss right in the center.
Her breath hitches, and I look up at her.
“I can’t wait to meet him,” I say, my voice thick. “I can’t wait to be part of his life.”
She reaches for me, pulling me up her body for a kiss that’s deep and searching. A kiss that tastes like something that scares me in the best way. Like hope and home and everything I knew I was missing but didn’t know I could find again until she walked into my life.
When she pulls back, her eyes are bright. “You’re an amazing man,” she whispers. “I don’t deserve you, but I’m not letting you go.”
Her hands hold my face, but I shake my head all the same. “If anyone isn’t deserving, it’s me of you.”