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“Let’s only keep the good ones then,” I suggest.
“Okay. I like that idea.” His lips brush my knuckle as he speaks. “I want to kiss you.”
“You already are.”
His smile grows and his lashes lower as he dips in close. “I mean your pretty lips.”
“Then you should do that.” I wait for the gentle, warm press.
“Want or let?” he asks.
“Need.”
And then he’s wrapped around me, lips on mine, tongue stroking slow inside my mouth, his low moan vibrating through my entire body.
It’s a new first kiss. His brief absence from my life is washed away.
He pulls back to ask, “Can I take you upstairs?”
At my nod, he links our hands. It takes forever to get up the stairs because we can’t stop kissing. When he pushes the door to his room open he mutters a curse. “I didn’t think…”
His room is a mess. Clothes are strewn on the floor by the dresser. His bed is unmade. The light in the bathroom is on, and discarded towels are hanging on the edge of the tub. It’s a big tub. A nice soaker.
“Wow. You’re a real neat freak, huh?”
“Let me tidy up a bit, aye?”
He starts to move away, but I clutch his hand tighter. “Why bother when we’re going to mess it all up anyway?”
“You make a good point.”
And then we’re back to kissing, and undressing. Clothing hits the floor, teeth clash and nip. He pauses when I’m in my bra and panties. “Look at you. So beautiful.” His hands roam my body, reacquainting.
“We’ll go slow later, aye?” He walks me backward to the bed.
“Aye,” I mock breathlessly, tilting my head so he can kiss his way along my throat.
He bites my chin and makes a little growling noise that hardens my nipples and heats me from the inside out. Lance lays me out on the bed, pushing the rumpled sheets out of the way. He digs around in the nightstand drawer while we kiss and I touch him.
“You know, if you stop trying to multitask, it would probably be easier.”
He grumbles something into my neck.
“What was that?”
“I don’t wanna stop kissing you.”
“Not even for a second?” His lips are on my jaw now.
“Not even for a second.”
A huge crash shocks a gasp out of me as he pulls the drawer free from the nightstand, and it lands on the floor. Lance holds up a condom with a satisfied smile. Actually, it’s a strip of condoms. “Got what I needed.”
“Do we really need that?” I ask.
He blinks a couple of times. “I dunno, do we not?”
“I’m on the pill.”
“And you think that’s safe enough?”
“Do you?” I run my fingers through his hair, asking the question without putting it into words.
He regards me for a few long seconds. “You trust me?”
“Aye.”
He huffs a little laugh and shakes his head. “Is that yer new favorite word, then?” It comes out with an accent.
“Maybe.” I pause before adding, “Aye.”
He drops his face into the crook of my neck. “Precious, you have no idea what you’re doing to me right now.” He kisses along my neck, and I feel him, hot and hard against me. “If I go in bare, I’m not gonna last long,” he says when he gets to my mouth.”
“That’s okay. We have all night for you to be sweet with me.”
He drops the strip of condoms on the covers and takes my face in his hands. With his eyes on mine he sinks in to me. For a moment I’m lost, and then I’m found in him.
This is nothing like the last time I was with him. This is connection in its purest form. Sensation blends with emotions that have yet to be uttered. But they will, because they’re too big for either of us to contain anymore.
I come just before he does, and the world is devoid of color. There is only this man and this moment.
“Poppy?” Lance’s arm is wrapped around me, anchoring me to his chest, even though I still feel like I’m floating.
“Mmm?”
“I have to tell you something.”
I lift my head at his nervous tone.
He runs a finger from the bridge of my nose to the tip and touches it to my lips. “I’m in love with you.”
“That’s good to know.” I pause, his panicked expression almost comical, except that it’s genuine, so I continue. “Because I’m in love with you, too.”
My words turn his fear into tenderness.
And then he spends the rest of the night, with his touch and his words, explaining exactly how precious I am.EPILOGUEFOREVER ISN’T
JUST A WORD
LANCE
One year laterI’m not sure I believe that time heals all wounds. I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Sure, time is a factor in washing away old pain, but it’s what, or who, those losses and wounds are replaced by that makes the real difference.
I won’t put my happiness on Poppy. That’s a burden, not a compliment. But she’s the light I needed to find my way out of the dark spaces in my head. I still go there sometimes, but I have a reason not to stay.
