“That’s because you decided to run off and get married,” I joked, though it fell a little flat. That was the reality of our situation, and it sucked. Avoiding it did us no good, though. We might as well face it head-on if we have any hope of a future.
“I did,” he admitted. There were no excuses or platitudes. It was just his way of surviving at the time.
“Sit down,” I said, pushing to my feet. He did so without question, trading places until I was the one standing in front of him. His hands came up to cup the back of my thighs, fingers tracing circles on my skin.
Reaching for the hem of my shirt, I pulled it up and over my head before discarding it on the floor next to his. Grady’s eyesscanned my torso, searching for any hint of the ink he was desperate to see.
I let my touch trail down my stomach to the button of my shorts and popped it free. His eyes were on fire, lust-filled and crazed. His hands came up and began working the denim down my hips and thighs, and his lips parted when I was wearing nothing but my bra and panties.
The moment he spotted the markings, his lips parted on a gasp. It wasn’t nearly as fancy as his, but there, hidden along my hip bone, was the word bluebird in cursive script.
“Oh, Cleo,” he said, leaning forward to reverently place a solemn kiss along the ink. “Oh, baby. When did you do this?”
“The night I graduated from college. Rachel and I were drunk along Sixth Street and saw the sign. We decided to be a little wild and reckless. Tattoos had been on our bucket list for some time, so we figured what better way to close out our college days.” I smiled as I thought of the memory. “I’d been missing you like crazy, you know. She took my phone so I wouldn’t call you. Because of that, I decided to be rebellious in another way.”
“So, you marked yourself with this,” he said, finishing my thought.
“I’ve always been yours, even when I wasn’t.”
He stared up at me, and I felt myself crumbling. Tonight, it wasn’t about conversations or logistics or getting rid of sexual tension. This was about Grady and me. It was about the love we shared, because even I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I glanced at the clock, heart racing as I saw the time.
11:11 p.m.
And when he whispered, “I love you, bluebird,” so tenderly, so reverently against my skin, I let whatever was left of my walls crash to the ground.
“I love you, too.”
grady
. . .
“I love you, too.”
Four words had never sounded so fucking sweet. For a moment, I wondered if I was hallucinating. It was hard to believe Cleo Hayes was standing in my bedroom after all this time, wearing nothing but her underwear, telling me she loved me, but as I stared up at this maddeningly beautiful woman, I knew it was real.
She was real, she was here, and she fucking loved me.
She. Loved. Me.
I already knew it, and I never would’ve pressured her to say it before she was ready, or even at all, but hearing it fall from her lips so easily had soothed the anxious monster in my mind.
I reached forward, scooping her up. She fell forward with the sweetest little giggle as I peppered her neck with kisses. Her legs fell on either side of my thighs, and suddenly, she was straddling me.
My hands held her face, both of us letting the charged emotions speak in ways our words never could. Saying ‘I love you’ wasn’t nearly enough to encompass what I felt for her. It was too limiting. Too finite.
“You are mine,” I said, pressing my lips to hers.
“All yours,” she replied, sweeping her tongue across my own, deepening the kiss. Her hands went behind her back, unclasping her bra and letting it slip down her shoulders. It took me a moment to realize what she’d done, until she was pulling away to discard the article of clothing. I stared at her, silhouetted by the light coming from my bathroom. The outline of her breasts, the way I watched her nipples harden under my gaze, it made me fucking ache with need. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, and she was all mine.
I bent my head forward, moving my lips down her neck to her shoulder before coming to a stop at her chest. She wound her fingers into my hair as I latched onto one of her nipples, sucking it into my mouth and letting my tongue lave over the tight bud. My hips rolled up as I switched to the other, trying like hell not to whip my dick out and tug her panties to the side so I could bury myself inside her tight, wet heat.
Why the fuck was I still wearing jeans? Why didn’t I think ahead enough to take them off? Granted, I didn’t know her secret tattoo would be hidden behind her goddamn underwear. That was a surprise I never saw coming, not even after she told me it wasn’t anywhere the public would be able to see. I figured it was an ankle, or maybe even something along her back, but my girl was full of surprises.
Cleo ground down against me as I worshipped her breasts, both of us biting back moans of pleasure as we chased a high that would come too soon. I wasn’t above embarrassing myself, especially not if she got her pleasure first. As much as I wanted to come, I wanted to make sure she was taken care of.
While I didn’t want to think about her with someone else, I couldn’t help but wonder how long it’d been since she was last touched. For me, it’d been a damn long time, which was why I was close to coming in my pants. Our current predicament reminded me of our first time, how she watched me masturbateto the sight of her just so I could make our first last more than a single minute.
Reaching between us, I found her clit through the fabric of her soaked panties, rubbing tight circles around the area. Cleo let out a moan, her fingers pulling tighter at my scalp as she rotated her hips. She pressed against my dick and my thumb, frantically searching for what combination felt good.
