That moment.
“I’m sure.”
I grabbed his hand, guiding him towards the bed, sat down at the edge, tugging him with me, kissing him again before he could even catch his balance. He stumbled a little, bracing himself awkwardly with his hands on either side of me.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
I couldn’t help but blush, and locked my lips on his before he could say anything else. His hands found my face, my neck, then the curve of my waist. I pushed his shirt off his shoulders, impatient, and he yanked it the rest of the way off. My palms skimmed down his chest, over the hard muscles of his stomach.
I found the button of his trousers, and he helped me shove them down. They hit the floor with a soft thud.
He was gorgeous.
All of him.
And he was mine.
When he leaned over me, I hooked my legs around his waist, pulling him closer, pushing him against me.
Will let out a sound, half a gasp, half a groan, and shifted his hips, finding me. I gasped, my back arching off the mattress, nails biting into his shoulders. The sheets were soft against my skin as his lips found my neck, my collarbone, my mouth again, slower, as if he wanted to savor every part of me.
I arched into him. I couldn’t stop myself. Didn’t want to. He moved deeper, the rhythm finding us, slow at first, then building. Each thrust crashing through me like waves against stone.
Relentless. Steady. A tide I didn’t want to escape from.
My nails raked down his back and he moaned, sinking into me.
“I love you,” he breathed.
The words fell apart in my mouth as I said them back.
My legs wrapped tighter around his waist, pulling him closer as I was unraveling. Coming apart under him. With him.
He groaned against my mouth, his hips rolling into me fast and deep, and I swear I saw stars.
I cried out. Couldn’t help it. And he swallowed the sound with his mouth. The way he looked at me told me that nothing would ever be the same. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t want it to. Because I didn’t feel broken anymore.
I was whole. I was his. And he wasmine.
----- ?⋅?⋅? -----
Will’s head was in my lap, his hair slipping through my fingers as I twirled a strand around and around. It had finally gotten long enough for me to do that.
I had stayed up most of the night, watching him sleep. He looked so beautiful in sleep it almost hurt. I might have dozed off too if I wasn’t so scared. Scared of letting go, scared of burning the world down if I fell asleep without the moon drops. The moon drops that were in my room, and I wasn’t leaving his. The sun was starting tomove higher in the sky, filling the room with a soft, golden light. The ocean shimmered just outside the window, the glare of it almost blinding in the morning light.
I stayed perfectly still, and every part of me wanted to stay in the bed, in that room, in that version of the world, where there was only Will, and warmth, and the way his fingers had curled into my thigh in sleep.
But time was moving again.
I wondered if Aran had gotten back yet. If the plan had worked. If Kalani was still asleep. If everything outside the room was already beginning to shift. Will shifted slightly in my lap, a soft sound escaping him, but he didn’t wake. I smiled to myself, gently stroking his cheek, feeling the weight of him there, real and warm and mine.
And then, his voice, low and rough with sleep: “I’ve never said that to anyone before.”
“Said what?” I asked.
Then, so quiet it almost wasn’t there, “I love you.”
”That’s what you’re thinking about?” I laughed softly.
