I hauled her against me, looking down into her eyes. “Baby, you get all the credit… for making me the man I am. I hope you realize that.”
She shook her head before breaking eye contact. “How can you say that? I just came back into your life.”
I tapped my finger against my temple. “You were always right here, even when you weren’t physically in my life anymore. I didn’t want to be the loser I told you I would be. I wanted to be better, more, maybe even getting the chance to prove it to you someday.”
“Come sit with me, let’s talk.” She threaded her fingers through mine and led me to the navy sectional positioned in the middle of the room.
I watched her sit down and tuck her legs under her before setting her water bottle down on the live edge coffee table and patting the cushion next to her.
I set my bottle down beside hers and joined her, my mind racing with all the things I wanted to say, but trying to remain calm, so as not to overwhelm her.
“You really thought we’d get another shot someday?” she asked, curling her hand around my thigh.
“I prayed we would.”
Prayed may have been too strong a word. I’d hoped. I’d never believed in a Higher Power because there’d been no evidence of it in my life growing up. I didn’t believe God would let a kid get burned or beaten or abandoned for days on end with no food or supervision while his mother went on a bender and his old man went whoring around with the next-door neighbor.
“I didn’t want to believe it could end like that, Codie. It didn’t feel right. So, when I walked into that meeting and saw you, I was… speechless. And every meeting since, hearing people talk about divine intervention and synchronicity and Higher Power, made me start to wonder if it was more than a coincidence, running into you that night, of all nights. When I was finally ready to accept help to change my life. And no one, other than you, could have given me the kick in the ass I needed to stay sober. Not even Trey’s threats of kicking me off his tour.”
She pinched her lips together and squeezed my thigh. “I was pretty shocked seeing you again too. I’d told myself I’d forgiven you and let go. I was over that time of my life, or so I thought. But seeing you again dredged it all up again.”
“I’m sorry—”
“I’m not.” Her eyes met mine and she whispered. “It was necessary. We had unfinished business, you and I. I can feel that now.”
“Unfinished business?” My heart started racing, fear creeping into every cell of my body. This woman had the kind of power over me no one else ever had. She had the power to hurt me. To crush my dreams. And drive me right back to the bottle. And I hated admitting that, even to myself.
“You feel it too, don’t you?”
I didn’t even know how to answer that, so I waited for her to continue. To say the words that wouldn’t drive me right back into the pit of despair I’d been trying so hard to climb out of since she walked back into my life, with the promise of one more chance with my soul mate.
She pushed my shoulders back into the sofa and climbed into my lap, straddling me. She threaded her hands through my hair, her voice a throaty whisper as she brought her lips to my ear.
“You consume me, Maverick.”
I felt the shudder her words caused, like an inner vibration.
“You get into my head, my heart. My body pulses with longing when you look at me. I want you to touch me. To taste me. To claim me.”
I swore softly before slowly popping the buttons lining her black button-down shirt. She’d been practically spilling out of it all-night, revealing a lacy black bra, while a bunch of horny old men and drunk college kids who’d overpaid for tattoos thought they’d earned the right to ogle her cleavage while she worked.
Watching it from the stage, trying to remember the lyrics to my own songs, while resisting the urge to pummel assholes disrespecting the only woman who could turn me inside out, made for a long, interesting, torturous night.
“Is that why you wore this?” I asked, sucking in a deep breath when I finally got to see that demi lace bra she’d been teasing me with all night. “So I wouldn’t be able to help myself? Because I can’t, you know. I can’t resist the urge topossessyou.” I emphasized that word, letting it sink in while my eyes collided with hers. “I want to possess you, girl. The way you’ve always possessed me.”
She moaned before leaning in and claiming my mouth in a hot, passionate kiss that ended with us tearing each other’s clothes off in a violent rush before she resumed her spot on my lap, lowering her body slowly, obscuring my shaft, inch by delicious inch as I closed my eyes and tipped my head back, getting lost in the feel of her.
When she started rocking against me, using my body to bring her pleasure, and ultimately get off, I let her cries infiltrate every cell, filling me with the kind of fulfillment I’d ever known. Because I got it, for the first time. My purpose on this Earth was this woman. To bring her pleasure. To make her happy. To earn her love and trust and promise of forever. To be the best damn father I could be to her babies. And to be the strong, sober, rock-solid husband who was always there for her. The foundation she built her world on.
“I love you,” I whispered, knowing it was pointless to try and hold it in any longer. She had to feel it in every touch. Hear it in every word of every song I’d ever wrote for her. See it every time I looked into her eyes… and begged her to love me back.
Her entire body tensed as she stared at me wide-eyed.
I closed my hands around her waist, in case the fear reared its ugly head again and she tried to bail on me. “I don’t expect you to say anything. I just needed you to know how I feel about you.”
“I… I…”
Her eyes filled with tears and her bottom lip trembled. She was gorgeous and vulnerable, and stripped completely bare for me in that moment and the only thing I wanted to do was love her and protect her.
