Those were the exact words I needed. I wanted them tattooed somewhere so I could read them forever. Inside my heart, maybe.
Without letting go, Sam pulled out and thrust in again, making pleasure rip through me each time he filled me.
I lost sense of time then. All I knew was Sam being a part of me; Sam’s lips on mine, then on my throat, then on my breasts as I tipped back and rocked my hips, bouncing myself on his cock.
But even as I melted into the feeling of him bottoming out in me, it didn’t feel close enough. I had the insane thoughtthat I wanted him to fuck me without the condom. To know him so completely that it was impossible to get any closer. But that’s how we got into this mess, wasn’t it?
Was it really a mess?
It didn’t feel like it now. It felt like a dream. A glorious, beautiful dream where this man who’d shared himself in every way with me—his deepest pains and darkest moments—was holding me against him like he never wanted to let me go, as he buried himself to the hilt in me over and over again.
“You feel like you were made for me, Ellie,” Sam managed through gritted teeth. He was trying to restrain himself, I could tell. He was close. When his eyes met mine, they were cautious. Pained. Vulnerable. Like he was worried aboutmevanishing onhim.
I’d never been in this position before.
“I’m here,” I whispered. “I’m here, Sam.”
I wasn’t sure if I meant right now or more than that, but right now, it felt like he wanted to give me the world.
And at least in this moment, I was going to take it. I fell back on the bed, allowing him to use his hands to grip my hips. He lifted my thighs, hooking them over his elbows. I had no idea how he was holding me like that, but I didn’t care, because the sensation and sound of him pounding into me like this—the lewd claps where we met—they were enough to bring me to the brink.
“Touch yourself, Ellie,” Sam instructed. “Right now. I need to see it. I need to feel you come on my cock.”
I was so close with the angle he was fucking me at that touching my clit was like touching a live wire. The moment I did I began to peak, and only seconds later the most intense orgasm of my life rocketed through me. Everything spasmed, and I had to throw my arm over my mouth to keep from screaming. I felt my pussy clench Sam’s cock, and then he wasstiffening against me too, grunting like an animal as he came hard inside of me.
The waves took forever to ebb, and when they did, all Sam did was release my legs. He stayed inside of me while he collapsed on my body, whispering something I couldn’t hear.
Something soft and sweet and raw.
Something that didn’t sound at all like this was it for us.
CHAPTER 34
Dads and Moms
SAM
It was sometime after five AM when I snuck out of Ellie's bed and crept upstairs to lie back down on the couch. We'd only fallen asleep a couple of hours ago, but I didn't want to risk Tommy coming up and finding me gone.
As I pulled the sheet up over me, the early morning sun glowing through the open patio door; the first birds singing, I felt like I was floating on air.
Last night was the most incredible night of my life. Period. I could still feel Ellie under my hands. I could smell her hair with every breath.
But then again, every second I spent with Ellie, Henry and Tommy set the bar for incredible. As I lay there with my hands behind my head, I thought about how it wasn’t just the amazing moments that made me feel this way. Even the shitty ones did. Like when I forgot the diaper bag at home and Henry seemed to know it. Or when Tommy grumbled something a little mean.
Even the things that were getting repetitive felt like a privilege.
They were all things Ulli and Mirabelle would never get a chance to experience.Things I never thoughtIwould get to experience. Not before everything happened, and especially not after, when my world grew so small.
I couldn't believe how much things had changed in the couple of months since Ellie and I had met each other again. There was a baby sock on the coffee table next to me, beside the little doll that still stood there. I’d picked it up off the floor last night not thinking anything of it. Now, taking it in my hand, feeling the soft stretchy fluff of itover my fingers, I felt beside myself. What a gift to get to pick a baby sock up off the floor. What a privilege to screw things up. To burn dinner; to clean up baby shit. To explain casually to a teenager why it was our job to put the toilet seat down, no matter what.
I sat up as the realization hit me like a smack in the face.
I’d spent years trying to find my purpose. I’d moved to a new location, kept honing in on different careers.
None of it ever felt right, because wherever I went, I was still me.
And without knowing it, I’d been waiting forthis.
