Page 60 of Left of Forever

“Wren.”

“I’ll go slow. I’ll try not to make it hurt. If I hurt you, tell me and I’ll stop. I think those are all things you said to me, too.”

“Fuck, baby.” He’s breathing heavily now, running a wetpalm over his mustache as he tries to make room for me to step into the tub, water trickling over the edge in the movement. I stand between his knees and watch him drag his gaze over every inch of me slowly, like he’s committing me to memory again. Some of my bravery wavers when I kneel, as I try to be graceful about it and end up needing to scootch and wriggle closer to him, wedging myself between his legs.

He stays utterly still aside from his chest rising and falling. The water licks up and retreats below his belly button with each exhale, the proud head of his cock resting there, too. I squirt some of my shower oil in my palm and ask again. “Let me help?”

“All right,” he rasps.

I let my hand slide beneath the water and lean forward to kiss his neck. Feel his hitching sound against my lips. I feel myself tremble a little, too. The oil seems to stay on my hand beneath the water, but I keep it careful and slow, letting my fingers slip against him gently. I catch the corner of his mouth with mine, wrap my hand around his cock, and give him one long, gentle tug. “Okay?”

“Yes,” comes out of him with a soft, graveled gasp. He idly thumbs one of my nipples.

“Ah-ah-ah,” I chide, which makes him go back to holding on to the tub. I’m sure he assumes I’m worried about any residue burning me, but I simply need to take care of him for once. Only him. I hold him a little tighter and notice that the smooth slide from the oil’s faded away. “Come inside with me?” I lean back and ask.

His heavy-lidded stare moves across my face, a hand lifting instinctively before he puts it back down. I wipe a droplet of water from his mustache. “I don’t think we can,” he says, a little mournful.

“I know,” I say. Even aching like I am, I’m not brave enough to test having him inside me. “I have another idea.”

I feel his soft grin like a twinge in my chest. “All right,” he says.

I grab the shower oil before he lets me lead him out of the tub, back inside the little cottage shed, a trail of wet footprints in our wake.

The distance from the back door to the bed is nearly nonexistent. I turn and sit at the edge of the mattress, bringing him closer to me by his hips and holding his gaze with mine.

“I thought of something we’ve never done.” I grab the oil and let some dribble down the center of my chest, everything cinching tight in my stomach when his mouth falls open and his thighs lightly quake. “Come here.”

He stumbles closer and cups the base of my skull in his hands, weaving into my hair and pulling so he can bend down and kiss me. The motion makes his cock draw a path down my front, and I let out a moan into his mouth.

He keeps one of his hands in my hair and watches himself when he grinds back up, where I squeeze him tight between my breasts.

“God, Wren,” he says, still glued to the sight. I can’t look away from him watching, or from the lust and the adoration on his face. I keep pushing, plucking at my nipples when he thrusts up against me again. My hips writhe against the sheets, and his grip in my hair curls tighter, his thrusts picking up. “Squeeze me, baby,” he begs, sliding over slick, warm skin, the muscles in his thighs straining. I lose any awareness of time, marveling at his face and his closeness again. At the cadence of his breath and the friction of him hot and hard on the skin over my chest. “Can I?” he asks with a rough gasp.

“Yes. Make a fucking mess,” I say, repeating his words back to him from last night.

His brow folds in amazement and relief right before he pulls back and comes with a truncated groan, some landing on my chin below the corner of my lip. I wait for his eyes before I swipe my tongue across it, which makes his neck arch back with another deeply satisfied, harsh sound. He rocks against me once more before he bends to kiss me again. “Thank you,” he says, kissing my forehead after nipping at my lips. “Let me grab a towel, I… I got a little in your hair, too, I think. Sorry.”

I wrap my hand around his wrist, where he’s still cupping my head in his big palm. He brings a thumb around to trace along my jaw, and I couldn’t care less if it ends up burning there. “It’s okay,” I say, softly laughing. I feel like my whole body is humming, like I needed this as much as he did.

We end up in the teeny indoor shower together. I kiss the tender pink skin around his eyes, and he washes my hair, laughs slipping out of us and our hands lathering over one another. We keep the kissing and touching as chaste as we can manage, but I still feel like an exposed nerve ending by the time we towel off.

I have no idea what time it is or where my phone might be, but the sunset shines rosy orange shapes through the gaps in the blinds as I pull on one of Ellis’s shirts. Something about the feel of it on my bare skin and his scent in my nose threatens to make me cry. I should manage my wet hair, but I catch him looking at me from the bed, bare-chested and smiling gently in the sherbet light, and I decide I’d rather slide in beside him now.

Even as I tuck myself into the crook of his shoulder, he keeps the hand at my back pressed to the sheet or his shirt, careful not to touch bare skin.

“Does anything still hurt?” I ask.

“My fingertips feel a little raw and my eyes still sting, but…” He sighs. “Everything else is better.”

I grin against his chest. Everything really is better in this moment with him.

Hope, hope, hopegoes that pulse again, desperately hoping nothing will change. Or that everything already has? I’m not sure either way, and I fall asleep happy.

CHAPTER 30

WREN

I awake to Ellis’s mouth on my bare hip, his shirt tucked up around my waist.