Page 80 of The Best I Never Had

I blindly grope beside me for the condoms I’d dropped on the blanket earlier, throwing him the first one my hand closes around. “If you don’t get up here and fuck me, I’m going to lose my mind.”

“Pretty sure I lost my mind the second you walked back into my life.” He grins at me as he tears the condom open.

Owen pushes himself to stand, eyes moving hungrily over me as he slips the condom on his incredible cock and gives it a rough tug.

“Owen, please,” I beg.

In the thirteen years since I started having sex, I’ve never once begged. I’ve demanded and asked and taken, but I’ve never been so desperate that I’d beg to have someone inside me. But I need him, can feel where I’m empty and throbbing for him, and I’d crawl on my hands and knees to have him if that’s what it took.

He lowers himself between my shaking legs. “You don’t need to beg, Thea. Not for what’s already yours.”

I whimper when he nudges at my entrance. He goes slow, watching my face with rapt attention as he sinks in, inch by glorious inch. When he’s fully seated, he lowers his mouth, brushing his lips over mine.

“You do know that, don’t you?” he asks.

My brain is too scattered by the incredible stretch of him to even consider what he means. “What?”

“Do you know”—he grinds against me, filling me even more and putting the most perfect pressure on my clit—“that you already own me?”

He pulls back slowly, then fills me again with a hard thrust. I wrap my arms around him, running my nails down his back until I reach his ass, gripping it with both hands and reveling in the glory that is his body. He groans, dropping his head to the crook of my neck and nipping at my skin. I roll my hips to meet his, spurring him on.

More, more, more.

He growls, one hand coming to my thigh and squeezing so tightly it’s almost painful, but the bite of it just pushes me closer to where I need to be.

“Tell me you know,” he grinds out, his other hand twining in my hair and tugging to force me to meet his gaze.

No one’s ever belonged to me. No one’s ever wanted to belong to me, but there’s no room for doubt when he looks at me like that. The intensity in his eyes shoots me off like a rocket, and I can’t tear my gaze from his as I come around his cock, calling out, “I know.”

He groans, hard and ragged and desperate, and his pace picks up. “Fuck, Thea—so good, so fucking good for me—fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He slams into me one last time, his body shuddering as he follows me into ecstasy.

As he drops himself over me, peppering my neck with kisses, I believe him. He is mine, and I think I may be his, too.

Owen grabs his shirt, walking out into the rain, naked as Adam, to wet it again, then brings it back to run over my slick body, skimming his lips along my skin and murmuring praise. How good I was and how stunning I look and how special I am.

He pulls me into his arms after, his fingertips tracing circles on my skin as we both listen to the storm raging outside. Thunder echoing off the slopes. Droplets of rain hitting the roof. The way the world quiets for a couple of hours, freezing in time with nothing to do but wait and savor the moment. The calm in the storm instead of before it.

So I let myself embrace it, knowing there will be another storm to manage when we get back. But for now, I have warmth and joy and Owen.

And a three-condom promise that needs fulfilling.

Chapter 24

OWEN

I don’t know if I’ve slept better in my life than with the comforting weight of Thea’s head on my chest, which makes it even more startling when she bursts out of my arms like a wild animal escaping its cage. I jump up, pulling her behind me to protect her from the unknown threat, but as I look around the barn, there’s nothing but us.

Thea whimpers, and I spin to look at her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

She’s looking at the door, light drifting in through the slats. “That doesn’t look like sunset, does it?”

Now that she’s pointed it out, I can see what she means. The sun streaming into the barn is softer than it should be. The air is cooler, and even before I dig out my phone, I know we slept through the night.

“Shit,” Thea mutters, moving around the barn to gather her things.

I follow Thea’s lead. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get going now.”