Page 55 of Coming Home

He caught the movement instantly. "Don't you dare hide from me, Emma. Stay right there."

He stripped off his own clothes, stepping out of his boxers, and my lungs forgot how to function again. Ralph Brandt undressed was a sight that required a medical warning. He was an absolute Adonis—beautiful, sculpted, and blindingly golden.

A lifetime of elite athletic discipline had carved his body into a masterpiece of broad shoulders, a tapered waist, and deep V-lines that disappeared into the dark blonde hair below his stomach. He looked like an ancient marble statue brought to life, radiating pure, lethal masculinity.

He closed the distance between us, his navy eyes darkened with unadulterated hunger. His large hands caught my waist, his thumbs resting against my hip bones. With an effortless, sweeping motion, he scooped me off my feet, cradling my weight against his broad chest.

The old insecurity flared, and I buried my face in his neck. "Ralph, stop... put me down. I'm too heavy for this now⁠—"

"Finish that sentence," he growled, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous sweetness that sent a thrill straight to my core, "and I will carry you up and down this entire house until you admit you're wrong. You are light as a feather to me, Emma. And even if you weighed twice what you do now, you'd still belong in my arms. So shut your beautiful mouth and let me take care of you."

He laid me down in the center of his massive bed. The linen sheets were cool, but the contrast was short-lived as he crawled over me, his heavy thighs framing my hips.

And then, he worshipped me.

He didn't give me a hurried glance. He looked at me like I was holy ground, his slow, thorough gaze mapping every single inch of my flesh so reverently it made my throat tighten.

He leaned down, pressing his hot lips into the slope of my shoulder. "I love this skin," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. He moved to my collarbone, his tongue darting out to lick the racing pulse there. "And I love this."

His mouth traveled lower, tracing the fullness of my breasts, his thumb and forefinger teasing the peak until a loud, unbidden cry tore from my lips. He pressed his open mouth against the skin directly over my ribs, right where my heart was fracturing. "I love how frantic you get when I touch you here."

Then, his mouth drifted down to my stomach. The place I loathed. The area that had expanded from the steroids and the chronic illness, the part I had spent those long months crying over in front of bathroom mirrors. My entire body tensed, my hands grabbing his blonde hair to pull him up.

He didn't move. His large hands locked onto my wrists, pinning them gently beside my head, forcing my body to remain open to him.

He pressed a soft, lingering kiss directly into the center of my abdomen. Then another. He moved his mouth to the silver, faded stretch marks on my hips—the indelible map of a body that had fought a war just to survive. I tried to twist away, a sob rising in my throat, but he held my hips immobile with an iron grip.

"These lines are yours," he murmured against my hip, his breath scalding my skin. "They mean you survived, Ems. You don't get to hide your battle scars from the man who loves you."

My vision blurred. Silent, burning tears began to stream down my temples, soaking into his pillows. I was crying, but not the way I used to. Every part of me I'd spent three years apologizing for was being kissed like it was worth keeping, and the shame I'd cried into a hundred bathroom mirrors was finally, quietly leaving my body.

He kissed every single mark. One by one. His lips were incredibly warm, his touch so deeply reverent it felt like a religious rite. He kissed the soft swell of my belly, the curve of my waist, the heavy slope of my thighs. With every single stroke of his lips, a locked iron door inside my soul was violently kicked open.

Nerves I thought had died years ago under the weight of illness and neglect suddenly screamed back to life, tingling with a pleasure so sharp it felt like fire.

"You're so magnificent," he whispered, his voice cracking with raw emotion as he trailed his lips back up my ribs. "You have no idea what you do to me."

When his face finally hovered back over mine, he used his thumbs to gently brush the tears from my cheeks. His expression was a breathtaking mix of fierce possessiveness and aching tenderness.

"I love you, Emma. I love every single inch of you."

He kissed my wet eyelids, the bridge of my nose, and then dragged his lips across my mouth in a slow, deep, maddening tease that had me arching my hips against his, begging for the ache to stop.

He gave me no quarter. He guided my legs over his broad shoulders, opening me to the amber light, and when he finally drove inside me, our gazes locked. Neither of us broke the connection.

The chemistry between us was an absolute wildfire, a scorching, blinding heat that consumed the oxygen in the room. He thrust into me with a deep, deliberate slowness that had me clawing at the muscles of his arms, my head thrashing against the pillows as the pleasure built into something agonizingly intense.

"Look at me," he commanded softly, his hips grinding into mine, sending a wave of electricity straight to my brain. "Stay with me, Ems."

I held his face between my trembling hands, looking into the brilliant, fierce navy of his eyes, seeing the unvarnished love written so clearly across his features.

"I love you," I wept, the words tearing out of me as the climax crashed through me and blurred the room to white. "I love you so much, Ralph."

"I've got you," he whispered against my lips, his pace accelerating into a hard, passionate rhythm that had us both gasping for air. "I've got you, my girl."

I wrapped my arms around his neck, worshipping his magnificent body in return, my fingers digging into the hard muscles of his back as we burned together in the center of his bed, melting into the sheets until there was nothing left of the past but ash.

Afterward, we lay properly tangled, the heat of our bodies still radiating under the heavy comforter. My head was pillowed on his chest, my arm draped across his torso, our legs intertwined under sheets that were, he was correct, significantly better than the motel's.