Page 82 of Waiting for You

"Nothing."

"Sloane."

"I'm just sitting here."

Her hand slid down my chest and found the buttons of my dress shirt. Heat shot through me, my knuckles whitening on the wheel.

"I'm operating a moving vehicle."

"I'm aware." Her gaze stayed steady and wicked. "How far is your house?"

"Two minutes." I took a sharp left. The residential street was dead quiet, no traffic. My front gates loomed at the end of the block.

Her hand drifted lower.

A sharp hiss escaped my teeth.

She shifted closer, turning her attention to my belt. Keeping the car between the lane markers took all the focus I had. I swung into my driveway and killed the engine before my brain fully registered the decision.

I didn't reach for the door handle. I hit the lever to recline my seat instead. Sloane let out a breathy laugh as I hauled her up and settled her across my lap, straddling me in the dim cabin, the security lights throwing shadows across her face.

"I'm about to ruin you."

Her smile turned lethal. "Prove it."

What happened next was muscle memory and years of wanting, the kiss going deep before I'd even finished the thought. Her hands worked faster than mine, impatient, and I let her win, because eight years had taught me exactly how she liked to take what she wanted. The windows fogged. But neither of us cared where we were, that the engine ticked as it cooled, that anyone could have walked past the gate.

There was only the heat of her against me, the small frantic sounds she made into my mouth, the way she said my name like she'd been holding it on her tongue the whole drive. I knew this body. I'd dreamed about it on too many nights I'd refused to admit to. And here she was again, real and warm, gripping my shoulders hard enough to bruise, both of us moving in that desperate rhythm of two people who'd been starved of each other for too long.

It hit fast and hard, years of restraint collapsing all at once. When it broke, it left us gasping in the dark, her forehead dropped to mine, our breath tangling in the narrow space between us. I held the back of her neck, breathing her in.

She dragged her heavy eyelids open and smiled.

"Are we done?"

I let out a ragged breath. "Not even close."

She slid off my lap, popped the passenger door, and stepped out into the cool night air. I adjusted my clothes and followed.

I unlocked the front door, pulled her inside, and pinned her against the wall for another kiss. I scooped her up again, ignoring her breathless laughter, and carried her up the staircase to the bedroom.

I lowered her onto the mattress. She stared up at me, chest heaving.

We came together again in the dark, slower this time, the frantic edge of the car giving way to something deeper. There was no hurry left in either of us. We had the whole night, and for once nothing was waiting to take it away. I took my time learning her again, the places that made her breath catch, the ones that had her fingers curling into my back, every map I thought I'd lost coming back under my hands.

Every touch carried all the years we'd spent apart, each one an apology and a vow at once, an answer to every night I'd reached for someone who wasn't her. I was finally home. Her hands moved over me slowly and certainly, her mouth found mine in the dark, and she said my name low in her throat, a sound she'd only ever made for me. All of it was the only thing I'd ever needed and the one thing I'd convinced myself I'd never have again.

The bed frame groaned as we found the rhythm once more, unhurried, reverent, two people who already knew how this ended and wanted to make it last anyway. When it finally crested, there was nothing left between us but skin and breath and the quiet certainty that this, her, was where I belonged. I gathered her against me and felt her heartbeat slow against mine, and I let myself believe it would still be there in the morning.

Hours later, exhaustion finally won. The first gray hints of dawn crept through the bedroom blinds.

Sloane lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.

I rolled my head to the side. "What's going on in that brain?"

"At the rehearsal dinner," she started. "When you first saw me. Did you instantly think, to hell with it, I want her back?"

"Instantly. And then the history caught up with me, and I panicked."