Page 89 of Chasing the Other Woman

His forehead rests against mine. His breath drags rough over my mouth.

“Tell me,” he says.

I swallow. “Tell you what?”

“Tell me you want this. Tell me to slow down. Tell me to stop. Tell me anything, Sam. I’ll listen.”

My throat tightens so fast it hurts.

Because he means it.

Not just here. Not just with his hands at my hips and his body warm against mine. He means all of it. The field. The team. The life. My body. My choices.

I lift my hands to his face. His stubble scrapes my palms. “I want this.”

His eyes close.

“I want you,” I say, and the words shake because I hate that they are still so easy. “I’m mad at you. I still have hurts stacked up high enough to need their own county warning system. But I want you.”

“Then that’s what I can have tonight,” he says quietly. “What you choose to give me.”

I kiss him before I start crying.

Brooks makes a broken sound against my mouth. His hands tighten once at my waist before one slides up my back and the other cups the side of my neck. He kisses me deep and slow now, like the first rush burned through and left something hotter underneath.

I get his jacket off, careful of his shoulder. He winces anyway.

“Don’t be heroic,” I mutter.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Don't yes ma'am me unless you mean it."

His mouth brushes the corner of mine. “I’ve missed that.”

“Me bossing you around?”

“You being there to do it.” His fingers skim my jaw, avoiding the bruise. “Beside me in the truck. At three in the morning with bad coffee and worse gas station sandwiches.

"I missed waking up and finding your cold feet shoved under my legs,” he says. “I missed you pushing me off my own damned pillow. I missed you telling me I was pretty enough to be useful when I was being an ass.”

“You were an ass a lot.”

“I know.” His thumb strokes once beneath my ear. “I missed that too. You calling me on it.”

I look down.

For so long, I thought the small pieces of me had become inconveniences to him. My instincts. My stubbornness. My need to be where the storm was. My voice in his ear telling him what he didn’t want to hear.

Brooks tips my chin up. “I missed all of you.”

There is no clever thing to say to that.

So I drag his mouth back to mine and unbutton his shirt with hands that are steadier now for a different reason. His skin is warm beneath my fingers, marked with bruises from the storm, a strip of bandage over one shoulder. I touch him carefully, and he looks down at me like even that is more than he expected to receive.

“Sam,” he whispers.

I push the shirt off his good shoulder first. “I’ve missed you too.”