Page 88 of Read With Your Heart

“Heart and soul,” he replies. His fingers dip in a way that makes the flutters in my belly start. He’s going to bring me to the edge quickly, and my breath hitches, warning him I’m close. That’s when he releases me, shoves down his boxer briefs, and spreads my thighs with his hips. He sets himself at my entrance and holds himself just outside of me. The tip presses against me, ready to impale and fulfill his new promises.

“You okay with this?” he questions, looking at me with a blip of hesitation. “Skin to skin,” he states, struggling with how close we are. The anticipation. The passion.

“Heart to heart,” he whispers, and I nod. He’s already won me.

I brace for the rush, but he continues in a slow torturous stroke, slipping forward, dipping inward, and taking his time to fill me. I sigh in contentment. How can every time feel better than the last? Making love to him will never grow old.

Leon pauses his movements, closing his eyes while a vein works at his neck. He pulls back, retreating to my entrance, but my body will not release him. My thighs clamp over his hips. My hands come to his backside, squeezing the firmness and begging him to remain inside me.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he says as if he reads my thoughts. “I love you.”

A sob leaves me for some reason. A mixture of disbelief and pleasure swell inside. He’s said it a few times, but it’s always had a condition with it. He loves me, that’s why he’s back. He loves me, that’s why he wants to stay. He loves me, that’s why he wants to give me a baby. But this? It’s just that simple.

He loves me.

“You don’t need to say it, baby. I feel it.” He continues to prove to me how he reads me by moving forward, rocking his hips to increase the pace and filling me over and over again. “Your love surrounds me, and I am never letting it go.”

One tear leaks and then another. His thumb brushes them away. He stops talking, just working at pushing forward and pulling back until I can’t take it anymore.

“Faster,” I whisper, and he shifts, resting his knees under me and lifting my lower half. He does all the work, increasing the pace, deepening the thrusts, and rushing to give me what I want most. He watches where he enters me, and I watch his face, filled with fascination. His hands clutch at my thighs until the strain becomes too much for him.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs watching himself enter me. His palm slides over my belly as if he can will my womb to fill. He stretches his thumb to my clit and strokes at the folds, playing me like an instrument. I’ve never felt anything like this. This connection. This love.

“Let me in,” he says, and I clench around him, swallowing him with each thrust, bringing him deeper into me.

“You’re in, Leon. You’re so in. Mind, body, heart, and soul,” I whimper over the jarring surge of him inside me.

“What are you saying?” he stammers as his thumb circles me, and his dick hammers faster into me.

“I love you,” I strain, and then I break, coming around him like I’ve never come before. It’s a warm blanket draped over me. A paintbrush tickling my skin. A rush of emotion spilling out of me.

I reach for him, clutching at his biceps, holding him as if I’ll never let go. My thighs squeeze at his hips. He rocks three times as I come around him, and then he stills. I’m hyperaware of him jolting inside me, pouring his seed into me and another tear escapes.

Could this really be happening? Could he give me what I want most? His love. His child. It doesn’t seem possible after all we’ve been through, yet gazing up at him while keeping him buried inside me so nothing spills, I’m overwhelmed with more emotion than I’ve ever experienced.

Leon keeps my hips tilted upward, and it feels really real . . . and so incredible.

“If this doesn’t take, we’ll just keep working at it,” Leon says, glancing up at me. “I promise to make this happen for us, and I’m as good as my word, baby. Always as good as my word.”

+ + +

Leon and I spend the next month working on making a baby and preparing for the holidays with my family. We make it to the winter break from school, and once my literature exams are graded, I look forward to some time to relax.

The first weekend off, I plan to spend a day making Christmas cookies with my mother like I do every year. My sister and Emily are present, along with my niece, Katie. Lys is another new addition, and my mother smiles at her growing family. Cookie baking day is one of my favorite traditions.

Leon drops me off early, asking if he can use my car for a few things during the day. I assume he’s doing last-minute Christmas shopping like any man does. I’d be lucky if I received anything from Trent that hadn’t been purchased a day or two before the holiday with the unforgivable words of that’s all they had left when it was the wrong size, wrong color, or simply something I did not want. I hadn’t looked forward to the holidays in years as much as I looked forward to this one.

And it was all because of Leon.

“So I wanted to tell you something,” Emily says as we roll dough to be dropped into powdered sugar. “I’ve decided to adopt Katie.”

“Oh my God, that’s amazing!” I shriek, drawing the attention of my mother and Pam who don’t have quite the same reaction. I’m assuming they already know.

“Well, after all you admitted, I was reminded again that life is too short. I decided to approach Jess about making Katie mine. I mean, Debbie abandoned her, and I just love her so much.” My eyes cloud as do hers, proving the depth of love she feels for my brother’s daughter. Her daughter.

“I’m so excited for you. For all of you,” I say, looking up at Katie across the kitchen.

Emily hesitates a second. She takes a deep breath and rushes out the rest. “After knowing everything you lost, and even though it’s not the same thing, I just didn’t want to upset you by adopting Katie.”