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“Last night,” he shifted, uncomfortable with her scrutiny. “When you came inside, I waited on the street. Our neighbor,” his eyes went up to the window, “was out there smoking a cigar. The woman was his wife and they’ve been married years. He said he’d die for her.” Reid’s eyes found hers again. “That’s how I feel about you.”
How do you finish with a man who says something like that and hands you all the power?
“If you told me you wanted me to drown in the Seine I would. Leap off the Eiffel Tower, I’m there. But I get that’s not a smart way to feel and it’s more likely you’ll tell me to piss off, and the way I die is slowly in wretched pieces from being without you.”
She could make a crack about being arrested before he tried to leap of the Eiffel Tower but she had no breath to do that with.
“He said they hate each other and they love each other and it was the same thing.” Reid closed his eyes, visibly affected. “I can figure the most complicated algorithms but I’ve spent all night trying to understand that. For a while last night I hated you, even while I panicked about losing you.” Those blue-gray, orange-flecked eyes locked onto hers again. “I almost lost my best friends because I didn’t understand that you can love and hate at the same time. I don’t want to break up, but I think you do.”
“I said I’d teach you all the different ways to have sex. We’re not done yet.”
“You and me, we can’t be just about the sex.”
“Love and hate, sex and life. I never said one was without the other. What do you think we’ve been doing? Every time you pour yourself over me you show me your love.”
At that he sagged, his body going slack.
She climbed over his lap. “You fucked up.”
He brought his hands to her hips. “I’ll do it again, you know it.”
“You’ll learn not to. I’m still angry with you.” She leaned forward and caught his bottom lip in her teeth, clamped and pulled until he sensed danger and his eyes widened and his hands gripped. Then she soothed where she’d bitten with quick licks, while she dug her fingers into his shoulders. The kisses she gave him were interspersed with nips and a too hard hold on his hair. She wanted to shake him, make him see that hurt and care, love and pain went together. He took whatever she gave him without a sound, without a protest, accepting it as punishment.
It was forgiveness, the only way she could express it.
Hands to the neck of his old Plus shirt, she yanked to bring his mouth to hers and heard it tear, felt the shoulder seam give. It made him let go her lips and grunt in disbelief. She’d never been rough with him, he was unsure how to take it.
She pulled on the fabric and it ripped further, both of them watched as it exposed his chest, the wings and flowers, the heartbeat of his plus sign with the curling script. It’s your road and yours alone, others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.
She’d walk it with him.
“You’re confusing me.”
She chased his mouth, spoke against his lips. “This is angry sex.” She tipped forward, getting her lips to his neck and sucking hard enough to leave a mark, using her teeth, making him jerk. “It’s a thing people do when they’re in love.” She twisted her fists in his shirt and leaned back as she pulled, knowing he had hold of her and she wouldn’t fall. The over-washed cotton disintegrated and the shirt tore all the way to the hem with a satisfying screech.
She sat back on his thighs and watched him take in the wreckage. He was catching on, erect now where he hadn’t been moments before.
“Do you love me?” A nasty tease of a question. She’d just ruined his favorite vintage Better Together Plus shirt.
“Yes.” The word punched out of him. He breathed erratically, his hands hovering, squeezing, letting go, skimming over her hips, not knowing how to handle her.
“Do you want me?”
He cursed. All caught up now, dragging her body hard against him with a grunt, anchoring her at the base of her spine and the nape of her neck. “Forever.”
There were violent lip crushing, teeth crashing, tongue biting, moan sharing kisses, bruising fingertips and pinched skin. There were shocked gasps and knocked heads, and in the middle of it, Reid took her face in his hands and laughed.
She rolled her hips and his eyes closed. “You like this.”
He stood abruptly and dropped her to her feet, yanked her shirt over her head, got rid of the tattered remains of his shirt and their underwear. “I get it.” Looping his arm around her neck, he ravaged her mouth. “I love you. I’m never going to be enough for you. I trust you.”
She climbed his body and he took her down to the floor, laying out on his back beneath her. Braced with palms to his shoulders on straightened arms, and the tips of her toes on outstretched legs, she balanced above him. Hands to her ass, he tried to pull her down on top of him but she resisted. He could force it, if she toyed with him too long he would.
This tension: his size, her strength, what they wanted from each other, what each of them was willing to give; this is where she ached to live, because if she had this chance with him, trying and failing and being uncertain were nothing to fear.
She arched her back and dipped her body, rolling her pussy and belly over his erection. He tried to chase her with his hips, groaning in frustration. “Keep doing that and—”
She did it again. She could almost take him inside this way. She wasn’t angry with him anymore. She trembled, but not from the strain of holding her position, from the way he caressed her, as much with his eyes, bright and intense, as his hands; from the way he waited, when he didn’t want to, for her to make the next move.
