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Her side twinged with the effort, but she moved higher until her mouth brushed against the scruffy line of his neck and the fullness of his beard. Her heart was raging in her chest, drumming in her head, but she’d brushed a kiss over his neck.
The world didn’t fall.
Lightning didn’t strike.
She inched higher to his lips. The pad of her finger hovered over his full bottom lip with the trio of freckles that bled through. She curled her ugly fingers away from him. All she could see was the discolored pigment that had become her new skin.
The reminder of the fire.
She reached until her ribs ached and the stubborn stitches at her side pulled. Until she could touch his lips with hers.
He dragged in a breath and the even rise and fall of his chest turned to utter stillness. He opened his eyes and the familiar bottle green was reassuring. She brushed against the fullness, tasting him, relearning the textures that made up his lips and the soft yet prickly hair of his beard.
She watched him as she moved to his top lip. The soft grumble in his chest as she traced the divot with her tongue and drew on it until her teeth grazed over it.
“Just your mouth,” she said against his lips.
He nodded and laced his fingers at the small of her back.
She sipped from him, lured him to participate. When his tongue stroked hers, she closed her eyes and fell. Their kisses were exploratory and gentle. Languid and learning until they weren’t. Until she nipped too hard and he sucked her tongue in that way he had.
Where memories crashed into the new.
He brought his hands up to her hair and moved her head where he needed, where he knew she liked it. Until he owned her breath and stole her sighs. Until she shook over him and her nails bit into his neck.
She twisted and the angle sent agony climbing up her side.
He knew it instantly. “What do you need?”
Breathe.
She sucked in a short breath and let it out, then a longer one until the pain ebbed and the quick wash of sweat cooled above her lip and along her forehead.
With shaky hands, she slowly backed up until she could sit on the edge of the couch. She stared at the swirl pattern in the pine floors until the throbbing pain subsided. “I’m okay. I just turned wrong.”
“I—” He cut himself off with a groan. “Can I touch you?”
She didn’t look up again. Afraid to see what was going on in his too expressive face, she took the coward’s way out and simply nodded. He stroked the length of her back with such gentleness that the tears started up again.
Not grief for Nic or the limbo that Adam was living in. But for them. For how long it had been since he felt like he could touch her without asking. She’d done that. Erected a wall so high that she couldn’t even see him anymore.
She turned into him and rested her cheek against his shoulder. His arm came around her back, careful to stay away from her ribs.
“I’m sorry.”
He brushed a kiss to her temple. “You were right to blame me.”
“No, I don’t just blame you.” She finally raised her gaze to his. “It’s both of us.”
His brows lowered. “You think we don’t deserve to be happy?”
“I think we got greedy and selfish.”
He leaned away from her and grasped her shoulders. “Listen to me, and listen carefully. I can take a good chunk of the blame for bringing this woman into our lives. I was callous and I didn’t take Aimee’s feelings into consideration when I broke things off. That part is on me. But she’s off the reservation at this point. She would have found a reason to come at us no matter what we did.”
She shook her head. If she hadn’t been greedy and brought him into their lives, maybe things would have been different. She clutched her fingers together. The need to touch him was so strong.
So many years alone and then he’d been there with his overwhelming personality and all that love. Safety wasn’t a word in their vocabulary.
