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I grabbed her face with both hands and tilted her head up to meet mine. The moment the words left her mouth, I knew exactly what to say. For once, I knew exactly what would make her understand. “Penelope, do you remember what you said to me the first time I took you surfing?”
Her eyes were wide, unyielding as they bore into mine. She shook her head.
“You told me that there were waves inside my soul.” Her brows clustered at the center of her forehead as confusion floated across her face. I shook my head as I tried to hide the smile forming in my mouth. She had no clue.
“Maybe I’m the sun and the tides, and you’re the moon and the stars; but all that means to me is that you are light in the dark. You’re every wish in my night sky, and I’ll follow you wherever you go.”
And this time I didn’t wait for her to close the gap, I leaned my head down until my lips met hers. I showed her what it felt like to be the tides in the sea– drawn to the moon.
As I pulled away, her eyes popped open. I saw the understanding settle in her features as my words poured into her ears and flowed throughout the rest of her body. Her eyes were wide, almost glowing in the dark as they sparkled behind her tears.
She unbuckled herself quickly as she crawled across the seat and into my lap. She straddled me, her knees coming to rest on either side of my hips. Her back was pressed against the steering wheel, as her chest leaned into mine. My arms had been pressed against my sides, but I brought them up to wrap around the back of her thighs, holding her flush against me. I looked up at her expectantly. I could tell she had something more to say. She cupped my face between both hands.
“I love you,” she whispered.
My hands froze in their place and I felt my mouth drop open as we stared into each other. I’d told her as much on the plane, but at the time I wasn’t sure she’d registered it. I hadn’t expected her to say it back, even when I knew she felt. I thought it would be a while yet before I heard those words come from her.
My heart began to beat quicker as those three words poured into my own ears and flowed into my body. Right down to the depths of it. Right into my soul. The silent moment seemed to defy time and physics as we studied each other’s faces. Only a few moments could have passed, but as if the Universe itself was interfering, we felt as if we were given all the time we needed. Her emerald eyes glowed like they were on fire. My hand found its way to her face as I cupped her cheek and rubbed my thumb across her perfect bottom lip.
Our mutual breathing grew heavier as her hands slowly made their way away from my face and down my neck. One moved behind my head as she pulled me into her. Because she was the moon and I the tides. When her lips touched mine, I felt the heat of the sun and the force of the stars.
“Say it again,” I begged into her mouth.
“I love you,” she whispered between my lips.
Chapter Twenty One
Penelope
“ILOVEYOU,”Isaid as he opened the door.
I whispered those words again against his lips as he stepped out of the truck, hands gripping my ass, my legs coiled around his hips. Another time as I nipped against his ear and he unlatched the gate that led to his parents’ backyard, and again into his neck as he reached the pool house, adjusting me in his arms to open that door.
“I love you,” I whispered a final time as I kissed his jaw.
I couldn’t stop. I’d bottled those words up inside my body my entire life, waiting for the time I’d finally let myself speak them to him. I never wanted to stop saying it.
He slammed the door shut with his foot. The closest piece of furniture to us was his desk, set next to the door. He sat me atop it. My mouth crawled along his jaw as his hands reached the hem of his sweatshirt I was wearing– entirely bare beneath it. Mimicking his movements from earlier in the day, he slowly slid the sweatshirt up my body. His fingers trailing along my stomach– my ribs. Caressing my skin, sending shivers down my spine.
He pulled away to slip the sweatshirt over my head, tossing it on the floor below him. His eyes simmered as he beheld me. His breathing seemed to grow more labored the longer he stared. My breasts peaked beneath his gaze, growing needy. He ran his hand down the center of my chest, beginning at my throat. It swooped underneath my breast, cupping it as his calloused thumb flicked across my nipple. I whimpered at the feeling of it hardening beneath his finger.
“You are so beautiful.”
A moan was my only response. I let my head fall back and I arched toward him, hungry for more of his touch. He groaned as his mouth closed around my breast. His teeth grazed it, his tongue flicking back and forth across my nipple. Molten heat rushed between my legs. I clawed at his back, desperate for more of his skin. He pulled away just to take his shirt off before returning to my other breast.
His hands traced along my spine until he reached the waistband of my leggings. I lifted my hips, a whimper of permission escaping my lips for him to slip them off. He pulled them down to my knees as his mouth left my breasts and peppered kisses down my stomach as he crouched and removed my leggings completely.
Squatting down, Carter looked up at me. “I’ve wanted this for so long.”
He pressed his mouth against my calf. “Me too,” I whispered.
He spread my legs slightly, his hand moving between them, pressing at my core through my panties. He sucked in a swift gulp of air and I knew why. I was embarrassingly wet, my arousal humiliatingly apparent. His thumb navigated to that spot between my legs that would make me shudder, and he began to rotate it in lazy circles.
“You’re so fucking wet, Penelope,” he rasped. “Is this all for me?” The low level of his voice, the way he moved his finger, even through my underwear, I was clawing into the desk below me. I couldn’t focus on what he was saying. I couldn’t remember words. “Answer me, baby,” he demanded.
A high pitched, “Mm,” was all I could get out.
He pressed his mouth against the place his thumb just was as his fingers looped through the waistband of my underwear. Tugging them off in a pleading, desperate, pull. He tugged them down my legs and over my knees, until my panties were hanging around just one of my ankles. I kicked them across the room.
