“I’m there,” I cried, clenching tighter around him as I fell off the tightrope, spiraling straight down into the depths of passion, a brilliant free-fall. And he followed me over — shouting my name as he climaxed, pouring into me, pump after pump, thrust after thrust, until my frazzled nerve endings were singing with hypersensitivity and my body felt wrung out, boneless and breathless and completely content in a way I’d never felt before.
Not once.
Not ever.
I could build my whole world around this man, I thought again as the aftershocks racked me.I really could.
My lips pressed against the skin of his chest, directly over his heart, which was beating just as fast as my own.
Maybe I already have.
* * *
Afterward,we lay tangled together the dark, limbs wrapped tight around one another. Graham’s lips rested at my temple, his breaths still ragged as his thudding heartbeat slowed back to a normal tempo. He pressed a kiss there, then began to detangle himself.
“It’s late, baby,” he whispered.
I recognized the start of what had become our goodnight ritual. He was getting ready to go sleep in the other room, leaving me alone to face the night in solitude. Respecting my boundaries, just as I’d requested.
All my life, I’d panicked at the thought of sleeping with someone else. But this time, in this instant, something inside me panicked at an entirely different reason. The thought of Graham getting out of my bed, walking down the hall to sleep alone on the cold, hard floor, suddenly seemed like the most unfathomable thing in the world.
Instead of letting him walk away from me, I sat up with him, pressed my bare breasts against his solid back, and wrapped my arms tight around his middle.
“Gwen?”
“Stay,” I whispered against his skin.
His body tensed. “What?”
“Stay. I want you to stay.”
There was a long pause. Even unable to see his face, I could tell he was fighting for control of his emotions, trying to get a hold on whatever feelings were raging inside him. When he spoke again, his voice was thicker than I’d ever heard it. “You sure, baby?”
“Please.” I pressed a soft kiss to the blade of his shoulder, my words hushed. “Stay with me. Sleep with me. I don’t want to spend seven hours of my day out of your arms, away from you, even if I’m unconscious. Not anymore. Not ever again.”
I didn’t need to tell him twice.
In a blink, he’d wrapped me in his embrace, rolling us onto our sides so we lay facing one another in the dark. With one finger, he reached up and tucked a loose tendril of hair behind my ear. There was a look on his face I’d never seen before. Something like wonderment. Something like…love. And, seeing it there, I didn’t freak out. I didn’t demand space. I didn’t feel the urge to bolt.
I did, however, scoot closer, snuggling into his warmth. My eyes closed as his hand came up to cup the back of my head, holding me against him. And, with the steady beat of Graham’s heart beneath my ear, I did something I never in a million years would’ve guessed was possible for a girl like me.
I fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Not today, Satan.
I’m free tomorrow, though.
- Gwen Goode, dealing with the devil
“That will be $6.66,” I told the woman, glancing up from the cash register to slide her bag of bundled sage across the counter.
“Oh, I don’t like that.666? Nope. Not today, Satan.” She grabbed a handful of pocket-sized crystals from the basket on her left and plunked them down in front of me. “Better throw these in, too. In the name of the Lord.”
I adjusted her total, accepted payment, and sent her on her way with a “See you on the other side!” The cash register was barely closed when another customer appeared before me.
“How’s it hanging? Find everything you were looking for? Oh, a bottle of Flex on Your Ex! That’s a good choice, he’ll regret he ever let you go…”