I free the leg wrapped around my waist and grip her by the calf. Leg pushed to the side, I hold it there, making sure to grind my weight over the sensitive spot at her apex with each jerk of my hips. Her other knee still wedged against my shoulder, I shift it higher until I’m so far gone inside her my vision falters.
“Five years,shit,” I groan. “I would have waited a hundred more for this. Only for you, baby.”
Her knuckles wrapped around the slats turn white as the headboard pounds against the wall. “Tell me”—thrust—“you feel that”—thrust—“so”—thrust—“damn”—thrust—“perfect.”
“Rowan,” she sobs, pleasure consuming her. “You’re—ahh, it feels so good…God. Harder, please, I’m so close.”
Hips slam hips, panting lungs and groans of satisfaction fill the room as I chase her release, mine right there in the wings. I pound into her, relentless and fast until we’re on the edge, my heart thundering in my chest.
“Yes, right there! I’m gonna c?—”
“Come!” I order.
A cyclone of shouts and sensations, our shared climaxes crash over us. I watch, stupefied, as she falls apart in the most deliciously wrecked, mesmerizing way. Her release courses through her in wave after wave, and I ride out my own until my limbs give out. Until I can’t breathe, can’t think.
I collapse on top of her, her ankles linking around my hips. We gasp for air, my face buried in her neck as she curls her arms over my shoulders, clutching me tight like she’s as afraid to let go as I am.
For the next six hours, we don’t let go. We savor every moment we have together.
I clean her up in the shower, make love to her against the tiled wall, placing those three words silently against her temple as she comes.
We feed each other ice cream at the kitchen table straight from the container. Maybe I spill some across her chest and thighs so I can lick her clean.
Her wearing my tuxedo shirt and me in my dress pants, we sip our mugs of hot chocolate on the dock. Laid out on a blanket to gaze up at the stars, our bodies find their way together again. Hannah’s red nails scrape the skin of my thighs and torso as she takes me in her mouth. Then I lug her forward to straddle my face, her strangled cries landing on soft white puffs of breath into the chilly night air when she unravels above me. Flipping us so I’m on top, I ease inside her. Her body rocks in tandem with mine, a push and pull of friction. It’s slow and steady. No hurried race to the finish line. We’re just two desperately in love people who need contact—crave it—more than anything else.
Lazy hums and soft moans float in the breaths between our lips when a rustling in the woods makes me pause. I look toward the cabin, lit dimly by the light on the back deck.
My eyes flare when something emerges from the shadows.
“Rowan, what’s happ?—”
I clamp a hand over her mouth and hold a finger at my lips. Nudging my chin toward the house, I urge her to see for herself. She twists her neck until she spots them: a mama black bear and her two cubs ambling through the pines between the dock and the house.
Her brows soar, gaze jumps back to mine. I smile down at her, eyes bright and heart full. Quiet laughter rumbles in her chest, threatening tocut the silence. I chuckle softly and dip low to whisper, “We did it, baby.”
She pinches my waist. I jerk away from her claws and grin, mouthing,“Brat.”
The bears slowly make their way past, disappearing into the woods behind the camper. I remove my hand from her mouth and a laugh finally breaks from my throat. We both lose it.
Long moments later, the humor fades, our chuckles drifting into satisfied sighs when I begin pumping into her again. This time, I kiss her through her release, spilling my own inside her. I steal her breaths for myself until the last aftershocks subside.
Then, I carry her back inside where we crawl into bed and crisscross our naked limbs. We tangle in the sheets, kissing until night turns to day, fearing we might never be able to do it again. Until our lips are swollen and our hearts threaten to burst open with all the words we don’t say. But I tattoo them in a thousand hushed promises over her skin.
Dawn breaks, filling the cabin with warm pink light as the morning fog settles low over the water and we make love for the final time. Under the covers because it shuts out the big world beyond that tells us it’s almost over. Lazy because our limbs are exhausted and our muscles ache. Slow because our time has come and gone too fast. Quiet because no words can be said through our tears. And deep because that’s how far these feelings go—down to the marrow.
And when we climb into the car to head back to her place, her weary, red-rimmed eyes land on me from the passenger seat. Silently, she takes my hand and I wonder if she remembers the night we spent at the carnival.
She asked if she could have my heart for two weeks.
Hannah James owns my heart. Forever, ’til my lungs take their last breath in this life and into whatever comes after, it’s in her hands. But so help me God, I’ll move heaven and earth to find a way to be at her side while she carries it.
52
promise me
Rowan
“My first walkof shame and the audience is your mother?” Hannah sinks low into the leather, hiding her eyes behind the seat belt while I pull into her driveway.