Page 15 of Never Yours

“You should.”

A silent moment passes between us, and I finally look up. He’s still the same man I wanted desperately for years, only we’re all grown up now, and I still want him. “Fuck it.” I lift onto my toes and kiss him. It takes him by surprise, and his fingers tangle in my hair tugging gently to pull me back until our lips are only brushing. “What?”

“You asked for rules,” he laughs. “I gave you two of mine, but I only have one of yours.” Cay kisses my neck, and a whine escapes me. Already wanting to retract my first and only rule, if we did sleep together, I know it would be nothing like the last time. He’ll ruin me. I deserve it after breaking his heart and hiding my secrets from him.

“Oh, right.” I can barely think, enjoying the contrast of his rough beard and soft lips on my neck. He nips at my earlobe, making me moan, imagining his mouth everywhere he didn’t kiss me last time. I’d give anything for a chance to fix things between us, even if I only get a few weeks.

“While you come up with an arbitrary rule that we’ll throw out at some point, my final one is that you’ll never fake anything with me again. If I ever have the pleasure of your thighs keeping my ears warm, I want you to make a mess all over my face, begging for more.”

Has he been reading my books? He’s giving off severe book-boyfriend energy right now. Is that why he wants my ereader? “Cay, I?—”

“Need to unpack. Great idea.”

He presses a final kiss to my neck and makes his way into the spare bedroom. There's an empty floor-to-ceiling bookcase and no less than six large moving boxes scattered against the other walls. He shuffles them around and opens them, finding my collection of everything from classics to monster romance.

“I know, there are too many,” I sigh. “They’ll never fit.”

He looks up and smirks. “Oh, we’ll make them fit.”

caleb

. . .

The sun peeks in through the curtains, too bright to open my eyes. Fuck, what time is it? It takes me a moment to register my surroundings—my arm is numb, there’s a weight on half my body that isn’t normally there, the faint smell of daffodils, and… the sigh of a woman?

My eyes fly wide, and I glance down, finding Ingrid curled up against me, her leg slung over mine, cheek and palm resting on my chest. A paperback and ereader on the other side of me… We must’ve fallen asleep reading last night. I can’t help but smile. I’d give anything to wake up to her every morning, just like this.

Unable to resist, I kiss the top of her head, and she hums in response, pulling closer to me. “I take it back,” she mutters sleepily.

“Hmm?”

“Rules are stupid.” Her voice is muffled by my chest, but my cock is a bit too excited at the suggestion, hearing it loud and fucking clear.

“I like my rules,” I tease. “You only have one, by the way.”

Sliding her hand down to my stomach, within an inch of my hard cock, she whispers, “Can I change it?”

I tilt her chin and lean in to brush a soft kiss to her lips, wondering how much she’ll let me have of her. She sighs a whimper as I pull back, and I try my fucking hardest to not read too much into it. “What do you want to change it to?”

“We should have a bucket list instead,” Ingrid answers matter-of-factly. “First on the list, I want you to break my heart, not the other way around.”

“No,” I growl. “Absolutely not.”

“Hear me out!” she laughs. “I’ve never been in love before, and, well… for once, I want to fall head-over-heels, madly in love. I want to know what it feels like to have your heart ripped out. To cry for a solid month when you have to leave. Can you make that happen?”

The woman I’ve wanted for most of my life shifts and straddles me, my hands instinctively gripping her thighs, wanting to tempt fate.

Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to stay the night with a beautiful woman wearing just her underwear and a tee?

Oh, right, me.

Fucking. Idiot.

“What are you up to, princess?”

She shakes her head and scrunches her nose. “Princess? You’ll need to get more creative than that.”

“Ingrid doesn’t have a lot of nickname options, you know,” I chuckle. She doesn’t find it funny, instead, she rolls her hips and grinds against me. I stifle a groan, but a hiss still escapes. “Really? That’s how you want this to go?” I flip her onto her back, and she lets out a full laugh that I feel everywhere. This is how it was how it was supposed to be.

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