Page 14 of Healing Love

I squeeze her hand and lean over, kissing her on the top of her head. “Eat up, sunshine. I want to take you on a tour of the place before it gets too hot out.”

“Friends and a tour? Who are you right now?” she teases, cutting into her pancakes. I watch her lips wrap around the fork as she takes a bite, and Jesus, the thoughts I have are obscene.

I choke out a cough and take a sip of my coffee to give myself a moment to recover. “I’m hoping to be less of an ass and more of a… gentleman.”

“Gentleman?” Brielle repeats, her eyes shining with playfulness.

“Fine, maybe that’s going a bit too far, but you know what I mean. I just want to be… someone worthy of you.”

My instinct is to look away from her while I give her another piece of my heart, but I want her to see the truth behind my statement.

“Elliot,” she says softly. “You are enough. Just you.”

I don’t know how to respond to that, so I take another sip of my coffee. Brielle understands the moment is too intense, and as always, she gives me space to process. She doesn’t even know how good she is for me.

“So, who taught you to cook?”

I love that she can just switch the subject and move on to something else. I tend to linger in the darkness, but when I’m around Brielle, all I want to do is be closer to her light.

I launch into a story about being assigned cook duty by accident, and how I made a friend that week I was mistakenly there who ended up teaching me quite a bit. Brielle digs into her food, listening as I tell her about a few of my more disastrous escapades in the kitchen.

By the time she’s finished, my throat is sore from talking the entire time. I don’t think I’ve spoken so many words in one sitting since joining the military.

Brielle stands and clears off the table, but I take the dishes from her hands. “I’ve got it.”

“You cooked, so I’ll clean.” Brielle snatches the plates from my grasp, giggling while racing past me to the sink. I let her get to the counter so she can safely put the breakable dishes down, and then I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her against me.

“You, my sexy little sunshine, need to go put some pants on before I decide to skip the tour altogether and toss you down on the bed to fulfill my daily end of our deal.”

Brielle slides her hands up my chest, her delicate touch making me tremble with need. She’s so soft, so supple, everything about her fresh and fragile and all fucking mine.

"And if I don't want to put on pants?" she whispers, trying to be sassy. Her confidence wavers slightly, and I'm reminded of how damn innocent she really is.

“There’s no pressure,” I tell her, needing her to know she’s in control here. “We’ll go at your pace.”

Brielle’s hands glide up from my chest to my shoulders, then she loops her arms around my neck. “I want whatever this… this feeling is. When I’m with you, things just make sense. I… is that dumb?”

“No,” I rush to say. “Nothing you say or think is dumb.” She rolls her eyes at me, but I keep staring right at her. “I can’t explain it either. I don’t want to. I just want to experience it all with you.”

She nods, her crystal blue eyes boring into mine. She’s giving me her heart and soul, begging me to take care of them. I will. I so fucking will. Forever.

Brielle takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom, the moment both tender and erotic as hell.

“Show me, Elliot,” Brielle murmurs. “Show me how to experience everything with you.” My beautiful, brave goddess grabs the hem of the t-shirt she’s wearing and lifts it up her body, revealing her soft flesh to me.

I pull her shirt the rest of the way off and kiss a trail down her neck and over her shoulders. Her gorgeous breasts are bare before me and my mouth waters at the sight of them. I trace my fingers over her mounds, memorizing every curve. I weigh them in my hands and brush her dusky pink nipples with my thumbs.

“Perfect,” I murmur.

Dipping my head to her chest, I take her breast into my mouth, sucking and flicking her nipple with my tongue. She gasps and arches her back, giving me better access. Brielle moans and I suck her harder, taking more of her into my mouth.

I pull back and she whimpers. I smile down at her before placing open-mouthed kisses along her jaw and down her neck, scraping my teeth on her collarbone and licking between the valley of her breasts.

Kneeling before her, I nip at the sensitive underside of her breasts, earning me a moan as she bucks her hips. I sit back on my heels to admire the stunning creature before me.

“Do you trust me, Brielle?”

I look up into her eyes, willing her to give herself to me fully, reminding her that she’s already mine. She nods.

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