Page 74 of Return To You

Ten years. I gave up ten years of this because I was so impulsive.

But what am I doing, now? I’m being impulsive again. Not thinking about the consequences. I have my life here. He barely ever gets time to visit. This is another disaster in the making.

“What happens now?” I whisper. I knew this kiss would be the best. No question. That’s why I dreaded it.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, his hooded gaze follows the curve of my neck, falls on my chest. He strokes my breast slowly. Agonizingly slowly. His rugged hand is just the right amount of rough on my sensitive bud.

Ethan was always the best lover. Bar none. After we split, I caught a wild hair in college, and I gathered material. Nothing compared to Ethan. Sometimes, in the years that followed my return from Texas, I’d let myself think that I’d idealized him because he was my first.

I was wrong.

I tighten my legs around his waist and run my hand through his hair. God he feels so good.

I moan and writhe under his touch, the last shreds of my reason fleeing with every stroke of his hand on my body, every place his lips have kissed. Wanting more and knowing I’ll regret it, come morning. “I think we just had too much to drink—”

He cups my face with his hands, again. Makes me feel like the center of the universe, again. “Coke. I only had Coke. And you had water.”

He runs his lips on my hair, and shivers run down my spine, making me arch my back and press myself even tighter against him. “This is real, Grace. You know it and I know it. I know you’re scared, and I am too. And I know I can’t give you tomorrow, but I sure as hell can give you tonight.”

He glides the ridge of his nose against the tip of mine. The tender, intimate gesture nearly undoes me. “Do you want to give me tonight, Grace? Do you want to be us again? If just for now.”

Tears surge and fall onto my cheeks.

“Fuck,” he draws out. “Please tell me these are happy tears.”

I nod and burrow my face against him.

“Happy tears?” he growls, stomping to the other side of the bridge with my legs tightly wrapped around him, my dress bunched up, my hands fisting his short hair.

I nod against his chest, inhaling his masculine scent.

“Tonight?”

At least we’re on the same page. I’d give a lifetime of memories for a night with Ethan. I nod again.

“Your car or my bike?” he growls.

I straighten in his arms and look around. We’re on the narrow road leading back to the village. “I-I’m not… having sex on your bike.” I wiggle to let him know he can set me down, but he ignores this.

He chuckles. “Now that’s an idea…” He flutters kisses on the top of my head. “I meant to get to your place.”

“Oh…”

“Did you want to go somewhere else?”

I wiggle again, with no success. We’re approaching The Green, the streetlights, the nosy stares. “Um… we could go to Woodbury Knoll.”

“All night? The treehouse is gone.”

Did he check on the treehouse? And what did he just say—All night? Am I spending the night with Ethan?

He finally sets me down, and reading my thoughts, he lowers his gaze on me while I adjust my dress. “We’re not teenagers anymore, Grace. This isn’t some…” His hand waves dismissively, his thought interrupted. “So—your bike or my car?”

The question is not how we get there. The question is that Ethan—Ethan!—will be spending the night, the whole night, at my place. In my house. In my bed. There will be coffee in the morning, and-and-and…

“I mean, nothing wrong with the woods. Just might get a little chilly early morning,” he offers, proving once again he’s reading my thoughts, my fears.

He might have the same.

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