Page 77 of Return To You

He seems to hesitate for a beat, but then he takes me again, his strokes slow while he nibbles my earlobe. “I’m clean too. Fuck, Grace. You taste so good. You have no idea how much I missed you. Everything about you. How you taste.” He breathes heavily against my neck, pulls his cock out just enough to stroke my clit with it, then plunges back in, hitting my spot, making me arch my back. “The sound you make when you come.” His cock beats heavily inside me, making me writhe. The pleasure is so intense, I’m ready to snap. “Come for me,” he says, and I start to unravel. “That’s my Grace,” he says again, holding me.

I rake my fingernails down his back and onto his ass, pulling him tight inside me. “You’re coming with me. Fuck me harder.”

He lifts his head, slightly startled, then pummels me. My orgasm rolls out, my pussy clenches around him, and he grunts my name as he empties himself inside me. His weight on me is so good. The way his cock stretches me, the slickness of our combined sweat, the suction sounds of our reacquainting sexes. Everything is so good and so new and so familiar at the same time.

His body shakes under my hands, then stills. He holds me tight against him, running his hand all over me, until he reaches the slickness between my legs.

He gets off the bed and comes back with a warm, damp cloth. As he cleans me, he drops little kisses along my thighs and over my belly. My center is sensitive, bordering on sore, but god—I want this again.

My breath still heavy, I nudge myself against him, wanting to commit every moment to memory. I run my hand on his torso, reading him like Braille. His heart plays a hard drumbeat. Lifting my face to him, I catch him watching me. I sit up and straddle him, running both my hands on him, my center on his cock already coming back to life. His hands land on my thighs, slowly stroking.

In the ten years since I lost him, Ethan has become a man in full. Larger shoulders. Stronger neck. Hairier chest. “No tats?” I ask him, tracing the blue veins on his forearms, feeling them under the pulp of my fingers as I look him in the eye.

He shakes his head and his gaze leaves my face to start its own exploration. He lifts one hand to cup a breast, then trails down to my belly, making me slightly self-conscious. “Beautiful,” he murmurs. He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and for some reason that punches me in the gut. I lean down to kiss him there, softly. His hand comes to the small of my back and I lay my chest on his, wiggling to find the perfect spot where our bodies meld to each other like they were always meant to.

The first time we made love I was eighteen, and that day defined the rest of my life. I’d become a woman under Ethan’s caring body, and as had been my wish for as far as I can remember, I would remain his forever and ever. With a love as perfect as ours, sealed by this ultimate act, nothing could keep us apart.

Not the fact that he was way too old for me. Not the fact that I was barely out of high school, and he was graduating college. None of that, in the grand scheme of life, could matter.

“We should keep the heavy stuff for the morning,” Ethan says softly.

He even knows what I’m thinking. “M-hm.” I wiggle my ass over his cock.

“There’s my Grace,” he says again, and those words, those three words rock my world and scare me and send me back a decade.

He lifts me off him and turns me over. “On your knees.” His commanding voice brings me back to the present. Glancing at him, the hunger in his eyes is all I need to get wet. His cock is long and hard again. He gives it a few strokes, looking down my body with a lust that makes me pant.

Ethan wants me like no other man has ever wanted me. “Fuck, you’re sexy. You make me crazy, you know that?” He places himself behind me, reaches over and plays with my nipple, his cock beating at my entrance. Then he fucks me like he promised.

When morning comes, whatever hatred I pretended to have is long gone.

All I have left is dread for when this comes to an end, but I’ve learned to take things one day at a time.

twenty-four

Grace

When I wake up, the bed is empty. No Ethan, no Damian. I stretch, knowing from the sounds in the house that I’m not alone. I savor this moment. The smell of sex in the room. My night jersey, rolled in a ball in a corner after Ethan found it under my pillow. The knowledge that this is not over yet.

I know he said he could only give me last night, nothing more—it was a figure of speech. He’s not leaving Emerald Creek just yet.

There’s more to come. More to enjoy. More good days with Ethan.

I slide into the bathroom, and when I’m done, I grab his jersey, wear it butt naked underneath, and go look for my man.

It doesn’t matter that we haven’t been together in ten years.

It doesn’t matter that I don’t know where this is going.

No matter what, Ethan was always my man, and he always will be.

I see him on my little patio, wearing only his jeans, bare chested, bare feet, splayed on the one lounge chair, a coffee cup in one hand, his phone in another, Damian sprawled across his lap.

Glancing opposite him, out the window over the sink, I notice my jeep in my driveway.

On the kitchen counter, another cute travel mug from Easy Monday. This one is deep red with cutouts of white roses all across it. My belly does a little funny dance when I see it. My fingers tingle when I grab it. Sliding the lid open, I take a whiff.

Yesss.

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