Page 199 of Hold Me Until Morning

“Oh, but we can.”

FORTY-FIVE

CODY

There was no amount of pain that would keep me from her right then. No agony that would stop me from touching her because the true agony would be not getting to spend this life with her.

I’d thought I was going to lose that today. Thought my past had finally caught up to me, and my time had ended. I’d thought I wasn’t going to get to ever kiss her again. Touch her again.

Hold her until morning the way she liked me to do. The way she’d curl up in my arms and whisper her need for me in her sleep.

I’d thought she’d never get to hear it—that she’d never know just how goddamned much I loved her. How this heart now beat for her. And I’d almost never gotten to hear her say it back.

Confess those words that had washed through me like a cleansing.

Purifying all the wrongs I’d ever committed.

I love you.

I love you.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Concern weaved through her brow, but I could taste the way her need filled the air. Her fingers digging into my shirt. Heat licking in a slow dance between us.

“The only thing that could hurt me right now is not getting to have you, though you might have to be the one who’s doing all the work.” I let the tease play into the words.

Let them wind as seduction.

Hailey nibbled on her upper lip like she was envisioning all the ways she could make that happen.

“All the work, huh?”

“Yup.”

“Hmm…”

I brushed my thumb over her lip before I leaned in for a kiss, taking her mouth slow, relishing in this woman.

The words rolled up my throat, soft and adoring. “You are the meaning of this life.”

She inhaled them, taking them on as her own, and she breathed hers back into me. “You are the hope that I’d been missing. The light when my faith had gone dark.”

Our kisses were slow.

Our mouths moving in time.

In sync.

Treasuring each other.

Her touch was soft and careful.

Mine was reverent, palms gliding down her back and riding up her sides.

Holding her face.

Her neck.

Carefully, she peeled up my shirt, and I edged back to help her, trying not to wince which was fucking impossible since every inch of me throbbed like a bitch.

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