Page 150 of The Cost of Forgetting You

I don’t mean for it to come out so high-pitched, so needy, but that evidence of my desire does something to him. Snaps a tether in his spine that held him back. He folds over me, elbow coming down beside my head while his other hand lines his cock up with my entrance. I feel him there, his head sweeping through my slick center, stoking the flame so high I nearly combust from this alone.

“Please, baby,” I whine. “I need you.”

The hand by my head sweeps my hair behind my ear, and he kisses me there. Our chests are flush, all heat and sweat and heaving breaths. The sky is endless above us, the same gray-blue as his eyes. They find me, so full of a tenderness I’ve never seen up close.

He rocks into me, stealing my breath. Cinching my heart. My body arches, reaching for him, and he meets me with every thrust.

It’s so different from our first time. So sweet and slow and rhythmic. We make music together. A melody all our own.

His tongue flicks against my throat. My jaw. My earlobe. “See? I can be gentle, too.” He buries himself to the hilt. Rolls his hips so I feel him everywhere. “I can be everything you need if you’ll let me.”

“I want you. All of you.”

I drag my fingernails down his back, and the groan that escapes his throat is guttural. His thrusts falter in their rhythm. His jaw ticks. He’s losing this carefully crafted control, and I’m desperate for it. Need it as much as I need the hot summer air filling my lungs.

I dig my heels into his ass and arch, grinding myself against him. His lids flicker shut, his lips part as he holds himself still, letting me take what I need. “Fuck, baby.”

“Give it to me,” I growl.

When his eyes flash open, they’re twin storm clouds, and his voice is the thunder. “Yes, ma’am.”

He loses himself in me like I hoped he would. He thrusts wildly; he bites at my flesh. I carve my nails through every inch of him I can reach, when I’m not blindly gasping for air. Every moment without him is too long. Every second he fills me is impossibly short.

“More. More. More,” I chant. And more is what he gives me.

“I’m gonna fill you with my cum, Temptress. Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” I groan. I spit onto my finger and find my clit throbbing, pulsing with need. I stroke it in time with his thrusts. An orgasm builds in my core, coiling impossibly tight until I’m nothing but the need. The want. The ecstasy. “Fuck!”

“That’s right, baby. Now ride my cock.”

Tru pauses his thrusts and turns control over to me, and I arch off the ground, doing as he says. I ride him, circling my clit and humming his name in a breathless cry as wave after wave of the orgasm ripples through me. He watches me, utterly rapt, as I take everything I want from his body. And then, when my legs give out, he grabs my ankles and hauls them to his shoulders, tightening them against his neck. His fingers dig into my thighs as he rocks forward, lifting my hips from the ground, and rails into me with everything he’s got.

“Fuck. Fuck.” His thrusts come undone and so does he. His cock tightens within me, his shoulders going equally taut, and then I feel a warmth I’ve never known coat my core. He fills me up, eyes closed, head tipped back. When at last he shudders loose and slips from me, I feel his cum dripping from my entrance and coating my thighs. It’s a mess. And now that I’ve had it, I can’t imagine it any other way.

Truett collapses onto me, but his weight is a comfort. An anchor. I lace my arms together at the base of his spine and nuzzle into his shoulder, inhaling the scent of him. Fresh air, sweat, and the sweet musk of vetiver all at once.

“If I’m remarkable,” I mutter against his skin, “then what does that make you?”

He cranes his neck till there’s only a breath between us, then smiles like a new day born. “Yours. I’m yours.”

I smile limply, every muscle in me languid after my release. Even the ones responsible for my joy, and joy is what I’m feeling. I glance up at the sky, the same that bore witness to my life splintering apart nine years ago. It feels impossible to be this close to whole again. To have these pieces of my life returned to me, imperfect and all the better for it.

Dad was wrong. Yes, his disease has a cost. He’s losing his independence. His career. So many years off his life. But it has not cost him my forgiveness, because he never needed it. What he needed was to be understood for perhaps the first time in his life. For me to see him for who he is, not to me or my mother or even Truett, but to himself, before it is too late.

I hope I’ve given him that, just as he’s given this to me.

Truett laces his fingers through mine and stands, pulling me to my feet and toward the water. The cold steals my breath at first, but soon it is soothing the ache in my trembling thighs, the stinging pink sunburn on my shoulder blades. We submerge ourselves completely, and when I break the surface once more, I feel free for the first time in my life.

His arm loops around my waist and pulls me close. I feel every hard muscle, every soft bit of flesh. I feel his desire for me returning as his gaze finds mine once more.

“What if I forget you one day?” I blurt out. The fear, buried deep in my heart after my initial research, has floated through the doors my confessions have blown open. Try as I might, I can’t ignore it any longer.

His brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“My dad’s dementia. It’s hereditary.” I lick the river water from my lips. Biding my time. “Would you still want to be with me, knowing that’s a possibility?”

Add this to the list of things I love about Truett: He doesn’t answer right away. Doesn’t spew out pretty words to make me feel better. He thinks about it. Really considers what he wants to say. And though I feel like I might vomit with the anxiety of it all, I’m grateful to know he isn’t making this decision lightly.

---