Page 105 of Say You're Mine

Shock. Fear. Then, slow and dawning, recognition. Her eyes widened, filling with tears and an emotion too raw to name.

"You're not real," she whispered against my skin, voice cracking. "I've finally lost my mind."

I tugged off the mask, letting her drink in my face. The face she'd traced with gentle fingers, memorized with soft lips, loved with her whole fucking heart.

"I'm here," I rasped. "I'm real. I'm home."

Tears spilled down her cheeks, glinting in the moonlight. A maelstrom of emotions flickered lightning-fast across her features - joy, relief, disbelief, and a fury so intense it seared my already battered soul.

"You left." An accusation, bitten off and harsh. Her hands flew to my shoulders, nails biting crescents into my skin through thin cotton. "You left us."

Each word was a lash, a penance I'd spend a lifetime paying. "I know. Fuck, baby, I know. I'm sorry, I'm so goddamn-"

Her mouth crashed into mine, devouring my apology with greedy demand. I met her fury with my own, pouring every ounce of longing and regret into the clash of lips and teeth and tongue. She tasted of salt, of need, of home. I drank her down like a man dying of thirst, glutting myself on her essence.

We tore at each other's clothes, heedless of buttons popping, fabric rending. I needed her skin on my skin, needed to touch and taste and prove this was real, she was real, we were real.

"Missed you," I growled, trailing open-mouthed kisses down the column of her throat. "Ached for you."

"Then you shouldn't have left," she hissed, even as her back arched, pressing her fuller breasts into my eager hands. "Shouldn't have abandoned us."

Us. That word, so small but so fucking significant, squeezed a fist around my heart. I gentled my touch, cupping her face, thumbing away her tears.

"Never. I will never abandon you, either of you. You're mine, Cara. My whole fucking world."

Fresh tears welled, clumping her lashes. "Prove it. Prove you love me, that you want me even like this."

Christ. As if she could ever doubt it, this force that drove me, defined me. I reverently trailed my fingers over her rounded belly, shaping that new curve.

"You've never been more beautiful," I told her, infusing every word with raw honesty. "Carrying our child, all ripe and lush and so fucking perfect I can't breathe with it. Let me show you, sweetheart. Let me worship you the way you deserve."

A sobbing breath shuddered from her lungs and she nodded, a jerky bob of her head. Permission. Benediction.

I sank to my knees at the altar of her body, a penitent man prepared to offer every apology, every prayer, with hands and mouth. I kissed along the inside of one silken thigh, tonguing the crease where leg met torso. Her scent drugged me, musk and arousal and a hint of something else. Something new. The essence of our baby, maybe. A piece of me, of us, cradled safe in her body.

Fuck, the thought shouldn't turn me on so much. Shouldn't make me harder than granite, leaking at the tip in visceral proof of ownership, of claim. But it did, it fucking did, and I wouldn't even try to hide it. The primal, savage part of me reveled in it, in this tangible evidence that she was mine, that I'd left my mark on her in the most elemental way possible.

"Need to taste you," I husked, my voice a guttural rasp. "Been so fucking long since I had your sweet cunt on my tongue. Please, baby."

Cara keened, a high, pleading sound, and fisted her hands in my hair. Blunt nails scraped my scalp as she urged my face between her thighs. I groaned at the unspoken demand, at the heady proof of how much she wanted this, wanted me. My cock jerked against my zipper, a livewire of need, but I ignored it. This was about her. About worshipping every inch of her, re-memorizing every curve and hollow, every secret place that made her shake.

I lapped a broad stroke along her weeping slit, and holy Christ, the taste of her exploded on my tongue. Ambrosia. Nectar of the gods. Nothing in this fucked up world was sweeter, headier, more addictive. I feasted on her like a man half-starved, and in a way, I was. Starved for her, for this, for the connection that ran soul-deep.

I worked her over with every trick I'd ever learned, cataloging every breathy moan, every hitch of her hips, storing them up like treasures. Broad strokes to tease, delicate flicks to torment, suckling kisses that made her thrash and curse. I dipped down to tongue-fuck her in rhythmic thrusts, my nose bumping her clit, then dragged back up to focus on that aching bud, lashing and circling the hypersensitive flesh.

Christ, I could drown in her. Suffocate in her heat and her honey and die a happy man. She was a drug, one I'd gladly overdose on, one hit at a time.

My fingers joined the fray, two pumping deep, searching out that sweet spot that made her clench and mewl. I knew her body like my own, knew just how to drive her higher, tighter, to make her forget every name but mine.

"June. Fuck. Need you, please, now now now..."

The words were molten, desperate, everything I'd ever wanted to hear. My blood ignited, my control snapped, and I was scrambling up her body before she'd even finished the plea. My cock notched against her slick heat, the head nestling into her fluttering entrance like it was made to be there. Like I was made for her, in every way that mattered.

"Guide me in," I gritted out, holding myself still by a fraying thread. Barely. I wanted to plunge deep, to bury myself in her to the root, but I needed this more. Needed her to take me, to claim me, to obliterate any doubt that she wanted this, wanted us, as fiercely as I did. "Take what you need, Cara. Use me, ruin me, fucking tear me apart. I'm yours."

She did. Her hands flew to my hips, nails sinking in, and with a broken sob she wrenched me forward. I sank into her tight, writhing heat, and motherfucking Christ, nothing had ever felt so good. So right.

"Oh God." Her head thrashed on the pillow as I bottomed out, hilted so deep I swore she could taste me in the back of her throat. It was too much and not enough, every nerve ending lighting up like a switchboard. "Move, June. Goddammit, fuck me like you mean it!"

---