Page 60 of Defending Casey

She smiled at him. “And you broke free. It’s what your mother would have wanted, you know. She would have wanted you to be happy.”

“Then what she wanted was for me to be with you, Case. She would have smacked me upside my head when I didn’t turn right around and tell you that I wasn’t going to leave you. I should have seen through the lie. I should’ve-”

She touched her fingertips to his lips, and he smiled at her touch. “No more should’ves, could’ves, or would’ves, okay?”

He nodded.

“What I want tonight are possibilities, Hale. What I want tonight is to hold you close and love you the way I’ve always wanted to love you.”

The look in his eyes made her weak in her knees.

He kissed her, pressing his lips against her with a tenderness that made her hold her breath, but with an intensity that made her body heat in all the best places.

When he pulled back and looked into her eyes, she could tell that he was breathing harder. She swore she could hear his heart beating in the silence of the room.

Hale wrapped his arms around her, molding their bodies together as they stood in the center of his almost unfurnished home.

Looking around the room, he returned his gaze back to hers. “I’m going to marry you, Casey. It’s years too late, but I’m going to do it as soon as you’ll let me.”

She tried to keep her tone light and easy, but she could feel her heart swelling in her chest with joy. “You keep talking like that, Hale, and I’m going to be swept right off my feet.”

“Okay.” He grinned at her. “Whatever the lady wants.”

He didn’t waste a moment, sweeping her up into his arms, holding her close so that she could feel the strength of his heart in his chest.

Before he could move, she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and tugged him down for a kiss.

“We’ve got years to catch up on, Casey. Years.”

She heard the heat and desire in his voice and felt like she understood that very feeling. “I haven’t… since that night.”

Before she could turn away and hide her face, he spoke and kept her focus on him.

“Neither have I, Casey.”

She couldn’t help the smile that lifted her cheeks and filled them with color. “This could get really awkward.”

He gave her a look that held more than a hint of promise. “I don’t know. I’ve dreamed of loving you throughout the years. I hope you might like a few of the things I’ve fantasized about. The places I want to touch you. The ways I want to show you how much I love you.”

“Hale.” Her heart was pounding in her chest. “Stop talking.”

* * *

She wanted to undress him,and he wasn’t going to stop her. Having Casey’s hands on him was a special kind of torture. The way her hands tunneled under his shirt, her fingers teasing his skin as she worked his shirt up and over his head. Casey had to tug at the button on his waistband, but the smile he saw on her lips after she worked it free gave him a big boost in masculine pride as he sprung free from the denim confines of his jeans and into her hand.

The soft gasp of sound from her lips as she worked her hand down to the base of his dick and back up to its head was mixed with the groan from his. The calluses on her palms didn’t hurt him at all. It stimulated his nerves, bringing blood coursing through his body, chasing after her touch.

Casey swept her thumb over the head of his cock and his knees buckled as she smoothed the slick pre-cum over his skin. “So many nights…”

He wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly, because his focus was fixed on her hands. The actual manifestation of years of fantasies touching his skin.

Her hands caressed and coaxed his flesh until he was harder than he had ever been before. There was no feeling of awkwardness with the ten-year difference from their first time together, or feeling like too much time had passed or that their lack of experience would make things odd.

That just wasn’t the case. Couldn’t be.

Her hands on him, his jeans caught around his thighs and his hands at his sides, fisting over and over, he couldn’t help but feel like this is exactly where they should be.

Together.

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