Page 99 of One Big Little Secret

Salem’s brows pull together as she searches my face.

I shrug, finishing my wine.

“Don’t you want a family of your own someday?”

What a loaded fucking question.

“Someday,” I repeat. I don’t think it’s a lie. “Up until recently, it was hard to imagine. Seeing Dexter and his wife so happy, and Archer with my nephew growing up—yeah, I wouldn’t mind that, I think.” Although the future feels murky as hell right now. I can’t see what it might hold for me, or even if I want it to hold anything at all. “This can’t be my life forever. For now, it’s everything.”

“You’re smart for pacing yourself. That’s where I go wrong.” She unhooks a lock of hair from behind her ear and runs her fingers through it.

Yes, it’s still my undoing.

Before any reasonable part of my brain tells me no, I’m moving, reaching out and tilting her face to mine.

I don’t ask. Not with words. Not when her eyes widen, shining into mine.

Not even when she gasps.

I kiss her like a drowning man who needs to taste her just to keep breathing.

And she kisses me back, pushing a startled moan into my mouth that I drink greedily.

After a hot second, when my kiss is still a question, her answer sends fire through my blood.

Here, there’s only Salem Hopper, with her honey-sweet mouth and her nimble little hands that slide through my hair, the curve of her hips and long legs made for sin.

Salem, with her tongue that meets mine with shared madness, fluttering with need.

Salem, who pulls me closer until our bodies tangle up in a memory and a moment that breaks time.

It’s been years, but it’s the same reckless wildfire.

She stokes the flames so good with every gasp, every touch from her wandering hands.

I grab her, haul her on my lap, and she settles there with a giggle.

Her lips curve under mine as she strokes my neck. Her fingers push under my sweater to find skin.

Fuck me, she feels divine.

I shift my hips and she wiggles across me, stealing a groan from my throat.

If there weren’t so many layers between us, I’d already have her stripped bare.

I’d have my tongue on her clit.

I’d make her come for me like she did that night before we—

“Mommy?”

Fuck!

The panic is almost comical.

Salem leaps off me with an impressive agility and throws herself back on the sofa with a thump.

“Um, yes, big guy?” she asks, desperately finger combing her hair. The hair tie she used before is nowhere to be seen. Maybe I pulled it off and didn’t notice.

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