Page 76 of Your Soul to Keep

I rocked back and forth, propelling myself closer, digging my hands under his arms and around his back as misplaced memories freed themselves from the abyss of my grief. Pummeling me like hailstones ripping through the veil of a summer day.

I gripped his shirt in my hands, my body shaking like a leaf in the wind, my throat tight, breaths shuddering in and out as barely human noises spilled from my chest.

Through it all, his steady presence, familiar embrace, deep, reassuring voice in my ear guiding me home.

Home.

My eyes widened almost painfully.

Home.

Packing up my house, my entire life and history taped up and sent to storage.

Nan’s red nose and swollen eyes.

My mother’s perfume bottles preserved for all time on a silver tray on the vanity.

My dad’s books tumbling off the shelf into a box in my anger. Gabe abandoning the clothes he’d been folding into a suitcase to wrap me up in his arms as I cried.

My God, he was there.

He’d been there for all of it.

And I froze him out. I squeezed my eyes shut.

The phone, oh God, the Goddamn phone ringing and ringing and ringing.

Nan’s fingers in my hair.

My neck arched back with a sob as I drowned in sorrow. “Gabe,” I choked on his name. “I’m so, so sorry!”

He curled his long body over mine, his arms so tight I could barely breathe. “You’ve lived on the darker side of midnight for too long, Shae-baby. Let it out and let it go. It’s time to face the dawn.”

Pressing closer, I grabbed the back of his neck and yanked his face down to mine. I fused my mouth to his, sucked him inside my mouth like oxygen I needed to survive.

His hands dropped to my ass and hefted me up.

Not like this.

“Please, Gabe, please don’t let go.”

“I fucking won’t,” he promised, eating at my mouth like a man starved even as he set me back down and pulled my t-shirt over my head before going back to assault my neck with his teeth, his scruff reminding me exactly where I was.

Who I was with.

My hands flew to his belt, pulling it through the loops of his jeans and dropping it to the floor before moving onto the button and zipper.

Keeping one hand on my neck, he pushed his jeans down to the floor along with his boxers and stepped out of them. Pulling away, he dropped to his knees.

Pressing his face to the softness of my belly he made short work of freeing me from my jeans, my panties and socks quickly following.

I curled my toes into the softness of the rug beneath my feet as he wrapped his arms around my hips and pressed his face to the apex of my thighs. Inhaling deeply, he pressed closer and drove his tongue between my lips to tease my aching clit.

“Gabe,” I choked out his name as I pulled at his hair, needing him with me, mouth to mouth, heart to heart, hip to hip. “I need you.”

Rising fluidly to his feet, he arched me back and pressed my body to his. “I’m here, Shae. I’m right here.”

My body melded to his as I filled my lungs with the heat of his neck.

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