Page 144 of Breathe Again

“Come to bed, Mara.” I took his offered hand and rose from my seat. He pulled me into him and kissed me on my forehead, pressed his nose against my hair. “I love you, Mara.”

“I love you, too, Zee.” I leaned into him.

This man was my lifeline most days. If I were ever to completely lose my faith in him, I’d be utterly lost. I wished I could let him go. I knew this was an aspiration I could not hope to meet, yet I was not prepared to live with the guilt of staying. It was a conundrum.

He stood up and headed to our bedroom, I tucked my journal away and went to tuck Olivia into her bed. ‘

We’d had busy days out and about with Zale, she would fall asleep quickly.

I stood in the hallway outside Olivia’s door. I needed to go to bed, but I didn’t know how to act. So many feelings, excited, nervous,suspicious, most of all, I felt embarrassed and unworthy, albeit an embarrassed and unworthy writhing mass of lust. I gave myself a mental shake, it’s not like I could stand out here in the hallway all night.

I walked into our bedroom and glanced at him. He had his eyes to his cell and greeted me with a casual, “Hey, baby.”

I released the breath I didn’t know I was holding, wondering how it was that attention, the exact thing I craved and demanded, when given, caused me to berate myself for my unworthiness? I pulled a nightie from the drawer and escaped to the bathroom to get ready for bed. When I came out, the lights were already out, and he lay curled on his side in the bed. My shoulders slumped, in both relief and disappointment.

I slid in beside him, and he immediately reached for me, aligning my body facing his. I startled.

“You didn’t think I would sleep after this morning, did you?”

“I didn’t know…”

His hands wandered, one sliding under my ribs angling up and cradling the back of my head while he lightly brushed his lips over mine, the other stroking up and down my back, pulling my nightie up by infinitesimal degrees with every pass. My stomach clenched into a ball and my heart beat erratically in my chest.

“Relax, gorgeous. We’ll go slow.”

“You want me?”

He rocked against me, letting me feel his erection against my belly. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

I persisted, “But me? Not just wanting sex but wanting sex with me?”

He stopped, stunned to hear her give voice to his own anxiety. He gave her honesty.

“Mara, there is no other sex for me than sex with you. Wanting sex is wanting you. They are one and the same.”

I relaxed into his hold, and he feathered his lips across my cheeks, my eyes, and finally pressed his mouth gently against mine. He held the kiss, unmoving, and we breathed each other in. With my exhale he parted my lips with his tongue, and I let him in.

Bliss.

Connection.

His sweet mouth merged with mine, giving me his tongue, stroking, nibbling, sucking, distracting me from the ever-present nightmare of my thoughts. My nightie was at my waist, and he continued with his slow, sweet assault, caressing my back, my side, my hip, his fingers dipping lower and lower into my panties as I wrestled with my thoughts.

“You are wearing far too many clothes,” he murmured, palming my ass.

He dragged my panties down, pulling them over my thighs and then shifted up to whip them off at my feet. The intimacy of that never lost its power to thrill me. Sitting beside me he tugged my hand to pull me upright and grasped my nightie by the hem, lifting it gently over my head.

I was grateful for the darkness, already nervous enough without worrying about how I looked. He rose to his knees, bringing me along with him. He braced his knees wide and slipped his erection through the juncture at my thighs, the wet there ready to ease his way. Chest to chest, his hands caressed me from the crease at the top of my thighs to my upper back and back down, all the while thrusting into the wet at the top of my thighs, dragging the head of his cock across my clit.

I clung to his shoulders, hearing the rush of blood in my ears. The shaking of my legs signaled to him how close my release hovered and he pulled away.

“Nooo,” I gasped, “don’t do that!”

“Don’t want it to go too fast,” he soothed. “I’ve missed you.”

He pulled me by my hand, positioned me sitting at the edge of the bed, and dropped to his knees on the floor between my legs.

“I want to taste you.”

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