Page 146 of Breathe Again

“You have it. Start to believe.” He slapped my ass, hard! “C’mon, you’re a sweaty, cummy mess, and so am I.”

I laughed and headed, with him, to the bathroom.

When we climbed back into bed he rolled away from me, pulling my arm across his abdomen to keep me close, tucked in tight against his warm back, where I quickly fell into sleep.

Zale

He lay awake, the feel of her breasts rising and falling with each even breath against his back. He’d started paying attention, and what he saw made his heart bleed. The meetings with Erin were eye-opening, she understood the language Mara’s brain spoke, and she was an excellent interpreter.

He would lean on Rhys more. As much as it killed him, he would do it for Mara, for Mara and him, for Mara, him, and Olivia. He’d talk to anybody in order to learn the language her heart and mind could understand.

He stroked her arm that he’d wound around his own waist, feeling her at his back, where she’d always been, figuratively and literally. He’d take hers now too.

He took the first deep breath he’d taken since she went to the hospital and slipped into sleep.

The Shit List

Mara

Olivia walked out the door with Bex, and I turned to find Zale barreling down on me. He pulled me in tight for a quick, hard, close-mouthed kiss.

“Bed. Now.”

My mouth dropped open two seconds before the message hit my brain and the wet hit my panties. I grasped his forearms as my eyelids fluttered shut.

“Mara!” He laughed. “Bed!” He turned me in his arms and ushered me backto our bedroom.

Shyness and suspicion caught up with me halfway there. He was walking behind me. Did I look fat? Did he really want me? Was this all an act to prove to me that he’ll give me what I need only to take it away again once he goes back to work? Is it even fair to ask him for sex?

Nothing made sense anymore. I didn’t know if I should be making demands or promises, demanding apologies or offering them.

As soon as we passed the threshold to our bedroom, he started taking off my clothes, kissing the skin as he exposed it. He moved quickly, his hands everywhere, his mouth following, then heading back to cover mine in a contradictory soft, slow kiss. He was going too fast, his actions too erratic, for my brain to focus on anything other than what he was doing to me. I moaned into his mouth, standing naked in the circle of his arms, pressed against his long, hard body still encased in jersey and denim.

“Please, take your clothes off,” I pleaded “I want to feel you against me.”

He grasped his shirt at the back of his neck, pulled it over his head, and dropped it on the floor. He pulled me close, pressing my breasts against his hard chest, and then looked down into my upturned face.

His voice was low and thick, eyelids at half-mast. “You want to make love, baby? Or do you want to fuck?”

I leaned in, allowing my weight to settle against him, I breathed, “I want to fuck.”

His eyes lit then hardened along with his jaw. “Alright,” he agreed, “let’s fuck.”

He backed me up to the edge of the bed and slammed his mouth down on mine, his hand fisted in my hair, holding my head back, exposing my throat to his lips, his tongue. I relaxed into his hold, gave myself over to him, and let him take me where we both longed to go.

Half an hour later he pulled me, limp and replete, into his arms, all tension drained from my system. I sighed against his chest.

His deep, mellow voice rumbled up from his chest. “You good, gorgeous?”

“Mm.”

He kissed my head. “Good. That’s what I like to hear.”

Zale

He’d taken full possession of Mara’s cell phone when she came home from the hospital, and he had deleted the messenger app off her iPad, for the time being, with her full consent.

Bea had been calling his cell and the house phone for the past two days. He’d already spoken to her once, but she was calling again.He’d yet to tell Mara about the phone calls but it was on the agenda for tomorrow.

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