Page 101 of Near Miss

I blink, pulling my head back. “You don’t want to play anymore?”

“Nah, it’s not that.” He rubs the back of his head before running a hand through his hair, sending waves tumbling every which way. He picks up one of my hands, stretching out each of my fingers in turn. “I can’t really imagine doing anything else with my life, honestly. I loved it, and I think I’d be able to love it again, in time. But I just...” He brings my palm to his mouth, and his next words whisper against my skin. “I think for the first time, I realize I’ll still be worth something if I’m not playing and providing. I can figure out the rest. Learning and all that.”

I debate telling him he’s worthy—that he’s always been worthy—but I’m not sure he needs the sermon.

He’s been looking at me all day like he needs to touch me, and I think I need that, too.

“Kiss me,” I whisper.

His hands are around the back of my neck, tipping my head to meet his, and his mouth is on mine.

Beckett likes to spend a lot of time on me before sex. He’s not particularly picky about how he does it—whether it’s with his fingers, his tongue, or his hands on my hips, moving me against him before he’s even inside me.

Tonight, I think we spend time on each other.

It’s different—for your hands to rove over the valleys and ridges of someone and know you love them. It’s quieter, at least for me, because there’s no brain telling me he’s just my friend—this man biting into my neck, whose hands palm my chest, whose fingers roll my nipples between them before they’re replaced by his tongue, and they slide down my stomach, stopping at my scar, where they pause with a reverence I couldn’t quite understand before, when they reach the centre of me, moving in these circles before sliding inside.

It’s different when I kiss down his neck, nails digging into his shoulders, tongue tracing the lines of his abdomen before I take him in my mouth and he groans, hips rising to meet me.

It’s certainly different when he finds himself between my legs, one hand splayed against my stomach, the other wrapped around my thigh, eyes cutting up to me when he says, “Come for me.”

I do.

And it’s not quite like anything I’ve ever experienced in my life.

My back arches with a moan, one hand finding his shoulder, the other tangling in his hair.

“Louder.”

I am.

“Can you give me one more?”

I can.

“Good girl.” He says it when his teeth scrape the inside of my thigh before he moves up the bed to hover over me.

My lips part with tiny pants, and I stare up at him, eyes wide.

He looks down at me, one wave of chocolate hair tumbling over his forehead.

“I have an IUD and I was just tested—” I start as he says, “I just had my physical.”

I blink, nodding at him.

“Just you and me then? You’re sure?” he asks.

I nod again softly.

His eyes flash. A groan catches in his throat when he grips himself and his shoulders roll back when he pushes into me slowly.

I inhale as he does, inch by inch, and I’m all full of him, nothing really empty at all because everything about Beckett is larger than life—all the parts of his body, his brain, his heart, his laugh.

He’s effervescent. It’s a bit how I feel right now—body stretching to accommodate him before giving way to all the wonderful things he does to it. He’s just right. The pressure of him inside me, a bit like a supernova that might implode and take all my lines with it.

I think, though, that it was meant to be this way. Just me and him.

A muscle in his jaw ticks and he exhales, hands coming up on either side of me to fist the pillow before he buries his face in my neck and starts to move.

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