Page 186 of Come Break My Heart Again

We both groan when she straddles me and our hips align. My hands coast up her back and down her sides, attempting to touch as much exposed skin as possible. It feels like a privilege, seeing her naked. I think it always will.

“You’re so beautiful,” I murmur.

Elle blushes, the shy color in her cheeks a contrast to the confident way she moves my dick to her opening and then sinks down.

“Fuck.” I exhale, feeling her heat only for a second before it starts to surround me.

Elle’s greedy for more, bearing down hard as I watch her opening stretch to accommodate my penis. My hands slide up her stomach and cover her breasts as she undulates over me.

“You feel so fucking good,” she tells me, scratching at my shoulders as I replace my hands with my mouth. “So thick and hard and—” I bite gently. “Ry!”

She’s close. I can feel her inner muscles rippling around me.

Elle reaches up. A few bobby pins fall to the floor as she undoes her hair, dark strands curtaining her rapturous expression. She leans back, miles of smooth skin spread in front of me. We’re still fucking, and I’m already ready to start all over again.

She shifts again, grinding our pelvises together.

My hands move to her hips, working my cock in and out of her. I’m starting to sweat from all the lust burning through me. Nothing affects me like Elle. When we’re touching, she has more control over my body than I do.

Elle grabs my right hand and guides it lower. As soon as my fingers touch her clit, she’s coming, breathy moans and loud cries filling the kitchen as her pussy pulses around me.

Elle doesn’t move away, even after both of our bodies have stilled. She rests her forehead against my shoulder, her fingers playing with the ends of my hair.

“I’m sorry, Ry,” she whispers, her voice slightly muffled by my skin. “So sorry for everything that happened to you.”

My hold on her tightens. “I’m not. I’d do it all over again, Lo, every shitty second, if I knew it meant we’d be here, having sex in houses we don’t own.”

She laughs. “This is the best first date ever.”

I chuckle too. “Just wait until you try the oysters and caviar at this restaurant.”

38

Applause explodes throughout the ballroom as Keira and Tucker appear as Mr. and Mrs. Franklin for the first time.

Elle is beaming as she leans against me, watching her best friend and mine walk toward the open section of the floor for their first dance.

“When are the speeches again?” I whisper to Elle.

“Not until after dinner,” she replies.

I reach up to fiddle with the knot of my bow tie.

I’m nervous, not only about speaking in front of the hundreds of people Tuck invited to his wedding, but also about what I wrote.

Tucker is more than my best friend. We’re as close as brothers. Closer maybe since I’ve shared things with him that I felt like I needed to shield Cormac from.

My little brother doesn’t look like he needs protecting though. He’s seated at the next table over, between our mom and his girlfriend, Brynn. Cormac had his doubts about how their relationship might fare after she returned to Ohio, but I’d say her coming all this way to be a plus-one at a wedding bodes pretty damn well. Not to mention, she’s sleeping in my lumpy twin bed this weekend while I stay with Elle.

Shemustlove him, if she’s willing to endure that.

My mom glances over and catches me looking their way. With her hair styled and a full face of makeup, you can hardly tell she’s sick. There are starting to be some signs though. She’s lost weight, and she coughs frequently. The imaginary clock is ticking even if we can’t always hear it.

Her gaze bounces to Elle beside me, then back to me. She beams.

If there’s one person happier about us being back together than Elle and me, it’s my mom. It’s the best gift I ever could have given her. She sees Elle as a daughter, and she’s thrilled my life is finally moving forward in a positive direction.

Elle’s parents, who are seated right by the dance floor and were invited because they’re good friends with Keira’s parents, are much harder to read. I’ve had dinner at their house twice in the two months Elle and I have been officially dating. Both were awkward meals of polite, forced small talk. They obviously have no idea what to make of me—the guy with no college degree and a criminal record, the opposite of everything they ever wanted for their little girl. And they were clearly taken aback by Elle, noticing the same thing it had taken me a lot longer than a few hours to realize—Elle’s different around me. She’s less stiff and polished, more relaxed and playful.

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