Page 151 of Smooth Sailing

It was impossible to come to terms with and he hoped like fuck he never met her mother.

“Harlan,” Di called.

“Against all the odds, my ma kept firm hold on me,” he told her. “We were never rolling in it, but I always had a roof over my head, and it was a decent one, food in my belly, and plenty of it, and clothes on my back, and she made a big deal out of getting me new at the beginning of each school year and tripling down on that at Christmas and my birthday. No kid in school ever knew what my mother did, and they never knew we didn’t have a lot. She made it that way, so people wouldn’t think shit and kids wouldn’t be assholes to me. She let me go only when she was dead, and she didn’t even want to do that. She died with her hand in mine, too weak to curl her fingers around, but she was still holding on. And her last words on this Earth were, ‘Best thing I ever did was you.’”

He watched bright hit her eyes, and she whispered, “Those were her last words?”

“Lookin’ me right in the eye until the light blinked out in hers.”

She pushed up so she could drop her forehead to his. “Oh, Hugger.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

That felt good.

All his life, they’d been alone…

He’d been alone when he lost her.

He wasn’t alone now.

Fuck.

“You are, you know,” she said.

His voice sounded funny, scratchy and strange, when he asked, “I am what?”

“The best.”

Fuck.

It was wrong, it wasn’t the time, but Jesus, he had to kiss her.

He was wrong. It was the time, because Di kissed him.

He’d thought a lot about it, too much, but he knew their first time he wanted to take it slow, lead them both to savoring it, making it a memory that lasted forever.

The instant his tongue touched hers, that plan flew out the window.

He rolled her to her back and he couldn’t seem to get enough of her. His hands were everywhere, his mouth devouring hers.

She met him with intensity and exceeded it, heaving to push him to his back so she was on top again, breaking the kiss, lifting up and yanking off her top.

She was wearing a little black pushup bra, no frills, but the swells of her tits over the top of her bra made his dick jerk.

He sat up and went after her neck with his lips, down her chest, as she went after the buttons on his shirt.

He was nearly to her tit, intent to take the nipple through her bra (before he took off her bra) when she pushed him to his back and bent to his chest, shoving his shirt aside, scraping her fingers through the hair, finding his nipple with her mouth.

He wasn’t sensitive there, but he felt it, it felt good, and it felt even better when she kept using her nails as she trailed her lips down, down, until she was edging the waistband of his jeans with her tongue and going for his fly with her fingers.

Oh no.

Hell no.

He got first taste.

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