Page 88 of Silent Is The Heart

“Impatient much?” I tease.

His slathered hand grips and coats me, stealing my breath. “Overdue,” he murmurs, nipping my lower lip. “Just overdue.”

I feel like a sex doll the way he guides my tip to his entrance. For the record, I have no problem being his sex doll. The look in his eyes isn’t the carnal one I’ve seen before at times. It’s wanting, but wanting for something far beyond the realm of physical touch. It’s soul-deep because I can feel it in my own as I stare back at him.

Moving my hand over his, I take hold of myself, stilling his movements. The first time I topped with him was an urgent flurry of insatiability that neither of us could stop. This feels like another first again, but I want to do it differently. He must register something because he draws his hand away and slides it up to the pillow. Gripping it, he waits patiently, like he’s just committed himself to a penalty box.

Leaning down, I swipe my tongue against his, a slow carving of his mouth. “I love you,” I whisper. The hairs on my arms spike as though they’re as aware as I am of how fragile that four-letter word can be. And then I press against his heated ring.

With a mewl, he opens immediately, drawing me in. His breath vents against my lips. His gaze drinks me in. God, all I ever did before was just fuck. Stroking his cheek, I return the smile he gives to me and feather a kiss over his lips.

As I learn the art of making love, I feather dozens more on the mouth that owns the words that give me purpose. His voice sings beautiful sounds that mine will never be able to with each undulation of our hips. For once, I feel no humility in not being able to mirror the exquisite noise. Every time I rasp or my throat makes a growl that should be a groan, it spurs him on. Somehow, I give him what he needs just as much as he does me.

Just when I think he’s close and I should push lovemaking to the wayside, he grips my ass, holding me deep inside him. Drawing his legs up around my back, he locks his ankles together. Carding his fingers into my hair, he sweeps his tongue around the inside of my mouth until I come up breathless.

“You don’t ever get to leave me, Easton Bennick. I love you too much to lose you.”

The words pull a painful sound from my throat. Reaching between us, I grip the end of his cock tight and stroke him. “I never will.”

His body squeezes me, unleashing the maddening build in my balls. A wave of heat engulfs my legs. I bury my groan into his kiss, feeling his release crest my grasp as I pulse inside him. His fingerprints are going to be indented on my back like a badge of honor. We shudder and convulse against each other, a battle of two blissed-out bodies.

Blinking through my haze, I slip free when I can no longer stand the torment to my sensitized flesh. For some reason, I want to name the feeling coursing through my veins as he smiles up at me lazily. Happy and terrified. Happy and terrified. Maybe that’s what having the love of your life is supposed to feel like. The terrified part is no longer over the thought of himup and leaving or me screwing something up. It’s a terrified I can make peace with, one that I hope is years down the road.

Pulling my head down, he kisses me one last time. I peel myself away and stagger toward his bathroom on wobbly legs to fetch him something to clean up with. Once I’m back in bed, I bite back a smile when he pretzels himself around me.

A strong gust of wind rattles the windows. It pulls my mind to a dark place that I don’t want to go—a vision of Jason lying dead on the shore of Lake Maranacook. It’s in the next county. I’ll never know whether it was Leonard’s intention, but a morbid part of me is grateful he spared us from having the foul memory in our hometown by doing it away from Hampton.

Aaron’s brother must know everything by now, judging by the mood when I arrived earlier. I can’t imagine what their parents must think. Recalling all Aaron’s stories about them, I don’t suspect it was an easy thing for him to tell his family. There will probably still be legal questions or inquiries from the police as they dig into Jason’s past. Will this be a dark cloud over us forever? Right now, everything seems like nothing could disrupt the bubble of joy we created tonight, but Aaron has a lot to go through still.

A fingertip taps my forehead, and I find him smirking at me. “There’s a question in there. I can almost see it.”

“I was just wondering—” Thinking better of it, I shake my head.

“What?”

Grimacing, I don’t want to ruin his post-coital bliss, but I more or less promised not to hold things in anymore. “I was wondering…what do we do now?”

“Find something to eat,” he groans. “Because I’m starving.”

Chuckling, I press a kiss to his nose and glide my palm over his stomach. He must see something in my expression, however, because the playful twinkle in his eyes dies.

“That’s not what you meant, is it?” he murmurs, tracing my jaw.

“Forget it. I’m being…emotional.” I can’t believe I’m even using that word.

Intertwining our fingers, he brings my hand to his mouth and kisses my knuckles. “No. It’s a good question.”

Fuck. The last thing I wanted to do was to make him sad or wary of the future.

“I have a suggestion if you want to hear it.”

“Yeah,” I agree, although I want to strike my question from the record. ‘What do we do now?’

“Live,” he says with this calm sort of wisdom in his eyes. Smiling, he moves his hand over my heart. “And love. Everything else is just background noise.”

Liveandlove. It’s a two-step life plan I can’t find holes in. I think this is the moment I’ll officially quit worrying about what-ifs.

“You’re pretty smart for a sexy guy. You know that?”

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