Page 93 of Finding Home

“I feel like the lucky one.”

“Let’s agree, we’re both pretty damn lucky.”

“I don’t want to only see you on video chats or every couple of years when you fly to Long Beach. I don’t want to go another fourteen years without coming back.”Elle inhaled a steadying breath. “I’m going to come back more often, at least one proper trip a year and maybe some quick stopovers when I fly to New York City for work.”

“I’d like that.”

“Maybe I can come back for Christmas?”Elle asked, playing with her starfish bracelet.

She wasn’t sure whose permission she sought, her uncle’s or her own. It had been so long since she’d spent a holiday in Perry. Labor Day wasn’t one generally marked for homecomings, but here she was. Even her last few years at UB, when she lived only an hour away, she’d come back to Pete and Janet’s just a handful of times. The already complicated holidays with her mom’s influx of rotating boyfriends became more strained after she broke with her mom. It was hard to relax into Pete and Janet’s cozy Christmas cottage, like something out of a Hallmark movie, when Elle kept looking over her shoulder for the lurking specter of her mom.

She could do this.She could come back for visits and holidays and survive. Only days away from leaving, she recognized how far she’d come.

“You never have to ask.” Pete took her hand. “Our door is always open. You’re my favorite niece.”

“I’m your only niece.”Her lips tugged up, sweetly sarcastic.

“My one and only.” His smile large.

THIRTY-FIVE

“Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience – or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.”

~Jane Austen,Sense and Sensibility

Awicked grin grew wider on Elle’s face with each rhythmic tap of fat raindrops against the pane of the farmhouse windows.She looked over to Clayton asleep beside her on his stomach, his left-hand lay over her in a claiming gesture, as his head faced his side of the bed.His side. My side.The heat of his body next to her pulsed every wanton need awake.

Giddy anticipation jigged through her limbs as she lay in the still dark room listening to the rain and quiet hum of Clayton, or maybe Fitz’s, snores.Pulse racing, she waited for the chime of his church bells that had served as her alarm for the last few weeks. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she studied Clayton’s outlined form sleeping next to her. The navy comforter draped over his middle revealing the ridges of his muscular back. Her fingers itched to slink up his spine.Desire pooled in her core, spreading through her.

Clayton’s alarm screeched and he let out a muffled groan then searched blindly for his phone on the bedstand.With a grumble, he turned it off, then flipped toward Elle.

“Good Mo…oof.”Clayton’s good morning was interrupted by Elle pushing him to his back as she landed on top of him like a jungle cat.

Not a sweet little tabby but a ravenous panther. Straddling him, she crashed her mouth against his.

“Well, hello.” His raspy sleep-worn voice chuckled.

“It’s raining….so…”She drew theTeam Paw Patrolshirt over her head, flinging it somewhere in the room.

“So, you want to macramé?”

“No.”Elle placed his hands on her aching breasts.

“Oh, you want to play chess?”His tease was a deep rumble as he rolled her hardening nipples with the pads of his fingers.

Her pelvic muscles tightened with want. “No.”With a sly smile, Elle took his hands and moved them to cup her backside.

“Oh, you want to make pancakes?”His brow cocked as he squeezed her ass.

“No.”Elle sighed, falling back on the bed, taking Clayton with her, his hard body settling between her open legs.

“I think you’ll have to tell me what you want, because I’m really at a loss here.”He smirked, rubbing the growing arousal beneath his black boxer briefs against her naked core.

“I want you.”Need crept up her body with each delicious movement of his erection against her.

“What do you want me to do?”He kissed her throat.

She bit her lower lip in carnal consideration, although she knew what she wanted him to do in exquisite detail.Those images flooded her dreams all night.Clayton’s roaming tongue trailing down her body, teasing licks down her center until feverishly devouring her.Her fingers threading through his short hair as he brought her to the edge and back over and overagain.Nails digging into his shoulder as he inched inside of her, taunting her with the promise of even more pleasure before sinking fully into her.

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