Page 49 of Lyrical

“You could say that.”

“Fool.”

“Well, hopefully I got through to him, made him see this as a good thing.”

He unlocked our hands, trailing his fingers up my back and into my hair. His lips went to my neck. “It is a good thing. How do you feel about Daniel getting a sibling?”

“The only thing I can feel right now are the effects of your kisses.” He chuckled but didn’t stop until my knees were buckling under me. “God, Chase. Everything is so easy with you. When I’m with you, in your arms, it’s like anything less than perfect melts away.”

“It’s always going to be like that, Jillian.”

“I can’t imagine you not being here to help me through all my craziness.”

“I’m always going to be here, Jillian.”

His hands and mouth dissolved doubts. Ones I didn’t own for the present but the future. Things changed; that was the nature of the world we lived in. But I would take all that he offered for now and hope that the day it ended was so far away it hardly existed.

I felt cool, smooth stone against my back and a heated rock against my front. His body covered mine, pressing me to the wall. I almost laughed at all those cookies close to me, separated by a sheet of glass. Sweetness all around me, and by far the most satisfying was on my tongue.

His teeth caught my bottom lip, and his palms blanketed the sides of my face. He was so hard, always so deliciously hard.

“Do you believe me, Wild Horses?” he breathed into me. “Do you believe this is forever?”

His mouth played with mine as I was getting so fucking wet next to a fucking cookie shop.

“Chase….”

I suddenly felt self-conscious, even though the area was closed for the night. What if someone came by, wanting a walk on a warm late winter night just like us?

“Put your head on my chest and close your eyes.”

I did as he said, burying myself in his scent. It instantly relaxed me. I couldn’t see anything around me as his hand slid between us, brushing over my stomach.

“Do you believe me?”

His hand trailed lower, easily sliding past the top of my jeans and fingering the lace of my panties. Did I believe him? Did I believe that I’d always have him, that he’d always be there to comfort and love me? In that very moment I did, and the present was all we fully owned.

“I believe you, Chase.”

I wanted to fall to the ground when his fingers pushed aside the material and dipped into my wetness. He was going to make me come in the open like this, as the night air washed over us and sounds of drunken laughter echoed in the distance. We were in our own little corner of the world, but it wasn’t private. Nothing was enclosing us, and at any second someone could round that corner. I didn’t even have the safety of a car to hide away in.

“Shhh… you’re safe,” he said in response to the slight tense of my muscles. “I want you to come for me, but it will only be for me. I’m paying attention, so you’re free to get lost.”

I trusted him. With my pleasure, my body, my life. I let go, pushing my cheek into the strength of his chest, shifting my head as the intensity built. He strummed over my clit, and I gave him want he wanted. I came all over his fingers, my moans muffled with my mouth pressed hard into his shirt, almost tasting him through the fabric.

With his hand still laying claim between my thighs, he tilted my chin up and kissed me long and deep. When he pulled back, I was breathless and likely sopping wet all over again.

His forehead touched mine.

“This is forever, Jillian.”

This is forever, Jillian.

The box rested in my palm, and I closed my fingers over the velvet. I liked to take it out of my desk drawer whenever I had the opportunity and check it over, as if I didn’t have every facet of the gem already etched in my brain. In my soul. I liked to imagine sliding it over her finger and keeping it there. Forever.

This is forever, Jillian.

She shared my conviction, but there were limits to her beliefs. I saw that in her eyes, felt it in her words. She believed in forever as long as forever never came. It was my job to prove that my promises were not empty ones. Marriage was not just a piece of paper to me. My heart was already bound to her, but it was not enough. And it was not enough for her. Despite her never broaching the subject or indicating her need, I sensed it as well as I knew my own. Forever meant forever, and that was what I intended to prove when she became my wife.

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