Page 49 of Tempt

Hot. Fucking. Damn.

I ease out of her mouth and reach for the wall, dragging new breath into my chest.

From the floor, Hazel giggles softly.

I reach for her blindly and pull her up, then press her against the wall.

From downstairs, we can hear the faint countdown to midnight.Ten, nine… I ease my fingers into her pussy and find her clit with my thumb.

“Your turn,” I growl as I kiss her sweet, abused mouth. I suck on her talented tongue and bite her precious lips.

As the clock strikes midnight and everyone bursts into song, I grab Hazel and stumble into the nearest room, a spare bedroom, and shove the door shut behind me. She lands on the bed, on her back, and all I can make out are pale thighs surrounded by a black dress and black boots.

“I want these over my shoulders,” I mutter as I fall on her.

My mouth finds her silky panties first, then my fingers. I tug them aside and sink into the sticky sweet mess of her pussy. I’m going to wear the scent of her on me for the rest of the night, and I don’t fucking care.

She tastes like heaven. Like a special kind of salvation I didn’t know I still had the capacity to hope for.

My Hazel.

Mine.

It’s nearlythree in the morning when we get in the car to go back to my place. Hazel is half asleep against me.

But when we arrive home, she doesn’t let me tuck her straight into bed.

She stops me as I’m peeling off her boots. “I wanted to tell you…I told Regan about us today. Earlier.”

I sit back on my heels. “How’d that go?”

“She says she got your letter, and she’s sorry she didn’t reply.”

“Ah.” I shrug. “Nothing to be sorry for.”

She nods. “I know.”

I stand up and strip out of my clothes. She waited until the end of the night to tell me about the conversation for a reason. “Was there something else?”

Hazel scoots back and climbs under the blanket, waits for me to join her before answering. “She said she didn’t want me to get hurt.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say levelly. It doesn’t offend me, because I know my own truth. “Ever.”

“I believe you,” she says softly, tracing her fingertips featherlight along my jaw. “I might be the one to hurt you.”

Maybe our New Year’s Resolution could be to not hurt each other. But I don’t say that out loud.

17

Hazel

Winter stormsand train schedules seem determined to conspire to ruin my best-laid plans again. Sam is coming to Stratford for the weekend, but his train out of Toronto is delayed.

Story of our relationship—winter in southwestern Ontario being what it is.

Our long distance relationship isn’t as long distance as some others, but it’s still been annoying to manage at times, especially as January zoomed into February and work got insane for both of us. I’ve spent the last month on deadline and Sam has had a rough time with his brother Luke, too, not that he talks about it much.

When he texts today to say he’s finally on the way, almost two hours late, I burst into tears of relief.

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