Page 109 of Tides That Bind

I’ve losta lot over the last several months—my husband and partner, my son’s father, memories we never made.

And a shit ton of sleep.

I wake early. Dawn’s light is approaching, but I don’t mind, even though I went to bed late. Because for the first time in months I’m not dreaming of or haunted by all the things I miss. It’s imagining all that can be done with what—and whom—I still have that kept me up late and woke me early.

It's the touch of his hand on my face.

The way it felt to sink deliciously in his lap, how he could kiss me so deeply while his hands ghosted over every inch of me that isn’t off limits anymore.

It’s both of us knowing we needed to stop, intending for every kiss to be the last, which is next to impossible when each one feels like the first over and over again.

But it did come to an end, too soon for either of our liking, when I could hear Lucas calling for me from inside, wanting a glass of water.

After I got Lucas back into bed and padded downstairs, I caught sight of myself in the mirror in theentry way, a mess of flushed cheeks and swollen lips, the left-over light abrasions of Riley’s harsher kisses against my neck that had me seeing stars.

And there’s the feel of him rushing up against me and enveloping me in his arms.

He digs his face into my neck and the breath of me he steals from my skin is full and greedy, like the one you take after coming up from underwater.

“We’re going to have to figure this out,” he whispers.

I know he means Lucas.

I know, if Lucas wasn’t a factor, we wouldn’t be standing, fully clothed. There would be no barriers between us at all.

“We will.” I tilt my head to the side, giving him more access to my neck when he begins to kiss me there again. “God, we have to.”

I stand in wonder in front of the mirror, watching him slide his hand beneath my shirt, taking in the flex of his hand as he cups my breast. I arch into him and I know it will never be close enough. Not like this.

Riley sighs, dropping his hand and pulling his lips from my neck. He rests his chin on my shoulder. “If I don’t stop now, I won’t ever.”

I pout even though I understand. I pout even though I ache. But I swear, on the inside I’m smiling.

Riley straightens and turns me around, taking my hand and heading upstairs.

I tug on him, keeping him in place. “I thought you wanted to stop.”

“I don’twantto stop,” Riley corrects me. “I need to and trust me when I say this will be one of the few times I do it.” He tips his head toward the stairs. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t say goodnight the right way.”

I let him lead me upstairs to the door of my bedroom and laugh. “You didn’t have towalkme home,” I whisper. “It’s not like we went on a date.”

Tonight when walls fell, they became rubble in a sea of tears,whispered screams, and hurried, crushing kisses. If just one of those things happened between two people on a first date, chances are they’d both run.

“That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t end like one,” Riley says. He leans one arm up, gripping the upper frame of the doorway and his other finds the small of my back. “When I kiss you goodnight, I want you to wish it's morning so I can do it again.”

Riley made good on his word because I’m wishing for that—and more—right now.

Warmth blooms across my body, top to bottom. Even though I’m alone in bed, I’m not alone in my thoughts. Riley is there and he’s so real. As I trail my hand from my neck where the scruff of his beard rubbed deliciously against, down the valley of my breasts where his chest pressed into, I feel him, the warmth and life in his body regulating the very same thing in my own.

I roll a nipple between my fingers as my legs clench together beneath the sheet and what pulses between them takes off on a dream of its own, leaving behind a pool of desire my fingers slip and slide against after voyaging beneath my underwear. I throb against my own hand, imaging it’s his long fingers circling my clit, or wondering how it feels for my nipples to scrape at his chest while he pushes me harder into the mattress.

The aching and needing isn’t satisfied by my fingers alone, clearly a poor substitute for Riley. I burrow them deeper, so the heel of my palm presses firmly against my clit, and a gasp flees from my mouth. The noise is so similar to one I let out last night, one that made Riley kiss me harder, rub against me with more force. I whimper through my clenched teeth, my head flinging to the window that overlooks the backyard.

We’re so close, yet so far away, exactly how we’ve always been.

Except now, it’s different.

It’sokaythat when my entire body tingles and tightens, it’s because ofRiley. It’sokaymy breaths escapes my chest in breathy moans I’m frantic to feed into his mouth and fuel his own desire.

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