Page 76 of My Grumpy Fire Chief Next Door
Her eyes soften, glistening a little, and she exhales like I’ve cracked something open in her.“Then don’t stop,” she whispers. “Stay right here with me.”
Her hand slides up my arm, over my shoulder, and into my hair. She tugs me down into a kiss that’s slow and deep, molten and lingering. We’ve kissed before—hungry, wild, desperate—but this is different. This is raw. Honest. Her lips move against mine like she’s giving me something, and I take it like a man starving.
I shift over her, letting my weight settle, and feel the press of her body under mine. My length is hard again, thick and pulsing, trapped between us. She feels it too—arches her hips enough to tease me with the friction.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I murmur into her mouth.
“I’m just keeping up,” she breathes, lifting her hips again, deliberately this time.
I groan and reach down to guide myself against her. She’s still slick and warm, and when I push inside her, the sensation knocks the air out of my lungs. She gasps too, her fingers tightening in my hair.
We find a rhythm—slow at first, deep and aching. The heat between us builds with each stroke, her legs tightening around my hips, pulling me closer, deeper.
I kiss her like I’m making up for all the words I haven’t said. Like I’m telling her everything I don’t know how to say with my mouth full of fear and grief and want.
She whimpers into my neck, her body trembling around mine. “Don’t stop,” she whispers.
“I couldn’t if I tried.”
I brace on one forearm and reach between us with my other hand, my fingers finding the spot where she’s aching for more. She gasps when I touch her, and I don’t let up—circling, pressing, matching the rhythm of my hips.
Her nails drag down my back. Her breath comes in broken moans. And then her body tightens, and she cries out, falling apart beneath me again.
I lose it—buried deep in her, muscles clenching, pleasure burning hot and fierce as I follow her over the edge. I groan her name, holding her tight, grounding myself in the way she feels wrapped around me.
When the last tremor fades, I collapse onto my elbows, still inside her, our bodies slick and tangled. She cradles my face between her hands, and I look into her eyes.
“What are we doing?” she asks softly.
“Falling,” I whisper. “Hard.”
She smiles, slow, but it reaches her eyes. “Feels like it.”
I ease down beside her, pulling her into my chest. Her leg slides over mine, and she settles against me like she belongs there.
“I didn’t know it could feel like this,” she murmurs.
“Like what?”
“Like I’m home.”
I close my eyes, those words hitting me square in the chest. I press a kiss into her hair and hold her tighter.
Me too, I think.
But for now, I let her breathe against me, knowing the words will come.
And when they do, I won’t be afraid to say them.
She’s asleep now, curled into me, breath warm against my chest. I watch the slow rise and fall of her shoulders, the way herfingers twitch softly, still resting over my heart like they know the truth I haven’t said aloud.
The truth is, I love her.
Not in some slow-building, maybe-someday kind of way. It hit me like lightning the second I felt her fall asleep in my arms. Fierce. Immediate. Irrevocable.
It should scare me—and it does—but not enough to deny it.
I ease away carefully, slipping from the bed without waking her. The floor is cool beneath my feet as I move to the little desk by the door.
