Page 123 of Choosing Forever
DELANEY
I don’t waitfor him to do it.
A second is as long as it takes for me to seal our lips, fifteen years of love between us rekindling with a smack. I use my hold on his shirt to keep him anchored down, unable to slip free just yet. It’s unnecessary. Darren uses the hand in my hair to drag me with him as he leans his head back against the couch and then takes my hip into his hold.
Moving with him is the most natural thing I’ve ever done. It’s as simple as breathing but as enthralling as sitting at the top of a roller coaster, counting down the seconds until you drop. I don’t know where the confidence in my actions is coming from, considering the lack of experience I’ve had, but maybe that’s just how it was supposed to be with him.
He makes everything easy because he’s the only one I was ever meant to do this with.
I release his shirt with one hand and slide my fingers through his hair instead.As fucking if he’d ever go bald.The hair curling around my fingers is soft and lush, and I have to pull on it to keep from letting it slip free.
We’re supposed to be talking tonight.
The movie intro credits have ended, and the pop-up menuforLegally Blondekeeps replaying the same song on the TV speakers. Our dinner is growing cold on the table behind me. Chicken and a Greek salad that’s heavy on the tomatoes and cheese, just the way I like it. There’s an article still open and perched on my dream built-ins with my name printed alongside Darren’s, featuring a photo of his bathroom. And he was there. He was at the funeral.
Screw talking. This is the only thing I want tonight.
“Elle.” My name is a weak groan on his tongue.
“Only tell me to stop if you mean it.”
“I won’t be able to let you go after.”
I pause, retreating one lonely inch. “It’s about time.”
He pushes forward, reclaiming my mouth with a demand that creates a blooming pulse between my thighs. I suck in a sharp breath at the pleasure and shiver, my nervous system crashing. His hands abandon my hair and begin to roam with the new approval. From my neck to the curve of my breast and to the flat of my stomach, he touches me softly, like he’s nervous to press too hard.
I breathe out against his mouth and keep my hands where they are, unsure in a way that he doesn’t seem to be. He remembers where to touch me, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from moaning when his fingertip strokes the sensitive underside of my ass.
Surely, it’s not supposed to be this hard, but I’m out of practice. So much so that I realize I’ve stopped kissing him with all of my thinking.
“Did I go too far?” he asks, slightly breathless despite our lack of movement.
“No. No, I’m—” I swallow and drop my eyes, staring at the gap between our bodies. “You heard me. At Peakside.”
There’s a shift in me as he rolls his jaw, nostrils flaring. “I heard you, Delaney.”
“So, you know how out of practice I am.”
“You’re not taking more inches tonight than my fingers canoffer you, baby. No ridges or rainbows either,” he drawls, dipping his head to kiss beneath my jaw.
My throat bulges against his lips and the sear of his tongue. “It’s not only that. I’m out of practice with everything.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, Darren. Stop making me repeat myself.”
His eyes appear when he focuses them on me again, the brown deeper, darker than when I arrived tonight. “Do you think I’m not also out of practice? What you see right now is a guy trying to remember the way you liked to be touched ten years ago and hoping I don’t do anything you don’t like. You’re different now. Even if we hadn’t been apart, your body isn’t the same it was then. Mine isn’t either.”
He takes my hand and pushes it down his chest. Wide-eyed, I watch as it moves further and further down until he slides the hem of his shirt under my finger.
“Explore me, and I’ll explore you, Elle. Just like the first time we ever touched like this.”
My moan is involuntary, but I feel the tensing of his abdomen in response to it. Carefully, I lower myself flat to his lap and sit back to make room to take over for him. I pinch the bottom of his shirt and start to work it up his body, exposing an inch of skin and then another.
He releases a tight exhale when I follow the shirt with my other hand, letting it stroke the bare skin I expose. The muscles he had in high school have changed. Grown thicker and stronger beneath the new trail of hair leading beneath the band of his jeans. There’s so much more of him now, and I’m having trouble comparing this new him to the one who took my virginity.
It hits me hard. The rush of heat beneath my skin mixes with the electric thrum in my ears, driving me to move quicker. Suddenly, his shirt is above his pecs, and I’m clawing at it, desperate to be rid of it.
