Page 81 of The Heart We Guard
She puts her hands over mine. “Would it help if I told you that you’re cute?”
Her words make me grin. “You good if I undress you and make love to you tonight?” The wordsmake lovefeel foreign when they trip over my lips.
Fucking? Yes.
Railing? Also, yes.
But making love? Not something I can ever remember saying, and it makes all this feel new.
She sighs, and I draw her breath into my mouth. “Yes.”
I tug the black fleece over her head, and she raises her arms a second time so I can tug the tank top off too. The smoothness of her skin gets me every time. It’s so soft and dewy. No fucking clue what she puts on it to make it feel like this.
Her fingers slip to the buttons of my plaid shirt, and the feel of them against my chest as she unbuttons them gives methe kind of shiver I haven’t felt since I was young. Something inherently intimate and sexual, without being loud about it.
It’s warmth, I guess. Tenderness.
I claim her lips as she works, my tongue tracing the soft fullness of her lips. When she responds, my cock pushes against my zipper.
As I trail kisses along her jaw, I reach behind her and unhook the clasp of her bra. Greer finishes undoing my buttons, and I take the moment to slide the straps down her arms.
I can’t remember the last time I undressed a woman.
It’s a small thing that reminds me just how desensitized I’ve become to sex being a deeply intimate act.
But there’s no rush to get my dick inside Greer.
I want the small things with her.
Fuck, I’m already starting to feel likeeverythingmight be possible with her. A loving family. A deep connection. Something so real it’s both fragile and indestructible. Her hands slide over my chest and push my shirt off my shoulders. I wiggle a little to help it slide down my arms and off my wrists.
Parting her lips, Greer raises up onto her toes to kiss me again.
It’s probably wrong to think of this as some kind of conquest, but after Greer’s confession about her sexuality, this means more. To know she has to feel deeply connected to someone before she can feel this and enjoy this means that I’m someone.
I’m Greer’s person.
Which makes all this even more…special.
I unbutton and unzip her denim then place my hands in the waistband of her jeans and slide them over the curve of her ass. Her underwear is all practical cotton. Simple, like the tastes of her decor in her house. But nothing about it is plain. It fits her perfectly, emphasizes the roundness of her cheeks.
And it’s soft beneath my calloused palms.
“Greer,” I murmur against her mouth, and she sighs. Her whole body shifts and softens as she does.
She shimmies the jeans down her legs until she’s standing in just her panties. This time when I kiss her, it’s with the kind of soldering heat capable of joining metals.
“Nolan,” she says. “I feel like I need more.”
More, I can do. “I’ve got you, babe.” I lift her into my arms and place her on my bed. Living alone, I don’t really have a side, but I tend to sleep closest to the door.
When her hair spills out over that pillow, I’m drowned in the feeling that she’s here, in my room, on my side of the bed.
Quickly, I unbuckle my belt and kick off my jeans, boxer briefs, and socks.
Greer’s eyes go wide, like they did in the hotel. And it’s good for my fucking ego. Because one of the hardest parts about getting older is, your body’s been a work in progress since your twenties but has passed its prime.
I’m probably physically fitter than I was in my twenties, but there’s no doubt my chest hair is sprinkled with some gray, and the skin doesn’t look like it used to, after too much sun and a lack of care.
