Page 192 of Stuck With You
Those long, permanently stained, calloused fingers skim my stomach, moving carefully over each rib.
I suck in a breath, and he watches me.
“I’ve wanted you like this for far too long.” The fierce focus of his gaze tells me just how much he means that.
I sit on the bed, pulling the waist of his jeans that sit low on his hips to bring him with me. The weight of his body settles on top of mine. His blazing skin surrounds me, and his hand glides up my thigh, gripping my hip, his finger slipping under the waist of my leggings.
His mouth hovers over mine, the ends of his hair falling against my face. “You cannot wear these if you want to do anything other than this.”
I run my fingers through his hair, which is as wild as it is sexy. “That so?” I use his words, guiding his mouth to mine. “Seems you’ve been prepared.”
“I only make promises I intend to keep.”
My fingers trace over each defined ab, feeling them flex, but stop before undoing the button on his jeans. “You know, you told me once that at some point, I was going to have to trust you.”
He kisses me achingly slow, moving down my neck to my collarbone, and then swirls his tongue around the most sensitive skin. I whimper as it catches my breath, and he pulls away.
That dimple that has taunted me for months appears, winking at me.
“I think I won you over.” His mouth roams my stomach. “Despite my cold.” Kiss. “Hard.” Kiss. “Bitterness.”
I laugh. “Listen, King of the Jungle.” His gaze lifts to mine. “We’ll have to see how these next few minutes go before the full ruling is in on that.”
“A few minutes, my ass,” he grumbles, but it’s playful and sounds a heck of a lot like love.
I bite my bottom lip as those rough hands climb up my body. He wraps around me, and he rolls, flipping me on top of him. I straddle his hips, and he stares up at me. The intensity and heat I see there send pulses through me.
I lean down and take his mouth, pressing the tip of my tongue to his but pulling away, and he tries to chase me.
I grin. “You’re sure about this, Wildcat? It might be a lot.”
He nudges me with his nose, forcing my gaze to his. “Sarah, you can drive me crazy and run your sassy mouth all you want. I only want to be stuck with you. Just you.” His eyes wander between mine.
I unbutton his jeans as his hands grip my ass. “Well, fair warning, you’re gonna want to be extra careful with how often you wear your bossy pants.”
______
I lay with my head on his bare chest, listening to his slow, steady breaths. I slide my leg over his, wanting to be as close as possible. I’ve never felt more at peace—just lying next to him, actually believing it all might really be ok.
I trail my finger over Newton’s Law, scrolled across his forearm.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The law might only apply to the physical world, but there was a time when it felt true about my life.
With every stroke I took, it seemed there was an opposing force pushing against me, holding me down to keep me from taking another. All I wanted was to reach the shore, where the storm wasn’t raging. I was so tired of living in survival mode, barely holding my head above water, lost and so damn tired of treading, never getting closer.
But I think I see now that, sometimes, we just have to keep fighting the current and pushing through, no matter what stands in our way or how difficult that next thrust forward might be. We have to keep believing that eventually, we’ll hit the sand where we can bathe in the sunshine. If we’re lucky, we might find someone there to lie beside us and soak up all the goodness that’s been waiting.
Maybe it’s just like Slade said, it’s the hard road I had to take so that it would lead me here. To him.
“So, you got this one when you were accepted into the engineering program, but what about this one?” I move on, tracing the dark vine that crawls and wraps around his forearm.
His chest rises with an inhale and falls. “My mom’s name was Ivy. She was. . .beautiful and smart, but she had a difficult life. Her love was suffocating at times, but she sacrificed everything for Krissy andme. Always put herself last.” He pauses. “I wish she could’ve seen herself the way I did.”
I set my chin on his chest to look at him. “Sometimes, we can be so desperate for love we’ll spend our whole lives begging someone to love us back, just settling for what little they’ll give us.”
He brushes the hair out of my face, his fingers tracing through it and down my back. “You didn’t.”
