Page 23 of The Space Between
This time, I kiss her like I meant to the first time.
Not a warning. Not a snap. Not a mistake. Apromise.
Her fingers dive into my hair, fisting it, holding my face a willing hostage as her mouth opens under mine, soft and greedy andright.
Her tongue twines with mine in a sensual dance. She tastes like heat and salt andpossibility.
I haul her into my lap like I’ve got something to prove and bury my mouth in the crook of her neck. She gasps, and her legs wrap around my waist like she wasmadeto fit there.
I drag my hands up her thighs, under her shirt, along her ribs. Her skin burns. So do I.
I want her.
Fuck, I want her.
But when I reach for the hem of her shirt, she stills. “Wait,” she breathes. I freeze. Every muscle in my body goes tight. “I want this,” she whispers. “I do. But I want tofeelit.”
“Youwill.” I promise.
She shakes her head, eyes shining. “Not just your body, Gruene.You.All of you.”
My throat clenches and my fingers dig into her sides. “You don’t want that.”
“I do.”
I slide my hand to the back of her neck, drawing her forehead to mine. “Then, you better hold on.”
She pulls my shirt off and reaches for her own. My hands reach for the clasp of her bra, and I open it, letting it glide down her arms before she drops it beside our shirts. Our chests are bare. We stare at each other in the moonlight. My jaw tightens as she traces the scars over my neck, chest, back, and side.She presses her lips to them, kissing each one, no,worshippingthem.
Growling, I palm her breasts. My thumbs flick over her peaked nipples before I close my lips over one, sucking it, flicking it with my tongue, biting it, then, laving it to soothe the ache and moving on to the other. Her hands are in my hair, holding on tightly as I pleasure her. She grinds down against me, riding me over my jeans and through her shorts. The friction along with my lips, tongue, and hands makes her moan. Her pace quickens, her gasps and her moans deepen, and I know she’s close. My mouth closes over her nipple, and I bite down on one as I pinch the other. Her back arches and she screams my name into the night, “Gruene… Ohhhhhhh… Yes…. Mmmmmm…”
I’m as hard as a rock beneath her, but I can’t stop staring at her. Her chest is flushed, she’s still quivering, and her breath is ragged. Her thighs and shorts-covered crotch are slick against my jeans. Her hands still tremble in my hair. With my mouth lost between her breasts and her throat, I grind up against her and come in my jeans, her fuckingnameon my lips like a prayer, “Blakelyn… oh, Blakelyn.”
We fall apart together, still mostly clothed on the dock. And when we finally collapse beside each other, panting and silent, the sun long gone behind the trees… I realize something terrifying.
I don’t want her to leave.
I want her to stay.
That means I can’t keep pretending this doesn’t matter… because it does.
She does.
God help me.
CHAPTER 5
Blakelyn
It starts with a storm.
Not rain. Not thunder. Not even wind.
Just pressure.
The kind that builds in the sky and under your skin. Thatcracklesin your bones before anything even happens. The kind that makes animals go quiet and trees hold still.
That’swhat I wake up to.
