Page 49 of The Space Between
He leans back and stares at me, his eyes feeling like a caress. Goosebumps form and I shiver.
Dropping to his knees in front of me like he’s praying, he cups my thighs. I shiver again, as he presses a kiss to the inside of my left thigh, and then, another to the inside of my right. He’saskingbefore he takes.
Threading my fingers into his hair, I guide him to my center. My back arches against the wall and my hips widen. Lifting my leg, he drapes it over his shoulder and when his mouth finds me—open, aching,ready—I moan like I’m breaking and pull him into my pussy.
He holds my thighs apart, groaning into me like he’s starving. His tongue moves slow and deep, licking, circling, and flicking against my clit until I’m shaking against the wall, crying his name into the room, “Gruene….” like it’s the only one I’ve ever known.
Using just his tongue on me, I come undone. His hand is on my hips. His other is holding me open for him, and his mouth is stilldevouringme through every wave. My orgasm coats his face as my knees wobble and my hips buck unto his tongue.
Standing he kisses me, slow and deep. I taste myself.
“I want to be inside you.” He growls.
“Then, do it.” I whimper.
We don’t make it upstairs to the bed. He lifts me into his arms and carries me to the couch, lowering me down, and kneeling between my legs. He drags his leaking tip through my folds, and I moan, arching against him, begging him to fill me. “Please… please, Gruene.” He sinks inside with one long, aching thrust, filling me completely. My thighs widen to accommodate him.
No barriers between us. No distance. No pretending we don’t know exactly what this is.
I meet every thrust with a need that goes deeper than desire because this is how I survive. This is howhesurvives. By feeling something that’sonly ours.
My back arches as he pounds into me over and over again. I wail and beg him to go harder and deeper. I want more. I want everything.
When we come, it’s together. I scream out his name, “Gruene… Ohhhhhh… ohhhhh, yes…” My climax triggers his and he grunts my name as he pumps into me once more, filling me.
It’s raw. It’s real. Everything we’re both feeling is unspoken. But he and I are hopelessly entangled. Together.
He collapses against me, his face buried in my neck, his breath shaking like something inside him just cracked open in our moment. I cherish it, wrapping my arms around him and holding on tight.
We’re not running anymore… and maybe that’s the scariest part of all.
Gruene
She’sasleep on my couch.
And I can’t look at her without feeling like my chest is caving in.
I’m not talking about guilt this time. I’m not talking about ghosts or grief.
I’m talking abouther—this woman wrapped in a blanket, with trust in her breath, and fire in her bones. I keep trying to convince myself this is temporary, that we’re just colliding because it’s summer and it’s easy and I’m starved for something that hurts in a different way than memory.
She came to me tonight, after everything.
After Tyler.
After hearing that someone still out there wants to drag her back into a life she clawed her way out of. She came to me. Not to hide. To burn through it.
She used me to do it.
I let her.
I wanted her to.
But now she’s asleep beside me, safe for now, and all I can think is—I have no idea how to protect her without destroyingbothof us in the process.
Slippingout of my cabin just before sunrise, after dressing in silence, trying not to wake her, I walk down to the river with black coffee and the weight of my choices on my back.
The morning fog rolls off the water in thick waves, soft and gray and full of things I can’t name. My boots scuff against the rocks as I step onto the dock, and I sit at the edge with my feet hanging just above the current.
