Page 280 of Falling Backwards
“I am so,” I whisper, “in love with you.”
I don’t know how his expression can go so sweet and so heated in the same moment, but it happens.
“Thank you,” he murmurs throatily.
That response makes my heart swell.The fullness in my chest grows impossibly more intense.
His thumb brushes my cheek while his other hand spreads over the middle of my spine, warm and strong.As he dips back down towards my lips, I know I’ll never forget how his gaze dances over my face, because this is nothing short of a look ofreverence.
“I’m so in love with you too,” he says, “and it makes my life incredible.I swear I can feel it happening more and more by the minute.”
I nod as big as I can without shaking his hand off my face.I swallow hard.“Thankyou.For that and for makingmylife incredible like that.I…” I fumble to touch his stomach, his waist, “…I can’t wait to stay this way forever with you.”
He makes a quiet, gravelly sound into the kiss he gives me, and it trickles down the back of my neck and along my spine, sends my hands to the front of his jeans.I don’t miss the catch in his breath,can’tmiss the slip of his tongue along my bottom lip.It’s hard to decide whether to focus on intensifying our kiss or on getting the jeans undone.
“I can’t wait either,” he says.“Pencil me in for forever.”His hands leave me to help with his button, his zipper.“With permanent marker, though, not actually pencil.’Cause you and I are endgame, Maggie Moss.”
I nod harder, and I kiss him, too, and it’s clumsy and off-center, but there’s no room for embarrassment because there’s a new smile on his lips and it keeps him from kissing me properly in return even though he tries.
His jeans and socks get stripped off.We get on the bed, get under the blanket, get laid down facing each other.
And with our barely-clothed bodies pressing together, our hands finding purchase on each other, the soft comfort of the bed around us, all our words of love and intimate joy still hanging in the air…passion swells up and takes over.
Our lips seal in a kiss—in two kisses, in three—and there is no clumsiness here.These exchanges are as firm as my hand pulling on his lower back, as intent as his grip moving up my thigh.I’ve been living with an ache for him and it grows stronger now, making me all but writhe against his hardness between us, bringing a sound from the back of my throat that has him suddenly deepening our kiss, his fingertips pressing harder into my leg as he pulls it over his hip.
I feel like I’m drowning in him again, and not just a little bit this time.
I welcome it.
The air making its way into my lungs has never been sweeter.
His hand slides up until it’s under the side of my panties; he holds my hip for a long, warm moment and then twists his hand, hooks his fingers around the fabric, and tugs downwards.Our dive of a kiss dwindles into mouths grazing chins so we can deal with the underwear.His is next, and once it’s gone, I can’t keep from stumbling my hand around him.
Luke’s moan has become one of my favorite sounds.I love it as much as I love his laugh and the way he says my name.
My lips stamp invisible claims on his jaw, his neck, as I touch him just because I want to, because I like what it does to him.I can feel it affecting his breaths, tensing his body, nudging him into movement.It’s his own version of what him touching me did to me.
With quiet admiration, I state, “Gorgeous.You’regorgeous.”
He makes a sound that gets muffled by the full land of his mouth on mine.Our kiss is as intoxicating as my hand on him.
But I don’t do this for long.It can wait.We want more.
I skip my hold from there to his hip, and he knows what I’m thinking because he turns away from me and to the nightstand.
In no time, we’re pressed together again, protected, sharing breaths and a kiss.His fingertips graze down to just above my knee.
“How do you want me?”he asks.
I already know.I lie back and tug at him.“Please.”
He’s above me in short seconds, between my thighs, and the feel of this gets a low gasp from us—my body underneath his, all our naked skin except for my bra, one strap of which he drags his lips over before going up my neck.
“Careful,” his voice thrums through me.“Keep saying‘please’about having me inside you and I’m gonna form a new obsession to go with the shoulder drop and you folding your bottom lip into your mouth.”
Even as I tremble from the deliciousness of that paired with the moment we’re in, slight confusion touches me.“What’s‘the shoulder dr—’?”
A breaking breath cuts off my question—from him, too, not just me—because he’s easing into me.I flatten my hands to his back, and his lips catch on mine for a fleeting kiss before he presses our foreheads together.
