Page 105 of Beckett
Instead of answering, I pulled my shirt off completely, letting it fall. His pupils dilated, swallowing the gray of his irises. He lifted me onto the kitchen table, plates sliding dangerously. I caught the wine bottle just before it tipped.
“We’re going to break everything.”
“Don’t care.” His mouth found my throat, teeth grazing the sensitive spot where neck met shoulder, and I forgot why I’d been protesting.
His hands were everywhere—unclasping my bra with one hand while the other palmed my breast, thumb circling my nipple until it peaked. I arched into his touch, my fingers fumbling with his belt buckle.
“Take me to the bed,” I managed.
He carried me the short distance, my legs wrapped around his waist, his mouth never leaving my skin. We fell onto the mattress together, a tangle of desperate hands and heated kisses. He stripped my jeans down my legs, taking my panties with them, then stood back to look at me.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said, yanking his own clothes off with considerably less finesse than he’d shown with mine.
Then he was on me, skin to skin, and I gasped at the contact. His weight pressed me into the mattress just right, grounding me in the moment. He traced a path down my throat with his mouth, between my breasts, taking his time with each nipple until I was writhing beneath him.
“Beckett, please?—”
“Patience.” His tongue circled my navel. “We have time now. All the time in the world.”
He was right. No one was hunting us. No one was coming. We were safe. Free. Home.
His mouth moved lower, and my hands fisted in his hair as he settled between my thighs. The first touch of his tongue made me cry out, hips bucking up involuntarily. He held me steady, one arm across my hips, while he took me apart with his mouth.
He knew exactly what I needed—alternating between broad strokes and focused attention on my clit, adding his fingers when I was already trembling on the edge. Two fingers curling inside me while his tongue worked magic, and I shattered, his name breaking from my lips in a sob.
He kissed his way back up my body while I was still shaking, entering me in one smooth thrust that made us both groan. He stayed still for a moment, forehead pressed to mine, letting me adjust to the fullness of him inside me.
“I love you,” he said again, starting to move with devastating slowness. “God, Audra, I love you so much.”
“Show me.”
And he did. Every thrust deliberate and deep, hitting that perfect spot inside me that made stars explode behind my eyelids. His thumb found my still-sensitive clit, circling in time with his movements, and I could feel another orgasm building impossibly fast.
“That’s it,” he murmured against my ear. “Let go for me. Let me feel you come around my cock.”
His words pushed me over, and I clenched around him, my nails digging into his shoulders as waves of pleasure crashed through me. He followed me over, my name on his lips as he buried himself deep and came hard, his whole body shuddering above me.
We lay tangled together afterward, my head on his sweat-dampened chest, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my spine. Through the window, stars were beginning to pierce the darkening sky.
“Shit,” I said suddenly, remembering. “Dinner. The potatoes are going to be way overdone.”
“I don’t care. Just…stay here for another minute.”
I settled back against him, content to let the world wait. “Happy birthday, Beckett.”
“Best one I’ve ever had.” He tightened his arms around me. “And next year will be even better because we’ll celebrate it again together.”
I kissed his shoulder. “Every year.”
And there in our tiny cabin, with our injured hero dog snoring in his cone and food waiting for us in the kitchen, we held each other and planned forever.
The road here had been brutal—fourteen months of terror, near-death, and loss. But somehow, we’d found each other in the wreckage.
It wasn’t perfect—nothing ever was—but it was real and it was ours.
That was more than enough. It was everything.
Epilogue
