Page 55 of Conviction
“What’s it say, the ink?”
My smile fades. “It’s just a date.”
“A date?”
I nod my head.
“What date?” he asks.
I look up at the sky and then back into his eyes. “It’s the date of the worst day of my life.” My nose stings and I fight to keep my lip from trembling. “It’s the date that I lost our baby and the date that I lost you.”
He brushes a tear away from my cheek with his thumb, and I don’t even flinch. The familiarity of his touch overwhelms me. So many emotions jumble together, fighting their way to the surface. Between them and the lack of sleep, my legs start to buckle and I sway.
Conner pulls me toward him, his arms wrap tightly around my back, and he kisses my neck. There’s no space between our bodies. He brings his mouth level with mine. His eyes are open and searching my face as his lips meet mine. They’re unfamiliar for just a split second, then almost instantly it’s like a spark to a fuse that ignites a memory.
Home.
His touch.
His smell.
His taste.
It’s what’s been missing from my life for so long, and now, finally, I feel like I’m home.
Human contact. It’s such asimple thing. Something that so many people take for granted and it’s not until you’ve been without it for an extended period of time that you realise how much you’ve missed it.
I felt like I was melting. My insides were a hot molten mess, dissolving me from the inside out. I actually don’t remember the last time I’d kissed a woman full on the mouth. A lightning bolt of guilt shoots through my chest as I think about the way I’d conducted my life over the years. Threesomes, orgies, anything to make it less personal and none of it, not a single one of those weird, kinky, fucked up situations I’d been in before, could touch this moment.
I’ve watched an Australian supermodel getting eaten out by a Russian Princess while the Princess got fucked up the arse by Jet and I fucked the mouth of the model. It was the sort of situation many would pay money to watch, let alone be involved in, but it’d left me cold. I’d shot my load down the model’s throat and left the room feeling nothing but a sense of release from the need to come. But this, this moment right now, where I have Meebs’ small body crushed against mine, both of us fully clothed, my mouth gently caressing hers, my tongue slowly probing, seeking access, this is a moment I want to last forever. Right now, I would give back every sordid, sexual encounter of my life, in exchange for a moment like this every day.
She moves her hands from my shoulders and up into my hair, pulling my mouth down harder on hers as she opens and finally allows my tongue access.
I can’t hold back now. I move my hands to her arse, lift her up, turn and sit her on the handrail. Her legs are wrapped around my hips, and I grind into the heat between her legs, gyrating my hips around and around, in between rocking into her. She breaks our kiss and throws her head back.
“Oh fuck, shit, God,” she moans. My dick feels like it’s going to split the seam of my jeans and hers. I make use of the way her head is tilted back and lick from the hollow of her throat, up her neck to just below her ear. Then kiss along her jaw all the way back to her mouth.
“Come to bed with me?” I speak while my lips are still on hers.
“No,” she pants.
“Why? I want you so fucking much.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Oh, I know you. I know you from the inside out, Nina Amoeba.” I drag my teeth along her jaw. “Every inch.” I lick from her throat, across her collarbone. “Every freckle.” I kiss her nose. “Every sigh.” I rock my hips into hers as I bite down on her earlobe.
She pulls back and meets my gaze. Her lids look heavy like she’s struggling to keep them open. I’m not sure if it’s tiredness or lust that’s causing this, but judging by the way her cheeks are so beautifully flushed, I’ll go with the latter.
“I don’t know you. I know Conner, but I don’t know Reed.”
I kiss her gently on the mouth, just because I can, and because I need to.
“Reed’s gone. Reed stopped existing the second my lips touched yours.”
“You’re full of shit,” she almost moans as I drag my teeth over her lobe again and bite down on the curve between her neck and her shoulder. She shudders, and I swear to God, I’ve just shot a load off in my boxers.
I pull away so I can look into her eyes as I speak, “No bullshit, Meebs, not with you, not ever.” I push her blonde hair back from her face and run my thumb along her tattoo on the back of her neck.
