Page 50 of Gravity of Love
She loved him. She’d loved him her whole life. Had he known that? On some level that he hadn’t admitted to himself? Maybe. He didn’t know. That was a question he couldn’t answer right now, not with all the blood that should be in his head down in his southern region.
He always cared about Frankie, loved her even, but until the night of his mom’s funeral, heneverlooked at her in any sexualway. Which was why what happened that night scared him so much. Because after that night, he felt like a pervert. That night changed his feelings for her, and there was no way to change them back.
His love for her changed the second he kissed her. He fell in love with her, and he’d been in love with her every day since.
Did she still love him? Was that in the past?
Frankie sighed loudly as if she was bored and walked past him. If she’d gone down the hall, he would have stopped her, but she went into the bedroom.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“The bathroom.” She kept walking, not looking back. “I figure you have about five more minutes of overthinking before you come back with a verdict. I might as well pee while I wait.”
He heard the bathroom door shut as his lips spread into a wide smile. Only she could make him smile and lighten the mood when he had throbbing blue balls, his head hurt from trying to figure out what the right thing to do was, and he felt like he was going to throw up out of fear that he was going to fuck this up, that was how much she meant to him.
With a sigh he walked into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. He ran his fingers through his hair, then leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. He continued to mull things over and over. Finally, he came to the conclusion that the single most important thing was that he didn’t want to lose her. As much as hewantedher, and he did, more than he wanted his next breath, he knew that they had to do this right this time.
They needed to talk. If they were going to have a chance at something real, before they slept together, they had to figure things out. It was too complicated. Too messy.
The door opened, and he lifted his head. “Before?—”
He got out one word, and his brain blanked. Frankie stood in the doorway wearing a matching white lace bra and pantyset and nothing else. Her petite hourglass figure in silhouette, backlit from the bathroom light. He stared, taking her in, and she let him. He loved how bold she was. Frankie wore confidence like some people wore perfume, announcing her presence before she arrived and lingering behind long after she’d gone.
“What?” she finally asked, her expression and tone pure innocence, as if she were still fully dressed. She flicked the bathroom light off and walked towards him. Every step she took caused his heart to beat even harder and his jeans to grow tighter. “I couldn’t hear you. What did you say?”
“This isn’t fair,” he rasped.
She ran her fingers through his hair as her perfect lips curled. “All’s fair in sex and overthinking.”
He smiled, and she reached behind and unclipped her bra and let the material slide off of her body with a thud on the ground, revealing her perfect, bare breasts. Then she hooked her thumbs in the lace string on her hips and slid her panties down her legs, stepping out of them before straightening back up. His eyes scanned her from head to toe, taking in the puckered raspberry tips of her nipples, the curve of her waist, the flare of her hip, the tiny triangle of red hair above her mound. It was then that he noticed a discoloration on her hip.
“What’s this?” he asked, his thumb barely touching her skin.
She looked down. “That is a battle wound from Yaya’s kitchen counter—sharp corner one, fair skin, zero.”
Liam didn’t care that she was making light of her injury or that it was just a bruise, he hated seeing her hurt. He leaned forward and replaced his thumb with his lips, pressing a soft kiss to her hip. She exhaled out a mewling sigh and put her hands on his shoulders. He pressed another kiss on her belly as he ran his hands up her outer thighs. He was about to pick her up and put her on the bed when she pushed his shoulders away, causing him to sit back up.
“Strip,” she instructed.
Liamneverrelinquished control in the bedroom, and he never had complaints. But this was different with Frankie. She might have joked around saying she was his, but sheownedhim.
He reached behind his head to pull off his shirt, then unbuckled and unzipped his jeans, lifted his hips to push them down with his boxer briefs and socks, and finally rocked back into a seated position at the end of the bed.
Frankie stepped forward between his legs like she had the night of the funeral. Except this time, he was buck-ass naked, and his cock was standing at attention between them. She didn’t acknowledge that, instead, as her outer thighs rubbed his inner thighs, her fingers began to trace the lines of the tattoos, starting with his upper arms and shoulders, then moving to his chest.
He kept his hands on his legs. He knew if he touched her, he’d flip her on her back, and this would be over before it started. As it was, his cock was bobbing for attention, as it throbbed painfully.
When she got to the clouds representing heaven that spanned his chest just below his collarbones, with an angel whose outspread wings had hidden letters in them, she traced each one, then her eyes met his, emotion filling them.
“It says, ‘Celeste,’ for your mom.”
He nodded. No one he’d been with had ever seen the hidden letters. It shouldn’t surprise him that she had. Now his heart was throbbing, too.
The tip of her finger went lower and stopped right above his sternum in the dead center of his chest. Her eyes shot to his.
“Is this…?”
“Mighty Mouse.”
