Page 52 of When He Saved Me
I wrapped my legs around him, changing the angle and tugging him impossibly deeper as I leaned up and whispered in his ear, “Faster.”
His breath caught, but then like a wildfire burning out of control, he picked up the pace, his hips pistoning in and out of me faster and faster, grunts and the slap of our skin the only soundtrack to our lovemaking.
A bead of sweat ran down his face, holding for a moment on the edge of his jawline before dropping down to land on my cheek near the corner of my mouth. My tongue darted out to lick it, the salty taste of him exploding on my tongue. His long hair hung loosely around his face, the strands mixing with his sweat, making him look just a little mad.
“God, I love you like this,” I said, lust burning through my blood. “Wild and untamed.”
“That’s what you do to me,” he said, his words coming out in stuttering grunts as he slammed into me over and over again, his pace relentless. “God, Finn. You make me lose control. I forget everything about who I am and who I’m supposed to be.”
My orgasm was imminent. I could feel it building like a wave in a hurricane just about to crest. I was helpless to stop it, not that I wanted to. I reached up and threaded my hands in his hair, damp with sweat, and pulled him to me. “Good,” I whispered before pulling him in for another heated kiss.
The slight change in angle had him pegging my prostate while my cock was trapped between our bodies, his abs rubbing against me, creating a delicious friction. That was it. I was done.
I exploded between us, hot, sticky warmth slicking our abdomens as I rode wave after wave. Moments later, he ripped his mouth from mine, threw his head back, and buried himself deep inside me. The sound he made was otherworldly as I felt him pulse inside me. His head was thrown back in ecstasy, sweaty hair falling around his face, sweat running down the column of his neck—he was beautiful.
As we both struggled to catch our breath, he carefully pulled out of me and dealt with the condom before pulling me against him, the little spoon to his bigger one. He reached for the blanket, throwing it over both of us, and we slept once again.
* * *
I woke justa couple of hours later, still exhausted but wide awake. My brain sometimes had a way of working through problems while I slept, and while I rarely remembered my dreams, I always knew I’d had one of those nights when I woke up and whatever problem I’d gone to bed with charged immediately to the forefront before I’d even had time to register I was awake. The second clue was usually a stiff jaw, meaning I’d been clenching it in my sleep.
It was incredibly annoying, especially when I was wrapped so cozily in Jamie’s arms, but I knew there was nothing to be done about it. Despite my exhaustion, I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. Still, I lay there for a moment, gently moving my jaw from side to side while examining which problem needed my attention the most.
My thoughts moved from the conversation with my father to the declarations Jamie and I had made to our intense lovemaking and back again, all in an unending kaleidoscope of thoughts and emotions.
But what I realized as I lay there, safe and warm in Jamie’s arms, was that these weren’t problems to be solved. I couldn’t change my parents’ feelings toward me, and it was time I stopped hoping for that. All these years, I’d closed myself off toward relationships with other people, and for what? I’d tried to protect myself, but Mom and Dad had still managed to hurt me, and in the meantime, what other aspects of life had I missed out on? Enough was enough. There was no problem to solve here—they would never love me the way I needed, but that didn’t mean I was unlovable. It was time to invest my energy in those who would return it.
Jamie mumbled something in his sleep, the arm wrapped over me squeezing before relaxing again as he settled back into sleep. It made me smile.
Something had shifted between us in the early hours of the morning. It was more than just declarations of love, more than just words anyone could utter in a moment of passion. It was a settling of souls, a recognition of completeness, wholeness. The threads of our souls had been braided together into something stronger and more beautiful. It was terrifying giving someone this much power to hurt me, but even more so in knowing that I could do the same to him, and because of that, I wanted, no needed, to do better. To meet him where he was rather than waiting for him to make the move. To offer my thoughts and feelings first rather than letting him take the lead. To do little things for him, just like he did for me. He deserved that. He deserved everything.
Right now, what he deserved most, was to sleep a little longer.
Quietly, I pulled myself from his arms and climbed out of bed. I found a pair of Jamie’s sweats and a hoodie and pulled those on, cinching the drawstring to hold the joggers in place on my smaller waist. I tucked my nose into the neck of the hoodie and inhaled, my heart settling at his familiar scent.
After a stop in the bathroom, I made my way out to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. I was surprised to find a mostly full pot that appeared to still be warm. I grabbed a mug and poured myself a cup, then took it out to the living room.
I was itching to write, to bleed out all these feelings on paper, but I didn’t have a notebook with me. My iPad was out in my car, but I didn’t want to run outside in the cold without shoes, and I preferred putting actual pen to paper anyway. There was something about knowing there was no backspace button. It made me choose words more carefully before I committed them to paper.
I pulled up short when I spotted Annie sitting on the couch. She had a colorful blanket pulled over her lap and a cup of coffee next to her on the side table. Her gaze was fixed on the Christmas tree, but I wasn’t sure she was really seeing it. Her eyes appeared to be focused on something more distant, or maybe something internal, some memory only visible to her.
I started to back out of the room, not wishing to disturb her, but the motion must have caught her attention because she turned her head, her face lighting with a smile that warmed me. She was beautiful, even in the midst of her illness, her smile genuine and bright. It was evident that Jamie took after her in that way.
“Come sit with me,” she said, patting the cushion next to her.
“I don’t want to disturb you,” I replied.
She gave me a look of exasperation. “Stop it. Come sit.”
I gave her a small smile as I took the place she indicated next to her on the couch. We sat in companionable silence for a while, sipping our coffee and watching the colored lights twinkle on the Christmas tree.
The tree was a monstrous thing, huge and lopsided. Jamie had told me they’d always had live trees, and when he’d seen this one, that no one else seemed to want, he’d had to have it.
There didn’t seem to be a cohesive design element to it. There was a hodgepodge of cutesy Hallmark ornaments mixed with colored balls and what looked to be handmade ornaments from Jamie’s childhood. There was even a picture frame ornament that held an image of Jamie’s first visit to Santa. Adorable in hisMy 1stChristmasonesie, he looked adoringly at Santa with a huge smile on his chubby face. I thought I’d heard most kids cried the first time they met Santa, but not Jamie. Not the one who made friends with everyone he met, even as a baby.
I was struck once again by the differences between our two families. We’d had no less than three Christmas trees in our house growing up. My mother had hired a professional decorator to set them up every year, each one with a different theme that suited the decor of the room it resided in. We’d also had poinsettias and elaborate flower arrangements that should have provided warmth to our space but instead made me feel like we were in some sort of Christmas-themed funeral.
There’d been no cozy traditions of our family decorating the tree and sipping cider while Christmas melodies played in the background. No, it was typical for me to come home from school one day to the decorations up with an admonishment not to touch anything.
