Page 51 of Begin Again

“Now,” she said. “Really fast now. Just go hard.”

He felt her muscles starting to squeeze and convulse around him, his hips almost like a jackhammer going to town and trying to break through any defense she had against him.

Something broke, he wasn’t sure what. But he shut his eyes and everything was just white and bright.

There were noises in the background and he realized it was his moaning.

“Are you alright?” he asked a minute later and stepped back. He was pushing her against the island now and hoped he didn’t leave bruises on her.

“Yes,” she said. “Just exhausted.”

She turned and was smiling. A soft one that melted his heart just a bit.

He picked her up and carried her to bed and she let him.

If that was the only gentleness he could give her, he’d take it.

16

Smile On My Face

The next morning, Liz rolled over and took inventory of her body.

Her head throbbed like a slow drum in a cheesy scary movie.

Good lord, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had three glasses of wine.

Never.

Tanner always monitored her alcohol intake.

She thought it was because of the calories, but then she started to suspect that it had more to do with her slipping and saying something he didn’t want anyone to know.

She stretched and started to sniff the air.

Coffee? Something sweet?

She opened her eyes and saw Christian coming around the corner and into the room. “What do you have?”

“Breakfast in bed,” he said.

“Are you kidding?” she asked. No one had ever done that for her before. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted anyone to.

She wasn’t the breakfast-in-bed type of person.

But she found this kind of sweet.

“Nope,” he said. “I don’t kid about coffee and bacon and eggs.”

“I thought I smelled something sweet,” she said, looking at the plate he had. Her coffee was in the other hand. It’s not like she had any trays in her house to carry the food up in. That would be fancy and she was anything but.

“I tried to make cinnamon buns. You had one of those cans in the fridge.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Tried? They aren’t that hard.”

She’d been looking forward to that treat. Nothing she indulged in often and it brought back some childhood nostalgia when she saw them at the store the other day.

Her father used to make them on Sunday mornings for her and Abby. The three of them would eat the whole thing that morning and she’d have this sugar high for hours.

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