Page 100 of The Grand Rise

And you’re too fucking perfect.

Her hands drag through my hair, forcing my head back so she can see me. She looks down at me, and it takes everything in me to keep my eyes on hers when her breasts sit heavy in my periphery. I wet my lips, locking our gaze.

She reaches between us, and my breath catches, her hand trailing my forearm around to her back where she takes my hand. She lifts it, placing it over her heart. “We don’t apologise for this.”

Her heart pounds beneath my splayed palm, a continuous, fierce, uninterrupted beat that I’ve missed.Fuck, I’ve missed this.

I drop my gaze, needing to see, but a frown pulls my brows when I notice the tattoo marked into her pale skin.

I sit forward.

Vines curve down and around her left breast. The pads of my fingers trail over the stem, over the leaves. Lower. And then they pause, my heart matching her erratic beat.

The tattoo is the exact same design as my own, but at the bottom, just disappearing on the underside of her left breast,hopelessly fucking wildis inked into her skin. “Scarlet…”

“Nobody’s ever made my heart race quite like you do,” she whispers, her eyes not leaving mine. “I’m sorry it chose tonight to remember you.”

I drop my head forward to rest between her breasts, my hands gliding across soft skin to curl around the backs of her thighs again. She stands with her hands running through my hair, letting me unravel, unravelling herself.

My lips part, teasing the ink. “Sunshine,” I rasp, not even certain she’s real. “You’ll never know how much I missed you.” I kiss the underside of her breast.

I feel her shudder, and then she climbs onto my lap, her knees hugging my sides as she brings us chest to chest. She lifts her sad eyes to mine, tearing into my soul momentarily before she buries her face in my neck.

My hands roam from the top of her neck to the base of her spine, the tips of my fingers grazing her ass as I smooth down the length of her spread thighs, and back up again.

I can’t get her close enough, can’t touch enough of her skin.

“Lance,” she whispers, her lips brushing my jaw as her head tilts back. I drop my chin, bringing our noses a hair’s width apart. “I missed you, too.”

I swallow thickly as my eyes trace every line of her face onto my heart. “I want to kiss you,” I tell her.

Her lips quirk, and then she inches forward the slightest bit. “Then kiss me.”

My lips skim hers. I shake my head. “I won’t stop.”Not ever.

Brown eyes flutter into focus, searching my own. “Then kiss me.”

My chest rumbles as I seal my mouth over hers in a slow but deep kiss, our lips lingering as one for what feels like minutes. Her fingers run through my scalp, teasing the roots of my hair and pulling me impossibly closer as she slips her tongue past my lips to tangle with mine.

I groan into her mouth, my hands smoothing and squeezing my favourite parts of her body.

“Scarlet.” She tugs my bottom lip between her teeth. My cock is hard and straining between our stomachs, her pussy resting at the base and impossible to ignore.

“Scarlet, I… I’m…”

She leans back, dragging her pussy up the length of my cock and moaning. “Please.”

Did she just…I grab her hips to halt her. I’ll come in seconds if she doesn’t stop. “Scarlet,” I hiss, her hips defying my pathetic hold and grinding up my length.

“You want me,” she says, looking down at me with heavy eyes.

I reach up and pull her chest to mine, taking her mouth in another kiss. I shake my head as she pulls back. “No. Ineedyou.”

More than fucking air.

“You managed seven years without me.”

I smooth her wet hair away from her face, trying anything to distract myself from the feel of her grinding against my cock. “I managed seven years because of you, not despite you.”

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