The rush of her climax washes over me. I’m as deep as I can physically go and my body keeps searching for a hidden passage to get closer to her, to inhabit her the way, with every kiss and every thrust, she inhabits me.
“Kimba.” I shift so one arm holds under her butt and her back is supported by the door. With the other hand I lift her chin. “Look at me.”
She opens glazed eyes.
“Your number,” I rasp. “I don’t care about it. I don’t give a damn who you’ve been with. How many. Baby, I don’t give a fuck.”
Some of the haze clears, her gaze sharpens, focuses on me.
“But I want to be the last,” I tell her, letting her search my eyes, my face so she’ll see the truth I can’t hide from her anymore. “I couldn’t be the first, but I want to be the last. No one else. You understand what I’m saying?”
Another tear slides from the corner of one eye and down the sleek curve of her jaw. “I understand.”
And like a million times during our childhood, she hears the things I don’t say aloud. She reads between lines of invisible ink when no one else even knows I’m writing. It feels too soon to give it voice, but every part of me, body, soul, heart and spirit quakes with the inescapable truth I know she saw even though I didn’t say.
Our first time together was stolen from us, and I don’t hold against her any who have come since. But the truth was carved into ancient tablets of stone and etched into our hearts.
I love her.
And from here on out, I want to be her last.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Kimba
“This is delicious.” I try not to slurp a spoonful of the savory pho too loudly. “You made this?”
“Please don’t be too impressed.” Ezra smiles through the glow of the candles on the dining room table. “You’ve had my stuffed French toast and my pho. That’s the extent of my culinary talents unless it’s in a box and says, ‘add water.’”
“Well, you’re very talented.” I roll a lascivious look over him seated across from me. “In the most delightful ways. I love the way you fuck.”
The boy Ezra would have blushed and shoved his hands in his pockets, shuffled his feet had I said something like that to him. Not that I would have in the eighth grade, but even when our classmates made dirty jokes back then, red would crawl up Ezra’s neck and over his cheeks.
The man Ezra returns my look with interest, his eyes caressing my nipples pebbled through his T-shirt.
“What you said.” I tip my head toward the foyer. “Out there.”
“What about it?” He doesn’t hedge or pretend he doesn’t know which part I mean.
“You said you wanted to be my last.”
“I do.”
We stare at each other through steam and candlelight, seeing clearly.
“I’m not asking you to put a name to it or formalize it yet, Tru, but I already know I only want you.”
For an anoxic second, I can’t breathe. Those words take my breath, steal my reasons for never wanting strings. What if he is the reason I never wanted strings? For the first time with anyone, I want to put a name to it.
Us.
Mine.
His.
Love.
I sort through the new emotions he has inspired. Are they new? Or just renewed from our childhood? Reborn into this age, this new epoch of our lives?