“This is going to end so badly,” I whisper. “Everything we’ve ever known is a clusterfuck. Just because we’re grown won’t change that.”
He shakes his head, and when he moves and the lights flash in my eyes, my brain pulses in the most painful way. “I promise to wake you every two hours. I’ll watch you all night.” He peppers gentle kisses along my jaw. “I would never let you hurt when I’m keeping guard.”
“I don’t mean my sleep.” I scrunch my eyes closed to fight the pain. “I have a headache, not a brain injury.”
“Well…”
I open my eyes to find his smug grin.
“Semantics. I believe a concussion is, quite literally, brain damage. But I’ll keep watch, okay?” He looks down my body, letting out a dramatic sigh when he has to work on my clothes all over again. He unsnaps my jeans for the third time tonight and slowly begins peeling them down my legs. “You need to stop pulling skintight jeans on, babe. It looks tasty as fuck, but I’m sick of them being in my way.”
He leans in and peppers kisses along the top of my thigh.
“You seem to be awfully comfortable with a woman you basically only just met.” I begin to squirm when heat pulses between my legs. “Like, seriously. From strangers to lovers, from you being on a date with someone else, to me getting smacked in the face with a sledgehammer.”
He tugs the denim off and drops it to the floor with a shy smile. “We’ve never been strangers. Our souls have known each other for…” He shrugs. “Ever. Now we get to explore the physical side too. We’ve been together for more than twenty years. There’s no room for shyness.”
“It’s like our life is a book,” I whisper. “You’ve torn out the middle and peeked at the back. That’s cheating.”
He chuckles. “Someone else told me something similar recently.”
He climbs over top of me, digs an arm beneath me and pulls me up. I think he’s going to kiss me, but what he actually does it pull my bloodied shirt up andoh so gentlypeels it over my head so I’m completely naked beneath him. Tossing it aside and pausing, he takes a moment to look down at my body and study every curve and line.
“This isn’t what I expected to find.” He runs the very tip of his finger along my abdominal muscles. “This is absolutely not the body I’ve been thinking about since I was a kid.”
“What did you expect?” I bring my arms back and rest my head on them. “Twenty years is a long time. People change.”
He scoffs. “I expected fatty dimples. Chubby knees. The cutest, fattest cheeks in the world.”
“You’re an asshole.”
He laughs. “I fantasized about you, but chubbier. You have a six-pack, Lib. What the fuck is that?” He runs his finger along the ridges. “How can you have a six-pack?”
“Lean meat, high protein, no sugar–”
With laughing eyes, he glances up and silences me with a kiss. “You’re so literal all the time. Did you try the ground turkey? It’s good, right?”
“Yes, I tried it. No, it’s not good. It’s disgusting.”
“It’s cheaper, leaner, and good for you.”
“I don’t care if it’s cheaper. I can’t choke that shit down even twice, let alone as often as I eat chicken.”
“Now who’s flashing cash around?” He leans in and nips at my neck when I ball my fists. He laughs against my skin, lowers his bottom half, and silences whatever I might have said when he grinds his jeaned pelvis against my bare core. “Are you sore?”
I shake my head.
That gives him pause for a moment. I know what he’s thinking. I know what he refuses to say out loud. “At least lie to me and say I’m the best you ever had.”
I burst out laughing and wrap my legs around his hips. “Okay, you’re the best I ever had.”
“Ugh.” He gives my neck a punishing bite and grinds against me a second time. “Don’t patronize me, woman.” Lifting just a little, he unsnaps his own jeans, pushes them down far enough to free his cock, and then he touches the tip to my opening.
“Wait.” I pull his shirt up, because I want his skin touching mine.
I don’t want this to feel fast and dirty, I want to feel his heart beating against mine. I tug his shirt off and toss it as far as I can manage, and when our eyes meet, I let out a pleasure-filled sigh as he slides in and buries himself to the hilt.
“That’s better.”