Page 3 of Adoring Delaney

Delaney had been dodging me for months. The last two times I’d come home she was nowhere to be found. Both times she’d answered when I’d called but only to tell me to go home. She’d answer some of my texts, always the same reply: leave me alone.

That wasn’t happening.

We were going to finally have it out. I was waiting, biding my time so I didn’t make a scene. But this shit was ending. I was done with the back and forth and most especially her pulling away from me.

It was a shit thing to do, but today being her brother’s wedding, I knew she couldn’t avoid me and I was using it to my advantage. She looked so damn beautiful in her fancy dress. Though Delaney looked beautiful in an old pair of cut offs and a t-shirt. But that dress, the hem just kissing her knees, drawing my eyes to her toned legs, was spectacular. Especially because I knew what those legs felt like wrapped around my hips. I knew how strong her thighs were when they trapped my head between them when I was going down on her. Just like always I had to fight my body’s reaction. For as long as I could remember I’d been fighting the allure of her. She was magnetic, and as hard as I tried, I could never stay away.

Not when I was sixteen and she was thirteen and we’d been alone on the beach while our families were on vacation in Myrtle Beach, she’d told me she loved me and she would forever. Her sweet voice shook with nerves, her hands were trembling, and her beautiful blue eyes danced in the moonlight. Even as a teenage boy I understood that look. She’d rolled up on her toes and kissed me. It was her first kiss, sloppy, unpracticed, but the best fucking kiss I’d ever had. Pure magic. That was my Delaney.

After I’d taken what she’d sweetly offered I’d set her back and told her not to do that shit again. Hurt shone so brightly in her wounded eyes my resolve had faltered. But then I remembered, I was going away in a year and she needed to be free.

And so our dance began. The fucked-up push and pull. My lips wouldn’t touch Delaney’s again until I was eighteen and she was fifteen. It was the night before I was leaving for the Naval Academy. This time it was me who had pulled her in close and took her mouth.

She was saying goodbye, telling me how proud she was of me, telling me that she knew I’d do great. The way she’d looked at me made me believe I could do anything, achieve anything, have anything. Except have her. The one thing I wanted more than air.

This kiss was no less powerful than the first. It was so good, I’d gone in for more and she’d given it to me. Her hands roamed my back, mine were in her thick black hair and I took my fill knowing it would probably be my last. I’d be gone for four years at school then off to fulfill my Naval contract. She’d find someone. Someone who’d be around to take care of her. Love her. Give her the life she deserved and that man wouldn’t be me.

In a moment of eighteen-year-old weakness, leaving home for the first time, I told her I loved her. I had since I’d known what the emotion was and she’d always be my one and only. Then I told her to move on, we could never be together and I couldn’t have any distractions.

Three years later I was home on leave. Delaney had just graduated high school and was leaving for college. My girl had dreams of being a teacher. It was during that trip home she’d given me her virginity.

Pure fucking magic. From the first kiss to her first orgasm, I owned them. Everything about that night was perfect. A love that was based on lifelong friendship. It was pure, untarnished, and absolute.

The next day I left.

There had been many times I’d broken her heart and shattered mine. Many times, I’d visit her while she was in college. She’d come to my hotel; we’d make love all weekend, stay tangled in the sheets, ordering room service, and she’d tell me about college life.

Those nights I’d lie awake with Delaney’s sweet, exhausted body wrapped around mine and try to come up with a way to make her mine. She could come up to Virginia, transfer to a college there, and…wait for me. It was that night, no matter how many different ways I tried to spin us being together I realized how selfish I was. I’d be gone all the time and she’d be alone.

Then fear had taken root. I was a Navy SEAL; my job was dangerous. I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t come home. Delaney needed better. So, I’d once again pushed her away and ran.

Years had gone by and she was still my one and only. No matter how many times I’d told myself I wasn’t going back, I always did. Every chance I had I’d go to her and every time I left telling myself that it was the last time. She hadn’t asked me for a commitment or a promise of more in a long time. I’d refused to allow her to tie herself to me, she needed to be free to find the man who could give her what she deserved. A beautiful life filled with kids and a husband who came home every night.

She’d stopped asking and it was good she had. My resolve had been slipping, each time she’d told me she’d follow me wherever the Navy stationed me, or that she understood I’d be gone most of the time and she’d be waiting at home made me believe we could have that. But it wasn’t fair. I loved her too much to make her a widow. I loved her too much to take her from our families. I loved her too much to tarnish her beauty.

But I always went back and took more. Demanded to hear her tell me how much she loved me. Demanded her body. Demanded her time. I’d made a lot of demands over the years, none of which I deserved.

I might’ve not allowed her to make me promises, but I’d been committed to her. Since the first time we’d made love, there hadn’t been another woman in my bed. Not once. There were many that had tried but none of them were Delaney. None of them magnetic. None of them magic.

I knew at fifteen she was it for me, and at twenty-eight that knowledge hadn’t waned.

Now Delaney was standing across the dance floor from me and I was done. So done I no longer cared I was going to make a scene. Her brother, Jason, and new sister-in-law were standing next to me talking to her dad, Jasper. Their conversation had long since faded into the background and all of my concentration was on my woman.

I started across the dance floor not taking my eyes off Delaney, so I didn’t miss them widen in fear. She was a smart woman, she knew what was going to happen. I grabbed her hand, knitted our fingers together, and pulled her back in the middle of the dance floor.

It was time. I was making a statement. Something I should’ve done a long time ago instead of keeping us a secret. I tucked her close, kissed the top of her head in a way our families couldn’t misinterpret. The way she fit against my body, even if she was holding hers stiff, the way my lips lingered on her hair was claiming. It was also familiar, something else that wouldn’t escape their notice.

One arm wrapped around her waist, the other went into her hair when she started to pull back.

“No more,” I told her.

“No more?” she asked in a way that I couldn’t miss her anger.

Delaney was hot as hell when she was pissed. Fire flashed in those blue eyes of hers and when they caught, I knew to brace because she didn’t hold back.

“That shit is done,” I growled.

“What are you talking about?”

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