Page 102 of Hero for the Holidays

“I stole a condom from Denver,” he whispered against her mouth.

“What?”

“I don’t just have them lying around,” he said.

She laughed. “Oh. I’m... I’m on the pill.”

It was just very basic of him that he was thrilled to hear that. Because he wanted to slide inside of her with nothing between them. With no barrier. He already knew that Fia hadn’t been with anyone, and he had been with very few people, and not for a couple of years. He let out a long breath. “Well, that’s good enough for me if it is for you,” he said.

“It is,” she said. “But thank you. For thinking of me. Thank you for protecting me.”

“Of course.”

There was noof courseabout it. Because he hadn’t done it back then. In so many ways. He just hadn’t fucking done it.

He kissed her again, then and there, then picked her up and set her down in the little bed in the corner.

He parted her thighs and kissed his way up her leg, pausing at the tender skin of her instep, her knee, right up by the center of her desire.

“Landry,” she gasped.

Then he nuzzled those curl and licked into her damp heat. She gasped, holding his head as he started to taste her.

He remembered this. The best thing. Intoxicating and wonderful and all he’d ever craved back then.

That glorious honey between Fia Sullivan’s thighs.

She’d been his first.

And she was the only one who had ever mattered.

He tasted her now, knowing that. Reveling in that truth.

She gasped as he moved his thumb over that sensitive bundle of nerves and then down her slick crease, pushing it deep inside of her. And then trading it for two fingers.

“Landry,” she gasped again, gripping his head, then his shoulders, her fingernails digging ruthlessly into his skin.

He still remembered. Just where to lick her. Just how to suck her. With them, it had always been something that transcended experience. He had a sense for her body, just like she’d had a sense for his.

It had never felt like two kids getting into trouble, not to them. It had always felt like more. It had always felt like everything. Just damned everything. And it did now too.

She was sweet and slick and perfect beneath his tongue, and he pumped his fingers in and out of her willing body, until she shivered and shook, until she cried out his name and her fingernails drew blood on his shoulders. His name was a prayer on her lips, and it was balm for his soul. Balm he hadn’t realized he needed. A triumph he hadn’t realized he been missing.

It was like a piece of himself had finally come back home.

Because Fia Sullivan was saying his name in the throes of ecstasy, and there would never be anything as great as that.

He moved up her body, kissed her hip bone, her stomach, both of her breasts, before sucking a nipple into his mouth again, until she arched up off the mattress. Then he moved back to her lips, rubbing his nose against hers before kissing her deeply.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, urging him forward. The head of his arousal pressed against her tight opening, and he began to sink into her.

A lump caught in his throat, along with driving, inexorable need.

Home.

All he could think was that he hadn’t been home for thirteen years. And here he was. Inside of her.

Her arms, her legs, her soul wrapped around his.

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