Page 94 of Until Then

“Fuck. Izzy!” He shouts my name as he comes, burying his face in my neck and slapping his palms against the blanket on either side of my shoulders. His body is heavy, but I welcome the pressure of it, our skin slick with sweat, our breaths coming fast and loud. His strokes slow along with our breathing and soon stop altogether, but he doesn’t pull out of me right away.

Still seated inside me, he finds my lips and kisses me deeply. I practically melt into the kiss.

Brushing my sweaty hair off my forehead, he meets my gaze and holds me prisoner there.

I feel it then. The shift.

It’s seismic.

And from the way his eyes widen, I think he feels it, too.

I’ve fallen.

Fully.

Completely.

Only for this man.

I love Derrick Crawford. More than that, I’minlove with him. And I think he loves me, too. Though neither of us gives voice to those scary words.

It’s too soon, my conscience whispers.Wait.

For now, I will, but I can’t wait forever. This man deserves to know how deeply my feelings for him run.

Derrick rises up, and still—impressively—half hard, he tucks himself back into his swim trunks.

I brace my elbows on the floor on either side of me, readying myself to sit up, but he presses a hand to my stomach. “Wait.”

“Why?” I cover my breasts with my hands, suddenly feeling shy out in the open and under the clear blue sky.

He plucks my hands away easily, holding them captive in his. “Let me see you.”

When I nod, giving him permission to look his fill, he releases my hands and looms over me.

Heart still thumping, I lie on my back, completely naked and spread out for him, and let him drink me in.

After several breaths, he grasps my thighs and pushes them apart. A flush spreads up my body, the heat of it nearly consuming me, as he stares unabashedly at my center.

His seed leaks from me, warm and thick, but then his fingers are there like last time, pushing it back in.

“Fuck,” he growls, low and rough. “I love knowing you’re mine.”

“Possessive much?” I quip, though the words fall flat when they come out breathy.

A low chuckle rumbles in his chest. “Only of you. Stay here.”

He hauls himself to his feet and plucks my top from the floor of the boat halfway toward the front and my bottoms from the bench.

“I was going to put these back on you,” he confesses, holding each piece by its strings. “But I think you have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out.”

Easing up to sitting, I take them from him with shaky hands. Damn, my muscles are weak from the workout he put me through.

It takes me a few minutes to get the scraps of fabric back on, my fingers not thoroughly working yet. I don’t think I’ve ever been so thoroughly fucked in my entire life.

“You know”—I pull my hair back into a ponytail to get the long strands off my neck—“from now on, every time we’re on this boat, that’sallI’m going to be thinking about.”

He snags a water bottle out of the cooler and takes a long sip. Then he passes it to me. A satisfied smirk graces his lips. I love the confidence oozing from him.

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