Page 26 of Keeping Mr. Sweet

“Do you really think that’s the problem here?” I slide my hand to her belly and press her back against the wall. The concave of her torso pulls in and pushes out with each quick breath. The air catches in my throat, a shockwave blasting me with how much I want to take back the past and give my girl her family that she always said she wanted. There’s no hope of giving up on her now. Like lightning it strikes deep within me. All this time I’ve wasted on trying to date the right women, and be the right guy, and I was only ever going to love this girl. I was only ever going to want what she wanted when I told her she was too young to have it, but it’s too much, too soon. “We need to figure out who we are as a couple. Can we do that? Can you do that?”

“I tried so hard to stay away from you,” she admits.

“I know you did.” Her hair is silk in my fingers as I press my lips to her forehead and breathe in her scent. A lifetime of moments is carried in a smell that’s so familiar it tightens my chest. My heart is on a string that she draws tight and spins. “But you couldn’t.”

“I couldn’t.” Her voice waivers, and then she raises her hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I saw you with Mandy. Like really saw you. I could tell how much you liked her.”

“You were jealous?”

“She was taking everything from me. You. Our future. All the things that ever mattered to me.”

I’m shocked by her confession and more certain than ever that I was so wrong when I told her she was too young to tie herself to me. We had everything we needed, and I pushed her into leaving me. I won’t make the same mistake again.

“I hate that I was jealous. Am jealous. She’s my friend. You’re my friend. I didn’t want to hate her for being with you. Especially if it lasted. If you got married, and had babies, or any of those things we used to talk about doing. That’s why I threw myself at Luca. I just wanted to get over you—and the idea of you and her.”

“And instead you got a scandal,” I finish for her.

“Yes.” She exhales, sagging against the wall.

“And a reason to put yourself in my arms one more time.”

“Yes.”

I glide my hand up the cotton of her shirt to cup her breast. Everything about her is locked in my memory. From the flatness of her belly to the weight of each breast in my palm and the way her nipples sit like pale, rose colored buttons on those creamy mounds. They become points under my attention, stabbing at the material as I grip the waist of her sweats and push them down off her hips.

“Please,” she says, gripping my biceps. “I’m trying to do things right, but I don’t think I could handle it if you don’t plan on really touching me.”

I lean in close, so near that our breath mingles, and the warmth of her skin is like electricity on mine. Her lips are my homing beacon, pulling me in like magnets. The tip of her pink tongue slips between them, beckoning, and I take a deep breath before grazing the corner of her mouth. I can’t not touch her. As much as I need her to talk to me, she needs to feel that I mean it when I say I still want her.

I drop to my knees in front of her, my hands gripping her ass and drawing her forward until she’s arched away from the wall. I drag her shirt up, exposing her midriff, and press my lips to that spot below her navel. She shakes like a leaf, her rapid breathing filled with anticipation, though she doesn’t dare look at me.

With one hand, I grasp the waist of her sweats and yank them down over her hips to her knees. The instant I do I’m rock hard and salivating for her. She’s been panty less beneath them this whole time, her pussy bare, pink lips swollen and glistening. The perfume of her arousal fills my senses as I dip my fingers into the wet heat between her legs.

Her shoulders bang against the wall. “Oh God.”

I spike two fingers into her tight hole, thumb her clit. “If I told you this was never to be touched again by anyone but me, what would you say?”

She brings her gaze to mine, huge, lust filled eyes that shine with unsaid emotions. “Please.”

“Please, huh?” I rock forward, bringing my mouth in line with where her clit is hidden from me. I part her soft flesh, hesitate.

“Yes,” she whispers, nodding like her life depends on it. “No one else. Just you. Now. Please.”

“You’ll let me have you? However I want?”

“Yes.” She hisses out a breath that becomes more of a whine. “It’s yours. Take it.”

I press the tip of my tongue to that little nub, barely moving at first. Letting her feel the heat of my mouth on her skin while she cries out in relief. Her wetness pools in my mouth along with my own saliva, her taste as perfect as it was the first time I knelt between her legs. I wiggle my fingers inside her, push deeper to stroke her most sensitive spots while I work my tongue over her clit. Her hips slam against my face, and I force her still, so I can eat her the way I want to. Drawing my fingers from between her legs, I tongue fuck her, lick and suck and bite at her until she’s keening. She’s musical, spurring me on, making me greedy, driving me to bring her to the edge and to push her over it. And when her eyes scrunch tight and her mouth opens to scream from the pleasure, I push her that little bit harder until she shoves at my shoulders to get me to stop.

“No one can do me like you do,” she says, her chest heaving.

She curls her fingers in my hair and doesn’t let go as I get to my feet. Half naked, she presses herself bodily against me, and I put my arms around her and hold her tight. Somehow we got lost along the way, and I don’t know how we’ll find our way back to when we were happy together, but I’ll be damned if I don’t want to try to find the future we lost and make it real this time.

I let her go and swat her ass gently. “Go get in my bed.”

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