Page 116 of Only and Forever

I swallow roughly, clinging to her. “Dammit, Lu. Did you have to be so good with the words?”

Her smile wobbles. “Well. I might have been rehearsing it a little while picking flowers.”

I shake my head, my voice catching as I blink back tears and try to speak. I clear my throat as I bring her close and press a soft, tender kiss to her forehead. Slowly, I pull back and hold her eyes. “I love you, Tallulah. My Lulaloo, I love you so much, so deeply, I can’t even find the words to describe it, which, I’ll admit, after reading five hundred–plus romance novels, is a bit humbling, and yet that’s just it, Tallulah—I love those love stories, but they’re not ours.Ourlove story is the only one I want.”

Tears slip down her cheeks. Gently, I thumb them away. “I’m no love expert, but I think I just might be an expert on loving you. Because you were meant for me, Tallulah, and I was meant for you. Your heart was meant to be with mine; I believe that.” Clasping her hand where it rests over my pounding heart, I tell her, “And my heart was meant to be with yours. Itisyours. It always has been.” Bending, I kiss her, gentle and reverent, forehead to forehead. “My heart has been, and always will be, only and foreveryours.”

A soft sob leaves her as Tallulah draws me close, crushing her mouth to mine, hard and needy. “I love you,” she whispers. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

I smile against her fierce kiss until it slips, as brutal, desperate desire courses through me. My hands shake, my body aching for her as she slows our kiss and deepens it. I tug at her long sweater bunched around her waist, shoving it away from her body. She yanks it off, tosses it down, then she’s at me again, kissing me, openmouthed and hot, moaning into my mouth.

I stumble into her, and my knees buckle. “Here,” I whisper. “I need you here. Now.”

She nods frantically, dropping onto her cardigan spread like a blanket beneath her.

I crawl over her, frowning in concern even as she tugs me down for a kiss. “Your sweater. It’s fancy, isn’t it? We’ll ruin it.”

“Fuck the sweater,” she mutters, wrenching her pants down,letting me help her tug them past her hips, while she yanks at my pants’ button and zipper. “I’d throw my whole wardrobe beneath us right now and ruin it, if you asked me to.”

I sigh into her kiss, slipping my hand beneath her panties, feeling her wet and slick. “God, Lu.”

“I want you, in case that isn’t clear,” she whispers. “Verbal foreplay—big thing for me, apparently.”

I smile against her mouth. “I got you horny with my words. Myromanticwords.”

“I’m a woman reborn,” she pants, tugging my pants lower down my hips.

“Lula, let me make you feel good first,” I plead as she wraps her hand around me and drags it up to the tip. A gasp tears out of me as she strokes back down.

“Inside me,” she begs. “Please.”

A frustrated groan leaves me. “I don’t have a condom. I was in a rush. I forgot.”

“I’m on the pill.” She cups my cheek and stares up at me. “And there’s been no one since I was last tested. No STIs.”

I stare down at her, heart flying, need racing through me, just at the thought of what that means she wants—just her body and mine, nothing between us. “Me neither. No STIs.”

“Then come here,” she says softly, drifting her hand inside my shirt. Her fingertips dance up my back, making me shiver. “I want you so badly.” Her breath is hot in my ear, her voice threadbare and needy as I cup her breast, kiss the crook of her neck, then her shoulder. “I want you inside me. Now.Please.”

“Are you ready?” I whisper, slipping my fingers over her, satin smooth and slick, easing a finger inside, then two. A groan rolls up my throat. She’s drenched.

She smiles, head thrown back in pleasure as I curl my fingers inside her. “You tell me.”

“Fuck, Lu.” My hand wanders the soft curve of her stomach, over to her hip, where her pod is adhered. “Your pod, will I bump it, if we do it this way? Is another way better?”

She peers up at me, our urgency momentarily dissolved into stillness, the breeze swaying the flowers that hide us, the sun warming my back, gilding her amber eyes.

I smooth away an ice-blue hair that dances across her face, waiting for her, drinking in her beauty as she searches my eyes.

She swallows. “You’re sweet. But this is fine, just like this, as long as you don’t grab it or rub hard against it.” She smiles softly, lifting her head, kissing me. “Please, Viggo,” she whispers. “Now.”

I kiss her back, her lips, the tip of her nose, the beauty mark that lifts with a smile. Holding her eyes, I grip my aching cock, easing the tip inside her, just the tip. Air rushes out of my lungs. Lightning dances up my legs, deep into the base of my spine. Fierce need drags my hips forward, easing in farther, farther. “Christ, Lula, you feel incredible. How is it so incredible?”

She nods frantically, drawing me close, cupping my neck, until we’re forehead to forehead as I roll my hips, seating myself inside her. I gasp as I feel her wrapped around me, the sensation unlike anything I’ve ever felt or dreamed of, hot and tight, gripping me as I drag my hips back, then thrust in.

Stars dance in my vision. This is not going to last long.

“Who the hell cares?” she pants.

---