Page 74 of The Best Bad Decision

And then he pushes into me, one smooth movement until our hips meet and he’s fully seated, and I gasp.

“Oh—oh,fuck.”

We move slowly. He wraps me in his arms as he rocks his hips, thrusting slowly in and out. I reach up to kiss him, slow and languid, and it feels like an exploration, ahello,a new beginning. It feels like it could be the start of forever.

“So beautiful,” he whispers; the reverence in his tone makes my eyes sting with tears. “So perfect. Look how beautiful you look with me inside you, Amie.”

He kisses me again, and I look down to the point where our bodies are joined. When I look back, the tears are threatening to spill over, and I squeeze his shoulders with my fingertips, lifting my legs to lock my ankles around his waist. The new angle pushes him even deeperand he hits the most magnificent spot. My entire body bursts with the sensation, humming with a need more intense than anything I’ve ever known.

“Fuck, Cam,” I whisper. “Holy fuck.”

Nothing has felt like this. Not in Singapore. Not even in New York.

Cam increases his pace, bucking his hips against mine, and I meet every movement, crying out a quiet gasp with every thrust. He swallows my cries with his lips, moaning against me, and we quicken together until my legs begin to tremble and quake around him.

“Cam,” I gasp. “I need—”

He reaches down with one hand, leaving the other tangled in my hair and cradling my head, holding my face to his.

“I’ve got you, beautiful,” he whispers against my lips, and circles a finger against my clit. I come apart immediately, squeezing him all the way to his own orgasm. He comes inside me with a low, stifled groan, his body stiffening and then relaxing against mine as he spills inside me.

“I love you,” he says with an exhale as his breathing begins to slow. “I’ve loved you for four years, and I’ll love you forever more.”

I never imagined myself worthy of Cam’s kind of love. The tender, reverent kind. The fierce, possessive, all-consuming kind. The kind that uplifts. The kind that set us on a predestined course four years ago, orbiting but never quite colliding, until now. And if I had to collide with anyone, there’s no one else in the world I’d want it to be. The tears that formed earlier spill over, soaking my lashes and tracking down to my jaw. I open my mouth to respond, but he puts a finger to my lips. I kiss it.

“Don’t say anything, baby,” he says softly. “I don’t need you to say it back. Say it when you’re ready. Just know I’m already there.”

He loves me.

thirty-eight

Cam

Inever realised howincredible sex could be with someone you love.

I know that sounds crazy. I was hardly a virgin when Amie and I met, and it’s not like I’d never enjoyed myself with a woman before. But when I think about that night in Singapore now, it all pales in comparison. Tonight, with Amie, it’s not a quick fuck behind a bar, or even a wild night of passion to get it out of our systems.

This is overwhelming desire, desire so hot it burns. It’s needing to hold someone close, to show them how you feel with everything you have. It’s loving someone so much you want to be close to them—close, closer, closer, until you’re inside each other’s skin—and even then, sometimes, it’s not close enough.

Finally sated, I pull her close, inhaling the soft apple scent of her hair. I could give up everything for this woman and be happy. I could never fly again, but as long as she’s in my arms, I’ll still be on cloud nine.

“How was your first Phoenix Christmas?” I ask. Amie’s head is on my chest but she’s still wide awake. I draw lazy circles on her skin with my fingertips, feeling her muscles tense and relax at my touch. I feel her face pull into a smile against my chest.

“Different,” she says carefully. “I miss my mum, and Katy and Lo and Roo. But I love being here with you.” She stretches up to kiss me.

“I love having you here,” I say, stealing another kiss. “Maybe next year we’ll spend Christmas in London.”

“I’d like that.” She settles back against my chest and I tighten my hold on her.

“What do you usually do for Christmas?”

“We have a feast,” she says, a soft smile on her lips as she recalls the memories. “Maisy and I spend the day together with Mum, if she’s not at the hospital. At some point, the girls join us, or we join them—they spend the morning with their families and the rest of the day is ours. Roo cooks. Mum helps. Lo drinks too much wine. Maisy gets thoroughly spoiled.”

I laugh, imagining the way her grandma and godmothers would spoil her rotten every year. She’s so loved by her whole family, blood and chosen, and bit by bit, that love is helping to ease the guilt of missing three years of her life.

“After Maisy’s in bed, we usually crack open some wine and play a game. That meme one on my bookshelf, or Heads Up! or something. It usually gets pretty crazy… and then we have a sleepover, wherever we are. And it’s the best. Lo kicks in her sleep so I never share a bed with her, but it’s always the best day.”

She smiles fondly, and my stomach twists a little. My family has Christmas traditions and we’re all close, but we have nothing like what Amie has described, and I’ve brought her and Maisy thousands of miles across the world, away from it all. It’s like she senses the shift in my mood, because she turns in my arms to look up at me.

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