Page 73 of What if It's Us

“I won’t let you forget, Mar,” I tell her, lifting her leg and hooking it over my own. I rub the swollen head of my cock through her warm, wet folds and line myself up with her entrance one last time.

When we come together, my cock slides inside her with ease. It’s quiet but for our own pleasured sighs and I’m certain the world has fallen away and we’re the only two people left on this earth. The closeness we have in this moment, in this bed, just our bodies, it’s the kind of closeness that doesn’t need words—just breath and skin and the weight of emotion rising between us like a tide.

And when Marlee turns her head toward me, she reaches her hand between her legs to caress my balls as I slide myself in and out of her body. She whispers my name into the space just beneath my ear and I think to myself this is what love feels like, right?

This is what it means to be wanted not just tonight, but tomorrow, and every day after.

I don’t rush this last time together. I don’t want to. I want to ingrain this moment into my core memory. I want her to feel everything she deserves—tenderness, safety, pleasure. I want her to know, in every touch, every kiss, that this is more than intimacy for me.

It’s a promise.

“I’m so full, Ledge. It’s incredible when you’re inside me.”

She looks up at me with a warm vulnerable expression and something in my chest tightens. Something tender and protective and fucking overwhelming all at once. I want to tell her this isn’t just desire for me. It’s something deeper. It’s the kind of ache in my chest that has nothing to do with lust and everything to do with her.

I touch her face, just the edge of her jaw, my knuckles smoothing against her cheek, and she leans into the gesture like she’s been waiting for it.

Maybe we both have.

“Marlee…” I don’t even know what to say because she’s so damn beautiful here in my arms that the words fall away. So, I kiss her.

Slow.

Intentional.

I take my time because every second with my lips against hers feels sacred. Her breath hitches when I trace the curve ofher jaw with my mouth down to the hollow of her throat. I place my hand over the bottom of her abdomen as I slowly push inside her and she gasps.

“God. Ledger, yes.”

Just feeling her words against her throat is my undoing. “This won’t take long, Marlee. I need to fill you one more time before I can sleep.”

“Please…”

In the following silence, in that steady pulse of her throat beneath my hand, I realize I’m never going back.

I can’t go back to what life was like before Marlee.

I’ll never go back from this.

Not from her.

When we finally fall still—tangled together, warm and quiet—neither of us speaks.

My mind finally sated, I hold her in my arms and allow the night to take us to a place where all of our wildest dreams come true.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MARLEE

Iwake to the sunlight pressing against my eyelids, thin and gold, slipping between the blinds like it knows a secret.

You were fucked into oblivion last night.

Yep. That’s right, Mr. Sunlight, and you missed the whole thing.

My mouth is dry—dry like I’ve been chewing cotton in my sleep—and the dull throb behind my eyes pulses in sync with my heartbeat. Not exactly pain, but not peace either. The familiar ache of exhaustion, and maybe too much of him.

Who am I kidding?

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