Page 52 of The Sculptor

I take the moment when my lips touched hers all those years ago.

I take the moment when we decided to run away with our son.

I take the fall and winter we spent in a cabin, watching her belly grow.

I take the moment she birthed our son.

But ultimately, I take the seasons when she stayed—loving me from afar.

This is what it was supposed to be like all those years ago—her in my arms, my cock buried inside her as she opened around me. Her soul was meant for mine—the missing warmth that created contentment.

I’ve never felt more loved than I have under this woman’s smile.

Inching forward, I try burying myself deeper inside her. It’s torture—I can’t get close enough—and by the bite of her hold, she knows it, too.

“Duke,” she says breathlessly, pulling back, “you gotta move, okay?”

I grin, but it’s pained. All I want to do is crawl inside this woman and claim every inch. There will never be another Langston. No one will ever get close to taking this woman from me again.

I don’t know if she sees the resolve in my eyes, or she’s just saving herself from being a cock decoration, but her hands move to the back of my neck, her eyes gleaming with mischief when she leans in, parting my lips with another torturous swipe of her tongue.

I groan, readjusting as I hitch her up, inadvertently moving her up and down on my cock.

The motion sets off something chaotic inside—a need to claim.

“Oh, yes,” she chants.

I slam her against the wall, the muscles in my arms engaging as I thrust her up and down on my cock as she matches the rhythm against my mouth.

It’s sloppy.

It’s uncoordinated.

And it doesn’t last nearly as long as I hoped.

“I’m gonna come,” she screams, which I ignore, keeping with the punishing pace. I’m there, too, but I fight off the urge to release into her sweet center.

“Duke.” Her hands hold my face, forcing me to look at her. “Let go, baby,” she says softly. “We have forever now.”

She kisses my lips, and I taste the sweet goodness I’ve mourned for many years. It washes over me like a cleansing rain, showering me with new resolve and hope for the future we lost.

And when I finally let go in a random hotel shower, all I can think is…

We’ve been here before.

But this time, no one will pry her from my arms.

“You don’t need to take care of me,” I fuss as she dries my hair with a towel.

After we made love, or whatever that was in the shower, she convinced me to get out and dry off.

I thought she meant so we could have dry sex, but that hasn’t been the case. Yet.

“I know I don’t need to take care of you,” she responds, “but I want to. Will you deny me the right to care for my husband?”

Well, fuck, not when she turns my words against me. “I suppose not,” I agree. “But you could at least put me inside you while you do it.”

She doesn’t need her pussy to dry my hair.

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