Page 136 of Chasing Shelter

“Yes,” I breathed.

Trace gave me what I needed, just like he’d promised. His fingers tightened on my hips as he powered up, muscular thighs driving him into me. My mouth fell open, and my jaw fluttered as I took it all. The power, the emotion, the need.

We met each other in that desperate place, pouring everything we felt into it. The fear at the danger swirling. The anticipation of the unknown at our door. The emotion that we both hadn’t yet named out loud.

Trace’s finger found my clit and circled. “That’s my girl. We find it together.”

As the circles drew tighter over that bundle of nerves, the cord inside me wound so tight it was on the brink of fraying.

“Let me see the flames in that pale green. Let me watch you burn.” One more flick of my clit, and I burst into flame.

I clamped down on Trace as my orgasm hit, so powerful that tiny flashes of rainbow light erupted in front of my eyes. But I still didn’t close them. I didn’t lose sight of Trace, not for a single second.

He arched up into me, going impossibly deeper, finding a spot that had another wave of sheer sensation hitting me with enough force that I had to hold on to Trace’s shoulders. He thrust again, this time emptying into me but never losing my eyes.

I took it all. Everything Trace had to give. And somehow, through it all, I felt more like the me I was always meant to be because of it.

40

TRACE

I hummedto a song on the oldies playlist Ellie and I had settled on as I flipped pancakes on the griddle. We’d found this was the one genre we could agree on, meeting in the middle of my classic rock and her 90s pop. And like us, it somehow surprisingly worked.

Ellie hopped up onto the counter and popped a raspberry into her mouth. “Those look amazing.”

“You look amazing.”

Her hair had that tousled look that only came from one thing, and it just so happened that the disarray made the different colors and shades spring to life. She wore one of my old Seattle Sparks tees and a pair of my boxer briefs she’d had to knot with a hair band from her purse. But she was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.

Ellie’s mouth quirked in an uneven smile. “You’re making me breakfast. You’re already going to get lucky for that. You don’t have to sweet-talk me, too.”

I leaned over, pulling her to me for a kiss. “Maybe I want to sweet-talk you.”

“I could get spoiled with this sort of treatment.”

“Good,” I muttered, just as the doorbell rang, making Gremlin leap from his dog bed and charge to the entryway. “I’ll get it.” I turned off the heat on the griddle and handed Ellie the spatula. “Put these on the platter, would you?”

“Only bachelor I know who has a platter that actually matches his other dishware,” she called as she jumped down from the counter.

I chuckled as I headed for the door. “You admire my design taste, don’t lie.”

I opened the door to a tense Leah, and a Keely who was already running past me and inside. Gremlin’s barks turned happy at his favorite person’s return, but Leah seemed less so.

“Le,” I greeted, a little surprised.

The tense expression on her face deepened to what could almost be classified as a scowl. “I texted you.”

“Shit,” I muttered. “I’m sorry. My phone’s upstairs.”

Leah’s brows lifted at that, and I understood why. The curse slipping free, the phone not being on me at all times…neither was exactly characteristic of me.

“Ellie, why are you wearing Daddy’s T-shirt?” Keely called from inside.

Ellie’s response was muted, but I could still make out her words. “I, uh, got pancake mix on mine, so your dad let me borrow one of his.”

“It’s way too big on you,” Keely said with a giggle.

Storm clouds rolled in on Leah’s expression, and the bent of her lips was definitely in scowl territory now. “So, this was just about you getting laid? I turned my schedule upside down to take Keely yesterday when I had a huge presentation to prepare for at work, all because you made up some dramatic excuse to bang your neighbor?”

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