Carver
Home
There was nothing and no one more beautiful than Lyra, but her, inside The Sanctuary, surrounded by butterflies and flowers and sunlight—it was like a dream come true. I shook my head several times, and it had nothing to do with disagreeing.I simply couldn’t fathom this day had come, and she wasn’t bolting for the door or screamin’ at me for choosing her, even after all these years.
Tears welled several times in her eyes, but the one time I looked at them a little too long, she sniffled and blamed the pollen in the room. She also kept reaching back out for my hand, which I made sure stayed within arm’s reach. I wasn’t about to miss a single second of her showing she still had a place for me in her heart, even if she couldn’t voice it to me yet.
Lyra squeezed my hand as we walked up to a money bush, her gorgeous eyes saying so much more than words ever could. That was part of the problem between us—I wanted to know what happened so bad that it almost broke me, and I was starting to think trust wasn’t her issue. I wasn’t even sureIwas the issue anymore. Whatever caused her to leave left her trapped in her thoughts, unable to speak. I needed to find out what or who the fuckwasto blame for it so I could end it.
Destroy it.
Murder them slowly with my own bare hands.
Lyra’s voice cut into my thoughts. “When I said I hated you, that I’d never want you the same way again—I was lyin’.”
I pulled my hand from hers and wrapped my arm around her waist while we both stared at the plant in front of us. “I know.”
“But, what you did—”
“I spent years blaming you for everything that went wrong in my life, and that was wrong of me, but I don’t want you to think that I ever stopped loving you. Treating you any different from how I really wanted to, than the way you’ve always deserved, is something I’ll kick myself over until the day I die.”
She rolled her lips in, her voice cracking as she asked, “Can we go home now?” When she stepped out of my hold, I was ready to fall to my knees and tell her how sorry I was. But then, she threaded her fingers through mine and stared up at me withthose big brown eyes I tended to get lost in, and the word she’d just used circled my thoughts.
Home.
She called ithome.
Using our entwined hands, I pulled her to me and captured her lips, aiming for sentimental and sweet but getting lost in the feel of her soft mouth on mine. By the time she broke away, our breaths were heavy and labored. With one look down at her nipples peaking beneath her borrowed shirt, I lost it.
“I never thought I’d hear you call this place ‘home’ again.” I groaned while fisting the fabric covering her waist. Our lips came together once more, only this time, I grabbed the backs of her thighs and lifted her. Her legs locked around my waist as I moved.
“My real home was never a place. It’s you and it always has been,” she said.
Fuck.
“I need you so bad, sweetheart.”
She murmured in agreement as my ass fell onto the nearest wooden bench I could find, jolting us both. Yet, our mouths didn’t stop. The only time we stopped kissing and biting each other was to order a piece of clothing off, or to shift.
Soon, nothing was between us. We were lost to our desires, our wants, and every sensation stemming from our bodies coming together.
This is what I’d spent my life chasing. What I devoted years to after she left. Gettingthisback. Gettingusback. Getting myhomeback.
She looped her arms around my neck as her hips shifted, aligning the underside of my cock to her warm center. I bit down on her lip as my hands slid down the curves of her waist, her skin too delicate for the way my fingers were digging into her. Ishifted her stomach closer to mine, aligning the head of my cock, and when I eased in, we both moaned.
Swarms of butterflies exploded in a torrent of colors all around us, or maybe that was in my head, but I felt like I was seeing color for the first time in years. Feeling it. The way I sought pain and kept myself hollow suddenly filled and became so much more.
“Fuck, I’ll never get over how you feel around me, how responsive you are to my touch. How soft your lips are on mine.” All of her. I’d never forget a single piece of her again.
She whimpered, taking my cock inch by inch, moaning more as I filled her completely. I dipped down and sucked her taut nipple into my mouth, rolling the bud between my tongue and teeth. Everything about Lyra had always been better than anyone or anything else—the way she smelled, looked, and tasted. The way she retaliated when I made her mad, the way she smiled when I made her laugh.
Everything.
The first time I realized my feelings for Lyra were stronger than what others felt for their high school sweethearts, things became clear to me in ways nothing else ever had. The only thing I needed in my life was her. To wake up to her, to come home to her, to build something meaningful with her.
Only one thought came to my head as her body moved in rhythmic motions, her pussy clenching around my cock in little waves that matched the sounds escaping her lips. The same thought my mind avoided when I’d lost all hope of seeing her again. The same thought that drove the creation of the very room I was fucking my wife in. The same thought that maybe would have kept her here if only my young, teenage mind hadn’t flaked on saying it to her when I knew how I felt. The same thought I’d had in the barn when I told her the three words that encompassed it all.
The same three words she told me to stop telling her, though it was clear as day we both felt the same damn way.