Page 135 of After All The Wreckage
“I’m actually late. Traffic was hell.”
He looked down at the clock on the bedside table. “Shit.”
My grin grew. As I started across the room toward him, I began losing clothes. Sweater, jeans, socks. By the time I reached him, I was in just a bright blue bra and panty set. Gage’s gaze wandered over my body, taking in every ounce of me. My workout routines had suffered some from spending so much time with my family and being on the road a lot, but it was worth it. I was still strong and lean, but my curves were a little fuller. Gage didn’t seem to mind.
“Nan mentioned something about date night. I take it we’re not going out?”
Gage’s throat bobbed and his eyes turned cloudy as his hand caressed my collarbone, down over one breast, lightly rubbingthe tip through the silky material. My eyes fluttered closed for a moment before opening again.
He leaned in and kissed me, but it wasn’t with the intensity that meant we’d be lying tangled in the sheets in two seconds flat. Instead, it was with a tenderness that almost overwhelmed me. A sweetness that took all those suspicions and amplified them.
He backed up. “Stop distracting me.”
I laughed. “You’re the one who was practically naked when I walked in, and who, I might add, kissed me.”
He took my hand and led me into the bathroom we’d remodeled last year, making it another little haven that was all ours in the family’s Victorian. We’d converted a bedroom next door into a walk-in closet and bathroom with a giant claw-foot tub and a walk-in shower made decadently for two.
The bathroom was as full of fake candles as the bedroom. Here they led up to the bathtub already full of bubbles. Gage quickly divested me of my last two layers of clothing and then held his hand out to help me in. He dropped the towel, and my eyes fell to his hard-on. As I reached for it, he lifted an eyebrow, waved a finger at me, and then stepped into the tub behind me.
He pulled me back against his chest, arms banding me, fingers working into the tight muscles along my neck and shoulders. The tension of the commute and the intelligence work that had consumed me on the way home disappeared. Instead, I was utterly in my present. Body alert in a very different way with Gage’s thighs encasing mine. With the heat and scent of him blending in with the soft citrus of the bubbles and the warmth of the water.
He lightly brushed my taut tips, lowering his mouth to my ear and nibbling on it. “You’re so beautiful, Rory. Beautiful and strong and brave and I rejoice every day that you’re mine.”
I turned my face to find his lips, and the temperature in the tub tripled. As our slick bodies slid along one another, pleasure coursed through me, and I was already seconds away from going over the edge. I moved swiftly, rising and turning around so I came down on top of him, taking him inside me all in one smooth motion. His eyes widened in surprise, a delicious moan escaping him that I swallowed with my mouth.
Gentle sounds filled the air. Our panting, the slosh of the water against the sides of the tub, and the slap of our skin. It was intoxicating. Sensual.
Every moment that Gage and I had come together over the last two years had been like this. Overwhelming. Emotional. Beautiful. Every time we made love, I felt our souls stitch together another notch tighter. Someday, there would no longer be two of us, but some merged being. We’d finish each other’s sentences and hand each other things before the other asked. We’d be a perfect organism that had been joined by love and time.
It didn’t take long for each of us to find release. To go over the top and tremble back to reality…
I laid my cheek on his shoulder as our breathing evened out. His hands slid over my hips and up my sides to my back. A slow, comforting caress.
“That was supposed to be last,” he said, a smile in his voice.
I sat up to look at him, locking him with a stare that my coworkers called Scary Rory. “What was supposed to be first, Gage Palmer?”
He grinned in response, not at all scared.
Gage wrapped his arm around my waist and stood, bringing me with him. He hauled us both onto the soft mat beside the tub, reaching for towels. When I tried to grab mine from him, he swatted my hand away and proceeded to gently dry me from top to bottom, kissing me along the way.
My entire body was trembling again by the time he was done.
He pulled my silk robe from the back of the bathroom door and helped me into it. He tied the belt around my middle and then stood back, eyeing me. “That isn’t much help. I’m going to want to take it off again.”
I huffed out a little laugh. He stepped into a pair of pajama bottoms. Once upon a time I might have thought pajama bottoms were for old men and little boys, but Gage made them look sexy. Especially because I knew he’d started wearing them back when he was sharing a room with his sister. It hadn’t been a natural state for him. He’d learned to live with it in order to take care of his family. Like the million other things he’d done to care for them.
In the bedroom, he had me climb into bed and brought me a glass of champagne and the tray full of snacks. He joined me, hitting the remote, and allowing my least favorite Veronica Mars episode to fill the screen.
It felt like the exact opposite of what this evening should have been about. Not sexy at all.
“You’re ruining our date night,” I said, waving the champagne flute toward the television.
“Wait. I need to record that. Rory Marlowe Bishop sayingVeronica Marswas ruining something. Can you please repeat it?” he teased as he reached for his phone.
I punched his shoulder softly.
We watched the episode in near silence. Just eating and drinking. I wondered if I was wrong. If my thoughts about what was happening tonight were way off base. As we got toward the end, my chest started to ache and my eyes started to water because I knew what was coming. I knew the pain and loss and sadness.
