Page 117 of Always Meant for You
I cry out, muscles contracting, heart pounding. Pleasure rolls through me in waves, one colliding into the next.
And it doesn’t stop.
He keeps me there, deliciously pinned and wrung out.
I’m writhing. I’m flying. Then the pull begins to ease. My grip on the moment loosens, and the intensity gives way to softness. I fall back into my body, my limbs heavy, my breath unsteady. The world takes shape around me again, lavender, warmth, and the faint sound of Cal breathing against my skin.
I open my eyes, the aftershocks moving through me, every part of me heavy in his hands.
He’s watching me, lips glistening, raw need shining in his eyes.
“You’re beautiful, Mabel,” he says, the corners of his mouth lifting in a smile so full of tender adoration, it brings tears to my eyes.
I can only observe him. I take in how the light traces the lines of his face, how his gaze settles on me with the gravity of a man who’s spent his life waiting for this moment.
He shifts, his hand trailing the length of my body. When he reaches my mouth, he draws his thumb across my bottom lip.
“Can I confess something?” he asks, a thread of hesitation in his voice.
“Anything.”
He lifts his hand again and draws his fingers along my collarbone, his touch gentle and unhurried. His palm rests there for a moment, warm against my skin.
“I used to watch you at the diner.”
I search his face. “When I was waitressing?”
“I’d park across the street at the bus station, after the sun went down. You were inside, wiping counters, chatting with the old Young sisters, pouring coffee.”
“I didn’t know you were there.”
“I didn’t want you to know.”
“Why?” I whisper.
He pauses. “I think it’s because it was the only place I could be near you without the weight of being seen. I could watch you move through your world. It felt like I was there with you, making sure you were safe. Watching you laugh. Seeing you tighten your ponytail, then brush a few loose strands of hair behind your ears. You were mine in those moments.”
A part of me folds in, gentle and aching.
He studies me, and then a boyish grin curves the corners of his mouth.
“What?” I ask, stroking his cheek.
“I’m thinking about what you looked like.”
“In my uniform with my hair in a messy ponytail?” I ask, teasing.
“That’s just the surface, but it’s not what I saw.”
I stroke his cheek. “What did you see?”
His smile widens. “You have this thing that follows you,” he says, tracing the hollow of my neck. “It’s a light. It’s the kind of energy that makes everything shift. It reminds me of the sunrise over the east field. Do you remember those mornings? When everything would be dark and then the light would spill over the hill and stretch across the rows of soybeans like it had been searching all night for a place to land?”
“I remember.”
“That’s what you are to me, Mabel. You’re the light. And I’ve been standing in the dark, waiting for you to come back over the hill.”
His words brush against the place where the questions I’ve been holding in my heart live.
