Page 171 of Always Meant for You
I press into him, trembling with need. “Cal,” I whisper, my voice rough with wanting. “I need to feel you.”
I fumble for his belt, get the buckle free, pop the button, and drag the zipper down. He pushes out of his jeans and kneels to slide my panties from my hips.
He pauses at my pink Dior heels.
I push up onto my elbows. “You can take them off.”
He kisses my ankle. “No. They stay.”
The raw, carnal ache in his voice steals my breath. He presses me into the blanket, his body a warm weight over mine, and I’m intoxicated. Intoxicated by the wind rustling through the willow,the scent of wildflowers, and tall grass rising around us. It’s thick in the air, sweet and earthy, grounding and dizzying all at once.
And him—God, him. The warmth of his skin. His clean, male scent filling my lungs. I moan when his hips shift. He’s hard between my thighs, his cock weeping for me.
“Cal,” I whisper, desperate to be closer.
He answers with a thrust. I wrap my legs around his hips, my heels digging into his ass as he fills me completely. Our mouths collide, hungry and unguarded. He moves with purpose, every grind of his hips claiming me as his.
“Mabel,” he says through gritted teeth.
Hearing my name on his lips winds me tighter. With every rock of his hips, he brings me closer toward release.
I clutch his back. He pushes deeper, and my breath stutters. The ache spirals, sharp and exquisite. His hands capture mine, holding them above my head, our fingers locking tight.
We move together, sweat-slick and breathless. His mouth grazes my throat, and I feel him everywhere—in my skin, my spine, my core, my pulse.
“I love you,” he rasps.
His words are my undoing.
Pleasure coils, then breaks wide inside me. I cry out, clutching him close, writhing beneath him. My release rushes through me like light splitting through the dark. My orgasm takes me under—blinding and beautiful.
He follows, his hips pressing deep, his body working me in long fluid strokes. He buries his face in my neck. “I love you,” he breathes. “I love you. I can’t stop saying the words.”
“Then don’t,” I say, coming down from the high, my limbs loose, my muscles relaxed. “Never stop.”
“I never will.” He sighs, drawing the pad of his thumb across my pinned wrist.
We lie tangled beneath the willow, skin warm against skin, the scent of earth and sex curling in the air around us. His chest moves with mine, our breaths catching and releasing in time. There’s no sound but the breeze and the quiet hum of being gently loved.
“I will always love you,” he whispers, brushing damp strands from my forehead. “This is where we belong.” He eases his large frame beside me.
“Under a tree?” I tease, tracing the line of his jaw.
He glances up through the curtain of green above us. “It’s fitting that it’s a willow.”
“Why’s that?” I ask on a sated breath.
His gaze returns to mine. “Willows bend without breaking. Their roots grow wide and deep. They survive storms. They hold the ground together.”
I press my palm to his chest, to the place where his heart has lived in quiet survival for far too long.
He kisses me again, then wraps his arms around me, pulling me close. “This place is ours, Mabel, not because it’s where we broke, but because it’s where we found our way back to each other.”
I tuck myself against him, my skin cooling in the night air. His breath slows, and my body melts into him. I’m safe. I’m loved. I still want the world. I want movement, color, fashion, new cities, and unseen horizons. But more than anything, I want it with him. Because this—Cal’s embrace, this tree, this love—is my home.
I close my eyes, wrapped in everything I once feared, and let myself rest, trusting that this life is mine to keep and ours to build.
Chapter Thirty-Three
