Page 26 of When I Come Back
I slowly lift my eyes back up to his, looking for something in his face to tell me not to do this—not to give in. All I see shining back at me is the same love I saw in his eyes years ago with this same song playing in the background. And that… that should terrify me. That alone should send me running, but it doesn’t. Somehow, it spurs me on instead. I ignore the voice in my head screaming at me that this will only lead to more heartbreak.
It’s not justmyheart at stake, but I can’t find it in myself to listen.
I place my hand in his without another thought. I let him pull me up from the stool and away from the bar. We don’t have a dance floor at RED, but there’s a wide walkway between the bar and the tables. His hands grab mine, and he gently winds one of my arms around his neck.
As he lifts the other, his eyes snag on the tattoo at my wrist. The tattoo I got as a reminder of him, of us. Pine trees lining the lake and the reflection of it all is an almost exact image of our special spot. He looks at it for a few beats and then places my hand at the nape of his neck with a thoughtful look.
As he goes to wrap his arms around my waist, he stops mid-way. “Is this okay?” His voice is hesitant, like he’s waiting for me to scream “stop” and bolt from the room.
I nod my head in response, and his arms instantly wrap around me, pulling me close. I’m enveloped in his scent, familiar yet new. He’s always smelled like summer to me. The lake on a summer day, surrounded by the pine trees that line the forest. It’s a scent I’ve spent years trying to get out of my head unsuccessfully. But there’s something mixed with it now, something masculine and pleasant. I can’t place what it is, but it feels like it’s him still, just all grown up.
It’s another moment before I find the courage to speak. “You… remember?” If I’m right, and he does, then I don’t need to specify what I’m referring to. As surprised as I am that he seems to, the change in his demeanor when the song came on answers my question. I still needed to ask though. I need to hear him say the words.
“Lemon, I remembereverything. There’s not a moment of our time together that I don’t remember. There’s not a single thing about you that I’ve forgotten. I remember every. Single. Fucking. Thing.” He punctuates the last few words, breaking down every wall I’ve spent years building up to protect my heart. It all comes crashing down around us, shattering any resolve I’ve had about not getting close to him again.
My hands are moving before I’ve fully thought it through. The second they do, his body tenses, assuming I’m about to pull away. Before I can question my own actions, I’m pushing up on my toes and crashing my lips into his. He hesitates for only a moment before his arms tighten around me, and he’s kissing me back. The kiss is desperate, and there’s not a hair’s width of space between our bodies. His tongue runs along the seam of my lips, and I immediately let him in. The taste of bourbon lingers on his tongue, and I explore every inch of his mouth with mine.
Our kiss is like a choreographed dance that I could never forget the steps to. Touching him, moving with him is muscle memory.
His hands skate down my waist, landing just below the curve of my ass as he lifts me into his arms—never breaking our kiss. I wrap my legs around his hips.
As we move, I hear something hit the floor and shatter, but I can’t find it in myself to care enough to pull away from him. When he lifted me up, my dress lifted as well, leaving nothing to shield his hands from my bare skin. Now nothing else matters but the way his touch feels on my body—his hands igniting nerve endings everywhere they land, his lips against mine. He trails his mouth down the slope of my chin and around my ear, stopping at the spot right behind it—his spot. “Fuck, I missed your body,” he groans right before he closes the space between his mouth and that one point guaranteed to drive me insane.
The moment his lips make contact, my toes curl, and a moan escapes me. His cock tents against his dress pants at the sound and, pressed this close, I feel every inch. He chuckles seductively in my ear as he realizes that hasn’t changed in the time we’ve been apart. He comes back to my lips, kissing me even more intensely than before.
His hands squeeze the globes of my ass before placing me down on a table top, then they come up around my waist again. So slowly that it feels like torture, he moves them up my stomach toward my breasts. The touch is feather-light, but I feel it all the way down to my soul. His touch is laced with just enough pressure that I’m being pushed down onto the table more and more until I’m lying flat on my back. My fists are bunched into his button-down shirt bringing him down with me.
As one of his hands reaches my breast, the other rests on the table beside my head as his lips move down my neck. I tighten my legs, pulling him impossibly closer. “Cary,” I moan into the space between us. It’s the first time I’ve used his nickname since he’s been back in town, and I know it has an effect on him from the way his hand squeezes my breast at the same moment.
His lips land back on my own as his hand trails down to the hem of my dress, pushing it up to my waist. Neither of us says a word as his fingers trace down the top of my thigh. I keep my eyes squeezed shut, terrified that if I open them this will all stop, and reality will hit me square in the face. I can keep pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist as long as I keep them closed. Nothing and no one else matters right now. I’m willing to live in this fantasy if it means his lips stay on mine, and his fingers never stop whispering across my skin. I feel alive for the first time in God knows how long.
He leaves a burning trail as his fingers graze toward my inner thigh. Despite knowing exactly what’s happening, the second his touch lands on the edge of my core, my breath hitches. He slowly runs a finger directly over my center, only my underwear between us, and my breathing stops completely.
He pushes the material aside exposing my already wet pussy. “Fuck, Thea,” he groans into my mouth as he feels how ready I am for him—how much I want him. The desire for each other is so thick it’s coating the air around us. “You’re fucking dripping for me, baby.”
He finds my clit and flicks it gently, then begins circling it with an even pressure that I love. I grow wetter with every movement of his hand. As if he can’t wait any longer, he pulls away from my clit, and I let out an involuntary whine at the interruption. One finger slips inside of me, making me gasp. I bite down on my bottom lip as he starts to thrust it in and out, his mouth reclaiming the spot behind my ear at the same moment his movement quickens. My back arches as the pleasure builds within me.
He moves from my neck to take advantage of my arched body, covering my peaked and hardened nipple with his mouth over the fabric of my dress and sucking. The sounds that escape my lips ring through the empty restaurant. He slips a secondfinger in and changes the rhythm to a slower pace, the heel of his palm massaging my clit. His fingers curl at just the right angle, making pressure coil at my center.
I’m so heated my clothes feel restrictive. I run my hands up his neck and over his hair where it’s tied back, then back down before pulling at his shirt. One of the buttons pops off as I sink my hands under the fabric, tracing the muscles of his shoulders, his skin as hot as I feel.
The walls of my pussy tighten on his fingers as my climax starts to build. He must feel it too because he puts his lips to my ear and says, “You going to come for me, Lem?”
All I can do is nod and angle his face back to mine as I pull him into another deep kiss. We’re both panting and lost to this moment.
Finally, the chasm of pressure explodes, and I scream out my release into his mouth. He holds me through it, never stopping his movements until my body starts to come down from the high. I open my eyes, and the world slowly comes back into focus.
He gently pulls out of me, readjusting my underwear back into place and pulls away just enough so our lips have some space between them. He looks me in the eyes then brings his fingers covered in my release to his mouth and slips them past his lips, moaning at the taste of me on his tongue. He’s still fully clothed—sans the one button—and I feel the throbbing of his dick and how hard it is against my stomach.
That realization, matched with the comedown, hits me all at once. Suddenly, my heart is racing from the anxiety and potential fallout of what we just did. The fantasy is gone, the spell is broken, and all I can do is lean into the panic.
What have I done?
He must see it on my face because he pulls his body off of me and lets me sit up from the table. He backs away, giving meroom to hop down. I pull my dress down, incapable of meeting his gaze. I’m scared of the look I’ll find on his face. I’m terrified he’ll confirm my worst fear and tell me it was a mistake. I can’t believe I let that happen.
Ironically enough, the silence must be killing him too because he’s the first to speak. “Thea—” he starts.
I cut him off before he can say anything more, not knowing if I can handle what might come out of his mouth. “I… I have to go. I can’t—fuck. I can’t believe we just did that.”
