Page 71 of Single Girl in the City
He did it again and because three time’s the charm, he did it yet again.
“Owen?” This time there was a frantic edge to her voice.
“Yeah, Angel?”
She lifted her lids and looked at him through her eyelashes, then gifted him a small smile. “I guess I just like saying your name.”
“I like hearing it from you. Especially when you say it all breathy. But I gotta be honest, I love it when you scream my name.”
Owen sat up and, gently gripping her waist, maneuvered them so he was upright and she was straddling his lap. He didn’t want to crush her and he didn’t want to accidentally bump one of her bruises, so he positioned her for maximum penetration and minimal bumping.
She slid her arms around his neck and buried her face into the curve and held tight. They started moving again but this time it wasn’t with that mindless urgency, it was with something even better.
An awareness that what was happening between them was special. Their brushes and touches came from someplace deeper, someplace Owen refused to acknowledge.
She felt it too. He knew it. But like him, she was fighting to keep things straightforward, within the parameters that they’d previously agreed to. To him, those parameters were blown to bits the second she’d called out his name. It showed him that this wasn’t some one-time, here-now gone-tomorrow kind of connection.
Not that he expected her to change her plans, but it was enough to know that if things were different, if his life had room for more, that she’d be the kind of woman he’d want to be with.
“Owen?” she asked, her eyes filled with concern. “You okay?”
No, he was not okay. This woman had him completely spun up. It was as if they were vibing on the same wavelength; she could sense what direction his emotions were heading. Which was good, since he felt like he was in foreign terrain without a map. But there she was, this bright beacon helping him find his way.
“Owen,” she said and this time when she said it, he could hear the confusion in her voice and that’s when he realized he’d stopped moving. He just sat there with her in his arms breathing in her scent.
Thrown off-balance, he quickly recovered and single-mindedly focused on Abi and her pleasure.
He brushed her lips when she threaded her fingers into his hair and yanked him. Fusing their mouths, she took it from zero to hotter-than-hell.
Gripping her waist, he moved her up and down as she used her knees for leverage. All it took was a few more deep and even slower thrusts and he was about to get a gold star in holding out. Because he was primed to go but she needed just one more little swirl of the—
“Owen,” she cried out and, miracle of all miracles, she went off like a firework, tightening around him so forcefully he could no longer hold back. So he didn’t.
He let go in one of the best orgasms of his life. He let the tide drag him out and when it pulled him back in, they were laid back on the bed, Abi was in his arms, and they were both gasping for breath.
After a long moment, Abi curled up next to him, lacing their fingers.
“I think I foundyourfavorite place,” she teased.
Owen chuckled, deep and low, but it didn’t ring true because as far as he was concerned, all the teasing left the building. Because while she had, indeed, found his favorite place, he was starting to think that maybe Abi was his favorite place.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Happy Things:
Finding your big spoon
Along and eventful time later, after they’d covered six of the thirteen flat surfaces, Owen lay on his side with Abi snuggled against him, fast asleep.
His right leg was slung over hers like he was her own personal blanket, and his arm was around her, his hand cupping her breast as if he owned it, while he listened to the gentle rhythm of her heartbeat.
He stared out the window at the soft glow of the streetlight illuminating the room, with a big, goofy grin on his face. He wasn’t really a cuddler but there had been a lot of “wasn’t really”s in his life since meeting Abi. Like not really ready for a commitment or not ready for a relationship. While he still wasn’t sure if he had the space for either of those, he found himself thinking about all the what-ifs.
What if it wasn’t all the external things that made a relationship hard? What if he was using that as an excuse because he was afraid of getting hurt again? But the biggest what-if of all was the what if he hurt her. His life was full and she deserved a big, all-encompassing, ride-or-die kind of partner and he wasn’t sure he could be that person. But maybe he was willing to give it a try.
But he didn’t know where her head was at.
He knew where her body stood, but was her heart still set on moving on after their time was up? He knew her relationship with her sister was strained and she rarely talked about her parents—Abi was on her own. What Owen didn’t know was if it was her choice or a life that had been handed to her. He knew practically nothing about her life pre-accident. Hell, he barely knew what happened in the accident.
