Page 121 of This Life and All the Rest
“It’s no one’s fault,” I tell him.
It’s something I struggled with for a long time, but I’m certain of it now.
“It would have happened no matter what.”
He searches my eyes, seeking the truth. Seeking sincerity. When he finds it, he kisses me. It’s gentle. A promise, one that I know deep down he’ll never break. I know now that he never has.
I wrap my arms around him, pulling him closer, kissing him deeper. Four years without him and now I can’t get enough. I don’t understand it. I’m vibrating with need for him, a soul-deep longing, yet he’s right here in my arms.
“What is this?” I whisper. “What is this feeling? I feel like I’m drowning. Like I’m suffocating and you’re my oxygen.”
He presses his forehead to mine, lips ghosting over my lips as he speaks.
“I think it’s love.” I feel him smirk. “You get used to it.”
Love.
I think it’s love.
“I love you, Macon Davis.” I press a single kiss to his lips. “I’ve loved you since I was seventeen. I never stopped.”
He laughs lightly.
“I know.”
I smile and roll my eyes. This man. He kisses me again, and it’s the kind of kiss that heats my already boiling blood and makes my nipples hard. I drag my hands up his arms and down his chest. I trace my fingers over the waistband of his shorts, and he moves his mouth from my lips to my ear.
“Hey, Len,” he whispers.
His breath tickles, and I tilt my head to the side to expose my neck to him.
“Hmm?”
He kisses my neck, then bites just hard enough to make me gasp.
“I love you, too,” he rumbles against my tender skin.
I smile, my eyes stinging and my heart racing.
“I know.”
Macon stands up and takes my hand, pulling me to my feet, then walks me backward until my thighs hit his mattress. He smirks, then gives me a light shove, so I’m falling back onto his bed.
He’s so fucking beautiful, standing above me.
His sculpted chest, rising and falling rapidly with his quickened breaths, is decorated in the most intricate tattoos. The Virgo constellation and the clock with the paintbrush hands just over his heart.
I scan my eyes over his strong shoulder, down his defined bicep and forearm to the watercolor rose on the back of his hand. Every inch of skin is inked with beautiful art—images of his own creation—and someday soon, I’m going to memorize every single one of them.
But not today.
I drag my eyes from his arm to his abs, following the deep lines of his pelvis to the low-slung waistband of his shorts. His erection is perfectly outlined down his left thigh, and it makes my mouth water and my thighs sticky with arousal.
“Take your shorts off,” I rasp.
He does it slowly, an infuriating smirk on his full lips, revealing himself to me, inch by inch, before his erection springs free of his shorts and they drop to his feet.
His thighs are solid muscle. Even the left one, which now sports an angry red surgical scar, looks sculpted from stone.
