Page 59 of Erik's Redemption
She crossed the room slowly, her eyes never straying from his, chest moving in slow rises and falls. When she was right in front of him, her hands rose as if she was going to touch him, but then they dropped again. “I saw you pull in. I wanted to come over and check on you. Are you okay?”
For a split second, he considered lying. To anyone else, he would have. But after everything they’d gone through recently, he wanted to give her all his truths, no matter how ugly. “No.”
She took a small step closer. “What can I do?”
His hands went to her hips. Just touching her went a long way toward healing him. “You’re here. That’s already everything.”
Her small hands grazed up his ribs, her head leaning forward. His breath stopped as one perfectly placed kiss touched his chest.
“Hannah.” His fingers tightened on her hips. “What are we doing?”
He wasn’t talking about just in this moment, and she knew it. He needed to know if she was his again. To know if he could believe in them. Because if he thought he had her back, but he really didn’t…he wasn’t sure he’d survive that.
She pressed another kiss to his chest. “I’m standing in a house that doesn’t belong to me, kissing you, because beneath this skin is a heart that’s connected to mine. That touches mine. And every so often, even the beats feel like they align to mine.”
“Everything I own is yours, Angel. My home. My heart. My damn soul. I have never belonged to another person like I belong to you. My heart beats because you exist. Only you.”
She looked up, tears glistening in her eyes. “I love you. And I’ve realized that my love for you is stronger than anything either of us has ever done. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person, or a selfish one. But I need you more than I need to beawayfrom you. You’re right here.” She touched a hand to her own heart.
The ache inside him shifted to something better. Lighter. And every pain, every scar and break, almost felt worth it…because they had brought him right here, to Hannah.
He lowered his temple to hers. “You’re all I feel. All I see. You’re my world. And when you’re gone, it’s all darkness.”
“Kiss me.” She rose to her toes, and he dipped his head. The kiss was soft, her lips sweet. And in that kiss, he found redemption. He found peace and hope for a future that had felt so damn bleak only weeks ago.
He lifted her, pulling her against him. She fit around him so perfectly. Like God had planned for them to fit exactly as they should.
With one hand, he tugged her sweater over her head before turning and lowering her to the bed. His mouth never left hers as his hands went to the button of her jeans. Once the zipper wasundone, he shoved the jeans down her legs, where she toed them off.
He kissed her cheek, then her neck, his hands slipping behind her back and unlatching her bra. The second her breasts were free, he took one pebbled nipple between his lips and sucked.
The cry that fell from her lips filled his head. Kissing this woman, touching her in any way, blasted little bursts of hope into him.
He shifted to her other breast, wanting to make her feel everything. To have everything. Hell, he wanted to give this woman the fucking world.
He swirled his tongue around her peak, nipping and sucking. When he slipped a hand into her panties, he stroked her clit and she arched, her fingers gliding into his hair and tugging him up.
Then he was tasting her again. Drowning in her.
“Now,” she whispered. “I need you now.”
Four words that gutted him.
He rose and slipped her panties down her thighs. When they returned to each other, his hand went to her cheek, eyes on her. “I love you, Angel.”
“Forever.”
He slid into her, that one whispered word becoming his everything.
Forever.
Hannah groaneddeep in her throat as Erik filled her, her walls stretching for him.
God, she’d missed him. His strength. His familiar scent of crisp pine. She’d missed the way he looked at her, like she wasit,she was his everything, and he’d tear down any enemy who tried to step between them.
His mouth trailed down to her neck, and he latched on as his hips lifted and drove back into her. She groaned, digging her fingers into his shoulders, trying to hold herself in place. He did it again and again. Every time he returned to her, it was like a piece of herself slotting back into place.
She started to lift her hips to meet him thrust for thrust. When his hand slipped up her side and cupped her breast, she whimpered. He found her nipple with the pad of his thumb and grazed back and forth.
