Gavin stands, holding my hand to bring me along with him. He leans over and scoops me up and carries me off to the bedroom. As we cross the threshold, I ask, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
He smiles down at me. “Darlin’, this is the best idea I’ve had in eight years.”
My insides melt into a gooey pile of mush. I’ve forgotten what this feels like. This pure carnal need. This intense wanting of another. I’ve tried to be with other men. I’ve been with other men. But sex with any one of them didn’t even come close to this feeling I have merely being held in Gavin’s arms.
He gently deposits me on the king-size bed and crawls over the top of me. “This is all I’ve thought about for the past two weeks. I want you so badly I can hardly stand it,” he says, his voice strained with emotion. “I need to make love to you, Baylor. I need it more than air. Will you let me?”
I think about the protective armor around my heart. The walls I built up after Gavin left me. The shield that protects me from heartache that only Maddox has been able to penetrate. Maddox is the only one I’ve let in. He’s the only one I’ve let myself love. I’m not ready to lower my defenses. It’s been so long I’m not even sure I could. But part of me wonders if my heart resides in the very same shoebox that contains all my memories of Gavin. That’s the part that will allow this—that’s the part that wants Gavin buried inside me—that’s the part that remembers how perfect we were for a short time so long ago.
“Darlin’?” he questions me. “You’re killin’ me here.”
I look up into his eyes—those same ice-blue irises that he passed on to Maddox—and logic is replaced by a visceral need for him. I give him an answering smile.
He captures my smile with his lips. We explore each other’s faces, necks and ears with our kisses. I moan into him when he murmurs how good I taste. I thread my fingers through his soft hair. He sucks on the place beneath my earlobe that always had me squirming under him.
“Everything,” he whispers into my ear, pointing out to me just how much he remembers.
He grinds himself into me and I can feel his hardness through our jeans. My body is humming in anticipation. It remembers how his steel length felt in my hands . . . my mouth . . . my very core.
My clitoris throbs against the seam of my jeans. When he reaches under my sweater and grabs my breast, tugging on my nipple through my thin bra, I all but explode.
I reach down and grab the hem of my shirt and pull it over my head with his assistance. I belatedly remember I’m wearing the most basic pink cotton bra and panties as I certainly was not expecting this.
His eyes widen and his pupils dilate when his gaze washes over my chest. He uses his thumbs to pull down each cup of my bra, augmenting my cleavage as they truss me up higher. His head drops down to lave each breast, extracting more pleasurable moans from me. “God, Gavin . . .” I groan, gripping his hair as he lightly bites down on my nipple. Urgency plows through me at his demanding touch.
“Please . . .” I beg, tugging at his shirt. He leans up and straddles me from above, locking eyes with me as he removes his shirt to reveal a chest that confirms my suspicion—he spends a lot of time at the gym. I run my hands from his strong, defined shoulders slowly down over his pecs. I trace every tight ripple of his abs. I put a finger in the waistband of his jeans, running it along the top edge where his erection is straining to break free.
“Jesus, Bay,” he breathes.
I undo the button and zipper, reaching into his boxer briefs to release him from confinement. He gasps when my flesh touches his. He rolls off me, and in one quick movement, has his jeans and underwear in a pile on the floor next to the bed.
Oh, my God! I’m not even sure I care that my jaw falls open. Naked Gavin is exactly like I remember. Only better. Bigger, stronger, more confident. Absolutely stunning. He has a body created purely for female pleasure.
He removes my jeans as well, leaving my panties in place—the cotton panties that are drenched with my desire. He stares at them. I try not to blush. I know he can see exactly how much I want him.
“You are so damn beautiful, Baylor,” he says, slowly pulling them off my body. He lifts my heel to remove them but keeps my leg elevated as he trails kisses from my ankle up to my thigh. My body trembles at the sensation of his stubble, his tongue, his hot breath flowing over me.
He reaches the apex of my thighs and draws in a deep breath, causing me to turn crimson in the quickly darkening room. “God, darlin’, you smell just like I remember,” he says. “Perfect.”
When his fingers separate me and his tongue runs along my wet folds up to my throbbing clitoris, I cry out, “Uhhh . . . Gavin . . . please . . .”
He inserts two fingers into me and moans at how slick I am for him. He curls his fingers up and runs his tongue in circles, bringing me to a quick, intense orgasm. I shout his name as he draws every last quiver out of me before crawling up my body.
“Please tell me you have a condom,” I say breathlessly.
He smiles and reaches down to retrieve his wallet out of his jeans. In seconds, he’s rolled on a condom. I feel myself building back up at the mere sight of it.
I tug and pull and practically tear at his body to get him closer, to get him inside me. He hovers over me, staring down at me, his tip at my entrance. “So long,” he says. “We’ve waited so long.”
I cry out as he pushes into me. The intensity of this moment overwhelms me. As he fills me up, I gasp at the feelings flowing through my body and at the thoughts flowing through my head.
We both struggle to pull each other tighter, grasping arms, shoulders and hips to ensure we become as close as possible. To ensure there is nothing between us. Not even air.
Our eyes bore into each other. I’m ripped open by his stare. He can see all the way inside me—all the pain, the hurt, the unimaginable heartache. It’s all there for him to see, to feel. And as I stare into him, I’m certain that I can see the exact same things.
His thrusts become more powerful and demanding. His eyes roll up briefly and he stiffens. “Baylor, please . . . come with me.” He reaches between our sweat-slickened bodies to push on the very place that will take me with him.
His words, his thrusts, his fingers, his pain—they all come together as my legs tense and my belly tightens. I claw at the sheets and buck beneath him, gripping him with my spasms, milking him as he shudders inside me. We yell out each other’s names along with declarations of pleasure.
He collapses on top of me. I run my fingertips along his spine, eliciting shivers and goose bumps from him. “Baylor,” he says, his voice reduced to nothing more than a needy whisper as he leans into my neck, gasping for air.
“God, Baylor,” his husky voice cracks, extracting my tears as he embraces me in a way that seems even more intimate than the very act we just performed. Our bodies mold together, reminding us of how they belong to one another even after so many lost years. Our chests heave in synchronized emotion as we breathe into each other and mourn all that we have been deprived.
Slowly, we recover, our glistening eyes being replaced by triumphant smiles.
Gavin lifts his head. “That was . . .”
“Worth waiting eight years for?” I try to complete his thought.
He laughs. “No. Nothing is worth waiting eight years for you,” he says. “Not even life-altering sex.” He kisses the tip of my nose before he rolls off to my side, wincing as he pulls out of me.
“The condom didn’t break, did it?” I giggle, remembering the night I lost my virginity.
“No.” He laughs. “And it never broke back then, either. I must have some pretty kick-ass swimmers.”
“I suppose,” I say. “But I never took the chance again. I’ve been on the pill since Maddox was born.”
He stiffens. “The pill, huh? So, you do this a lot then?”
I try to hold in my giggle. He’s jealous because I’m on the pill. Men.
“Well, I wouldn’t say a lot, but it’s happened,” I tell him.
A look of pain and regret flash across his face. “Just how many times are we talking about, on a scale from one to say . . . slutty?”
This time I can’t hold in my laughter and he gets an eye roll to boot.
He’s not laughing. His stare is deadly serious. “How many men have there been, Baylor?”
It’s almost adorable how he’s been back in my life for two hours and is already possessive of me. “Only a few, Gavin,” I say. “Reel it in, cowboy.”
He sighs. “But there’s no one now?”
“No, there’s no one now,” I assure him.
He relaxes into the pillow next to me. Then he removes the condom, ties it off and drops it on the floor next to the bed.
“How about you?” I ask. “I mean, on a scale from one to man-whore.”
He closes his eyes and a frown overtakes his face. “You’re not gonna like my answer, darlin’.”
“Well, then the condom was a good idea,” I joke.
“I’ve been tested. I’m clean,” he says. “But after I thought you left me, before I got married, I was, um . . .” His guilty eyes hold onto mine as he explains, “I was broken, Baylor. I couldn’t take drugs or they’d have kicked me off the team. Sex was the only other way I could think to deal with it. That and a lot of alcohol.”
I guess I can hardly blame him. “And after you married. Were you . . . faithful?” I ask wearily.
He nods his head softly. “Yes, but not for the reason you might think.”
“Okay—what am I thinking?” I ask.
“You think I loved Karen.”
“Well, didn’t you?”
“No.” He winces. “I know that makes me sound like a dirt bag.” He picks up a lock of my hair and plays with it. “But after you left I couldn’t, uh . . . let’s just say you took my heart with you.”
I think of the shoebox sitting back on my bed and momentarily wonder if his heart is locked up in it as well.
“Then why get married? And why her?” I ask.
“Karen and I were friends. We had fun together. She was safe. I knew she would never hurt me the way you did, because I could never love her that way.” Anger flashes across his face and he shakes his head. “The irony is, she’s the one that ended up hurting me the worst. Hurting us.
“I married her because I knew I’d never put myself out there again. It was a way to keep myself from being available for another relationship. And our families were all for it—well except for my mom. So when Karen suggested we get married after graduation, I agreed.”
“You agreed? She asked you?” I ask in utter disbelief.
“Yes. Why, does that somehow make a difference?”
“Maybe a little,” I say. “But you and Karen, you still, uh . . .”
He sighs. Big. Then he nods his head reluctantly. “Yeah,” he says. “Not a lot, because for me anyway, it was kind of like sleeping with a sister.”
“Ewww! That’s just wrong,” I say.
“Yeah, but guys have needs.”
I roll my eyes.
“I always wore a condom. Every time.”
I crinkle my brow. “With your wife?”
He grabs my hand, lacing our fingers together. “First of all—quit calling her that,” he demands. “And yes, with her, too. I couldn’t imagine Karen as a mom. Not that she wanted to be at first. But then last year all of a sudden she became interested in getting pregnant. I really only think it was because all her friends were having kids and she felt left out.”
“Oh. What did you say to her when she told you?”
“I kept putting her off and coming up with excuses why we should wait to have kids. Thank God we never had any; that would have made the divorce a lot more complicated.” He shifts uncomfortably. “Listen, can we stop talking about her while we’re lying here naked? My dick will never get hard if I’m thinking about that conniving bitch.”
“You want me to help you forget about her?” I ask.
“What did you have in mind?” he asks with a raised brow.
I look him up and down seductively and his dick twitches.
“Are you fucking me with your eyes, Mitchell?”
“Hmmm . . . maybe,” I whisper in his ear. “Is there any other body part you want me to use for that, McBride?”
“Only every goddamn one,” he says, quickly hardening in my hand.