Page 138 of What We Brave
Mine.
The thought hits before I can filter it. This is where she belongs. In this house. In this bed. With us.
I come down over her, bracing my weight on my forearms. Her hands are already at my belt, fumbling, impatient.
"Reid, please."
"I've got you." I catch her hands, pin them to the mattress above her head. Her wrists are small in my grip. Her pulse hammers against my fingers, fast and wild, like a bird throwing itself at a window. "Laine. Look at me."
She blinks her eyes open. Glassy. Unfocused.
"I'm right here," I say. "I'm not going anywhere."
Her face crumbles. Just a little. Something behind her eyes finally giving way.
"I missed you."
There she is. Under all the heat and the urgency — there's the woman who found it in her heart to give me another chance. Give us a chance.
"I know." The words come out rough. I let go of one wrist to cup her face, thumb brushing her cheekbone. "Missed you too. So much, Laine."
I kiss her jaw. Work my way down to her throat. There's a red mark blooming on the side of her neck — Blake's mark. I press my lips to it. Not to erase it. To add to it. To tell her without words that this is okay. That we're okay. All three of us.
She shivers.
Her hands find my belt again and this time I don't stop her. Can't. The slide of her fingers against my waistband, the focused determination on her face—I've thought about this. Lying in this bed alone for a month, I have thought about exactly this.
Not even close.
When I finally sink into her, the sound I make is embarrassing. Don't care. She's warm and tight andhere, and for a second my brain just whites out. Nothing exists except the feeling of her around me andthe way her back arches and the broken cry she gives that I catch with my mouth.
God. Laine.
It's not slow. We don't have patience for slow. I drive into her, deep and steady, and every thrust feels like an answer to something. Every sound she makes rewires something in my chest. I bury my face in her neck and breathe her in—her shampoo, her skin, that faint sweetness that's justher—and months of missing her just empties out of me. All of it. Gone.
"Reid, Reid,Reid?—"
She chants my name. Her nails rake down my back. I feel her tightening around me, feel her getting close, and I want to stay in this moment forever. If I could save one sound to replay for the rest of my life, it'd be that.
"Let go," I manage. "I've got you, Laine. Let go."
She does.
I feel it ripple through her—feel her clamp down around me, her whole body shaking, nails biting into my shoulders hard enough to leave marks I'll feel tomorrow. I follow her over seconds later, burying my face in the curve of her neck, and for a few seconds the world goes quiet and warm and still.
The room is dark.Only light is from the hallway.
Laine is asleep on my chest, breathing deep and even. Her hand is flat over my heart like she's keeping count.
I'm wide awake.
I run my hand up and down her bare back, tracing her spine. My body feels heavy. Drained. Good. Better than good.
I listen to the house.
It's quiet, but not empty. Through the open window, I can hear the high-pitched whine of a table saw from the workshop.
Blake.
