Page 45 of Reunited with the Hometown Hero
"You're more beautiful than I remember.” I mean it in a way that has nothing to do with aesthetics. He's survived things. Grown into someone. The evidence of that is written on his skin.
His hands find my back. His knuckles drag against my spine, and I feel every millimeter of contact like a lit match on paper. The cool air raises goosebumps across my arms.
Noah goes still.
His gaze moves over me, unhurried, and what I see in his face isn't hunger—not yet. It's wonder. Like he's watching a sunrise he thought he'd never see again.
"God, Riley." His voice is rough. "You're—" He doesn't finish. Just shakes his head and pulls me against him, skin to skin, and the shock of full-body contact after a decade apart rips a sound from my throat I didn't know I was capable of making.
His mouth finds mine. And this kiss is nothing like the careful ones before. This is desperate, deep, his hands sliding up my back, my fingers raking through his hair, both of us trying to close a gap that ten years hollowed out.
I fumble with his belt. He helps, shoving his jeans down, and then there's nothing between us and the feeling of him—all of him, warm and solid and here—makes my eyes sting.
He pulls back, breathing hard. "You okay?"
"I'm so far past okay." I pull him back to me. "Don't stop."
He lifts me—one arm under my thighs, the other cradling my back—and carries me to the bed like I'm something he can't risk dropping. Lays me down on the quilt and follows, bracing himself over me, and the weight of him is so familiar my body remembers before my brain catches up.
"I can't believe we're here," he says against my collarbone, and his voice cracks on the last word.
I pull his face up to mine. His eyes are bright. Not quite tears, but close. I kiss the corner of each one.
"We're here," I say. "We made it back to each other.”
He drops his forehead to mine. We breathe together for a long moment, foreheads pressed, noses touching, the firelight flickering across the ceiling. Then his mouth drifts lower—my jaw, my neck, the hollow of my throat—and thinking becomes very, very difficult.
His lips trace the curve of my breast, and I arch into him, my fingers digging into his shoulders. "Noah?—"
"Tell me what you want," he murmurs against my skin. "I want to hear you."
"Your mouth," I breathe. "Everywhere. Don't skip anything."
He laughs—low, warm, vibrating against my sternum—and then he does exactly as I asked. He maps my body with his lips like he's memorizing new terrain, pausing at every freckle, every curve, every place that makes me gasp. When he reaches myhip, his teeth graze the bone, and I make a sound that would embarrass me if I could think straight.
"There?" he asks, looking up at me with dark eyes.
"There. God, right there."
His mouth moves lower, and my back arches off the bed. His hands press my hips down, not to hold me still—to anchor us both. His tongue finds its rhythm, and the world narrows to his mouth, his hands, the sounds he's pulling from me.
"I need—" I can't finish the sentence. My hand finds the back of his head, fingers threading through his hair, and I feel him groan against me.
He stays until I shatter, my body bowing, his name tearing from my throat like something I've been holding in for a decade. The orgasm crashes through me in waves, and he rides every one, his mouth gentle now, easing me down.
When I can see again, he's watching me with an expression so tender it nearly breaks me.
“Come here,” I whisper, pulling him up my body. “I need you.”
“You have me.” He settles between my thighs, breath warm against my skin. “Riley, you’ve always had me.”
Something in my chest tightens at that, but I don’t let it take over. Not yet.
I slide my hand between us, wrapping around him, and he hisses, his forehead dropping to my shoulder like the contact hits deeper than he expected.
“Jesus—your hand?—”
A quiet laugh slips out of me, softer than I feel. “I remember what you like.”
