Page 105 of More For Me

“I’m doing that,” he mutters, brushing my hands away. “I’ve been wanting to take this dress off you all night.” He entwines our fingers and presses my hands into the pillows above my head, lowering his body over mine, his lips drifting over my collarbones while I lay there and try not to hyperventilate.

“I thought you wanted to take the dress off,” I whimper while his tongue teases over my skin.

“So impatient,” he says. “Deep breaths, Everly.”

There’s a command in his voice I’ve never heard before. Apparently bedroom Bodhi is bossy. I giggle to myself at the alliteration then groan with disappointment when he stops what he’s doing, his mouth leaving my skin.

“Is something funny?”

I shake my head quickly, looking down at his serious face. “Nope. Nothing funny at all.”

He arches an eyebrow, so stern and sexy. Everything about him right now is completely at odds with the Bodhi I’m used to—the go-with-the-flow, easygoing guy I’ve been friends with all this time—and I like it, alot. Bossy Bodhi is going to make me spontaneously combust.

But then he smiles, his grin lighting up his whole face, and my heart absolutely melts in my chest.There’sthe Bodhi I’m used to, and he’s every bit as sexy as the newer, more intense version.

“I can’t believe we get to do this,” he says, and he looks so incredibly happy that tears come to my eyes.

“I’m sogladwe get to do this,” I tell him.

I guess he decides taking his time is overrated, because things move faster after that, our lips and hands getting more insistent, more desperate. Yet individual moments seem to stop time, perfect snap-shots branded into my brain. The helpless noise Bodhi makes when my dress comes off. The way my hands shake on his belt buckle. The teasing smile he gives me when I stammer over my words, telling him we don’t need a condom. The way he stares right into my eyes when we finally join together.

“So much better than I imagined,” he murmurs, his eyes wide as he moves in me, sounding shocked, like he can’t conceive that the reality could be better than what he envisioned all these years.

I can’t say anything at all. I’m too overcome by the sheer intensity of it, of him, of the way this feels. Of the certainty I have that we’re going to get to do this over and over again, for years. For as long as I can imagine.

How did I ever doubt that this is exactly where I’m meant to be?

I’m pretty sure I’d be thanking him, if I could manage to form words through the pleasure swelling and slamming into me. Thanking him for understanding us before I did. Thank him for being so patient. Thank him for making all of this so very perfect.

In the end I manage to say his name, nothing more, when it all finally goes to pieces around me. But that’s okay—because Bodhi’s name is everything. A song and a celebration and a thousand memories all at once. How many times have I said his name over the years? Tinged with laughter and softened with tears. In serious, soul-deep conversations and silly, simple moments. Bodhi.Bodhi.

It’s not until later, after he’s followed me over that perfect edge, when his face is buried in the side of my neck, when his entire body is trembling over me, that I realize he’s echoing every whisper of his name with my own. Both of our names joined together in that dark room.

Nothing has ever sounded so right.