Page 38 of Hart's Redemption

My hands stalled as I mentally added up all those small rejections, not just from me, but from everyone. I couldn’t help the “everyone else” part, but I could make sure that he never experienced it from me again. I’d fight tooth and claw to make sure Joshalwaysknew how much I loved him, how much I cared for him.

“Perhaps you simply haven’t found the right meditation,” I said, resuming the massage. I squeezed his shoulders together and heard his back crack. With a satisfied smirk, I worked my way slowly back towards his neck. As my fingers once again dug into the tense flesh, he let out another groan. I took a deep breath in an utterly useless attempt to quell my rising libido. If he kept making those sounds, this was going to turn into something else fast. Meditation be damned.

I tried to focus on the music while my hands continued to play, but all I could think about was how the same music had been playing on our first date, which had also led, unsurprisingly,to sex. I hummed to myself at the pleasant memory. Josh wiggled backward and snickered when I dug my fingers ‌into his hips. Apparently, my hands had wandered while my mind was elsewhere.

Rather than resume my original intent, I let my hands continue to rove of their own accord. He let out a hiss edged with a moan as I drifted them over his chest to appreciate the definition hiding beneath his thin shirt.

“That’s not meditating,” he admonished without an ounce of heat or even a hint that he wanted me to stop.

I leaned forward until my lips brushed his ear. “No?”

He took a shaky breath and let it out slowly before trying to turn to me.

“Mm-mm, eyes closed, Detective Hart, you’re supposed to be meditating.”

He grumbled wordlessly, but didn’t turn around again. Perhaps even more impressively, he kept his eyes closed.

Rather enjoying my victory, I brushed my lips in a featherlight kiss over his neck, and he shuddered. I teased the quivering skin with tiny nibbles, nipping lightly. Josh let out a whimper, and I finally took mercy on him. I glided my hand down his smooth chest, over his stellar abs, until it dipped below the waistband of his sweats.

Josh’s entire body jolted as if he’d been electrocuted as my fingers wrapped around his dick, which was already hard as a steel pike. He dropped his head onto my shoulder, and a deep moan rose from his chest. “That’sdefinitelynot meditating,” he said through heavy pants.

“Are you sure?” I fisted his eager cock, and he rewarded me with another delicious moan.

Josh abandoned his cross-legged position, letting his legs fall open to mirror mine. He arched his hips into my hand. I took advantage of the move to shift his pants lower and out of theway. With more room to work, I resumed stroking him and alternated between nibbling and sucking light bruises on his neck. The shallow marks healed almost as soon as I made them.

“S-so not meditating.” Josh’s back arched, rolling his hips higher off the ground, while the back of his head pressed against my shoulder.

“Isn’t the point of meditating to relax?” I traced the outline of his ear with my tongue and dropped my voice. “Are you relaxed, Josh?”

His resulting moan tested my resolve to go slow, then promptly broke it when he groaned, “Fuck, baby.” He curled a hand around the back of my head so his fingers could bury themselves in my hair, while he rested his other hand over where I held his bunched-up shirt to keep it out of the way. He threaded his fingers into mine and tightened his grip on my hair.

My moan finally tore free, and I gave up the pretense of slow. Josh’s chants begging me not to stop, coupled with moans of how good it felt, had me on the verge of coming undone myself. He gasped out as he hit the pinnacle and tumbled into a free fall. I gripped his hand tightly as I stroked him through his release to let him know I would always be there to catch him.

Josh

Little, multicolored stars still floated across my vision when I kicked off my pants and swiveled around to straddle Elijah. I ripped off my mess of a shirt, and his warm hands instantly found the exposed skin. I mashed my mouth down on his, desperate for an outlet for the emotion threatening to overwhelm me. When I finally pulled back, it was only to take aragged breath. “I fucking love you,” I growled before snaring his mouth again.

Elijah’s fingers dug into my bare ass, pulling me deep into his lap. He swallowed my moan and coasted his hands up my back. “So,areyou relaxed?” he teased in a husky voice.

I would literally never tire of him talking to me that way, even if I had to remind myself periodically that he meant it. “Something like that.” I rolled my hips, and he groaned. When his eyes rose to meet my gaze, the warm amber of his irises was almost completely consumed by black. I gave a full-body shudder at feeling his hungry gaze on me. Because hedidwant me and didn’t see loving me as a bad thing.

He leaned forward to taste my neck with more of those torturous nibbles.

“Baby, please.” I didn’t even care that I was begging. I’d never hold any of myself back from Elijah ever again.

He growled into my chest, and my breath caught. His fingers gripped my sides and pushed up.

I got the hint and shifted my weight just enough off of him so he could divest himself of his hindrance of clothing. As I settled back down, I let out another moan of pure ecstasy at the feel of his naked body against mine. I slid my fingers through the silky hair on his chest while my body practically hummed at his touch. All the while, seductive jazz bathed us in a symphony of sound that slithered into my soul much as the man wrapped in my legs had.

I sought his lips again as his hands finally ventured to do something about our current state. His gaze caught mine, and in their depths I could see the love I’d been too scared to believe, too scared to even want.

“Tell me again.” I had no idea where the demand came from, but it didn’t make me want to hear the words any less.

“I love you.”

A sob caught in my throat. “Again,” I croaked.

He buried his head in my neck so the words could caress my skin and send a shiver down my spine. “I love you.”