Page 93 of Third Time’s a Charm

We kiss and we kiss and all there is in the universe is his lips on mine, his hands gripping my arse, holding me firm against him, keeping me safe. I don’t even notice we’re moving until he’s lowering me to the bed.

Cool air brushes my belly, a contrast to his warm hands as they push my T-shirt up and over my head.

“Christ, I’ve missed you,” he mutters as he buries his face between my breasts, breathing deeply. “You smell so good. Feel so good.”

I push my boots off my feet to the sound of the zipper on my jeans lowering, strong fingers diving beneath the denim and the lace of my knickers to find my already swollen clit.

“More, please.” My voice is desperate, pleading. Jasper pulls away for a moment to yank my jeans down and toss them away, then he’s back, fingers slipping and sliding through my damp flesh, thumb finding my clit.

My nipples are unbearably tight, throbbing as he sucks first one, then the other through the lace of my bra, the only thing I’m still wearing.

But he’s fully clothed.

With trembling hands, I fumble with the buttons of his shirt until it’s gaping, exposing the hard muscles of his chest, lightly dusted with dark hair.

I want to open his jeans, but they’re suddenly out of reach. He’s slipped to the floor beside the bed and pulled my arse to the edge. With a rumbling sigh, he throws my legs over his shoulders and buries his face between them.

For a long moment all he does is inhale, as though the scent of me is vital to life. His life.

And then he’s separating my folds, exposing my clit and my entrance to his lips, his tongue, his teeth. Alternately licking, sucking and nipping until my hips are levitating and the noises filling the room sound like wild animals mating.

One hand snakes up my side, pulls my bra strap down, freeing a breast from its confines. His fingers find my nipple, rolling and pinching in time to the sucking and biting of the other peak.

My orgasm roars at me out of nowhere, lifting me and dropping me like a tsunami.

Every muscle in my body is quivering with adrenaline overload. Breaths are gasps drawn into spasming lungs.

Jasper stands, toes out of his boots and socks and yanks down his jeans and boxer briefs. The erection that springs free is glorious. The head purple with desire, precum already leaking, rolling down the silky, veined length.

I want to lick it, take it in my mouth, but more, I want it buried inside me.

Like a magician, he conjures a condom and raises his eyebrows in question.

"Do we need this?"

Last time we had sex we agreed they weren't necessary and every fibre of my being wants to go without again. To feel him raw inside me. I shake my head.

He throws it over his shoulder with a gleeful smile.

"I won't." I add a nod for good measure.

Then, with one long, hard thrust, he’s finally back where I’ve wanted him all this time. Back with me. His body deep inside mine, just as his heart is.

The sweat is cooling on our limp, overheated bodies for the third—and I don’t even care—time when my stomach makes a noise so loud it drowns out the chorus of ‘Every Breath You Take’.

“Stay there.” Jasper stands, stretches, and saunters out of the room buck naked, much as he did after our first night together. There are even matching nail marks on his shoulders.

He returns with an artfully arranged charcuterie board, the bottle of wine we never got around to opening tucked under his arm.

I twist the sheet around me and sit up, cross-legged; Jasper stretches out beside me, head propped up on his hand, and we tuck into the board he’s settled between us.

Once there’s nothing much left but a few grapes, strawberry leaves, and the odd cracker, Jasper moves it to the floor and lays me down on the bed, hovering beside me.

With gentle fingers, he brushes the hair from my forehead, traces a thumb across my bottom lip, roams my face with a gaze full of warmth.

“I know there are a lot of things to say. To work out. But right now there’s only one thing I need you to know. I love you, Louise Baker. I think I’ve loved you since the moment you fell through the door in that meeting. And if you’ll let me, I intend to spend the rest of my life making up for the ways I let you down.”

There go those tears again. They trickle from the corners of my eyes, running across my temples and into my sweat-dampened hair.