Page 89 of If You Were Mine (After We Fall 3)
“Two,” I said, loosening the knot in my tie.
Then I unzipped my pants and delivered number three before she could even catch her breath.
I gave us both a little break before number four, just enough time for us to take off our clothes and get ready for bed. While she was still in the bathroom, I went up to the bedroom, got in bed, leaned back against the headboard, and took my cock in my fist. I watched her come up the stairs, hair down, makeup off, and nothing but a t-shirt on, which she whipped over her head and tossed aside as she moved toward me.
“I love when you do that in front of me,” she said, crawling up the bed, feline and seductive, her hair brushing my legs. “It makes me so hot. Can I watch?”
“Not tonight.” When she was straddling my hips, I positioned my cock between her legs. “Tonight I want to be inside you.”
With her hands on my shoulders, she lowered herself until I was buried deep. “Yes,” she whispered, her eyes closing, head dropping back.
Ten minutes later, I was nearly out of my mind with the need to come, but I was three quarters of the way to my goal. I couldn’t stop now. I tipped her onto her back and slipped my hands beneath her ass, tilting her hips up.
“Oh, God,” she gasped against my shoulder. “I can’t, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” I knew the best chance of getting that final victory lay in keeping her aroused and not letting up. “And you will.” Fighting off my own orgasm, I thought only of hers, fucking her deep and tight to her body, grinding against her. I needed her to know how I felt about her, how much I cherished her, how nothing in my life had ever been this good.
I love her.
“Fuck,” I said, feeling control slip through my fingers. “It’s too good. I can’t stop.”
I love her.
“Oh God, I’m gonna come again,” she said frantically, like she was afraid of it. Her nails dug into my ass and her teeth sank into my shoulder.
I love her.
Silvery lights exploded in front of my eyes, all the tension inside me releasing in white hot bursts as my body emptied itself inside her and hers contracted around me in simultaneous ecstasy. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever felt—and it wasn’t just giving her four orgasms or coming inside her without a condom or the wordless language our bodies had taught each other.
It was acceptance. It was trust. It was love.
I felt it.
But I still couldn’t say it.
* * *
Over the next several days, Claire told me she loved me at least once a day, usually at night as she was falling asleep. Every single time, it made my heart beat a little faster, my breath feel short—an adrenaline rush. I always held her a little tighter after she said it, but even though I wanted to say the words back, they refused to budge from my heart to my lips.
It bothered me. Why couldn’t I tell her how I felt? I knew it would make her happy, I knew it was the truth, and I knew that I should. I’d promised her I’d let her in. People in relationships trusted each other with their deepest feelings.
But I just couldn’t get there.
I started to think my head knew something my heart didn’t. I started to feel like maybe I was giving my heart too much sway and I needed to take a step back. The same words that had made me feel so good the night of the wedding started to eat away at me just five days later. Questions nagged me.
What did it mean to love someone? What kind of power did that give someone over you? What kinds of ways could loving someone come back to haunt you? What kinds of ways could the beloved hurt you? By confessing your love, weren’t you e
ssentially telling someone I need you? I don’t want to lose you? I’m vulnerable to you? It was like laying down all your weapons and asking for them to be used against you, wasn’t it?
I started to wonder.
Thirty-Three
Claire
* * *
On the Wednesday night after Margot’s wedding, I met Jaime for weekly GNO. I hadn’t seen or talked to her since the wedding, so we spent the first half hour looking at pictures on our phones and talking about how beautiful Margot had looked, how perfect everything had gone, and how happy we were for her.
