Page 76 of This Time Around
I squeezed, familiarized myself with the feel of him.Heated silk over steel.My fingers and thumb barely brushed around his girth.
Glorious, he was glorious everywhere.
“Becca,” he groaned.That same word, that same whisper in my ear.It didn’t hurt.There wasn’t pain.Just the question in my name, the reassuring, the double-checking.
He didn’t relax.
“I want to,” I said.“Let me.”
I pressed my hips against him and arched my back.I took him by surprise because he rolled easily and I was on him, my hair brushing against his chest.His hand pushed it out of the way, wrapped it in his fist.I kept my gaze focused on his body.The curve of his chest, the dips of his abs.Those precious muscles inside his hips, the trail of black hair that started at his belly button and led me down further to the weight of him in my hand.
To what I desired with the haste of a woman who craved ice cream and wine after a bad break-up.
I kissed his abs, that delicious V.His groans were my reward and I ate them up, let them spur me on.
This wasn’t my favorite.It wasn’t a chore.But I always preferred a man inside of me, taking charge to me having the power.I was smart enough to know that wouldn’t happen tonight.Cooper was too cautious.
Also, I didn’t have condoms and I wasn’t on the pill.That had lapsed and there was no need to refill.
I slid my tongue over his tip, my hand gripped his base and worked in tandem with my mouth.He arched up, demanding more, and I took as much as I could.I worked as slowly as I could, reveling in the feel of this man, this crazy nutty man who made me laugh and made me relax and with him.I smiled again and some days I wasn’t drowning as long as Cooper was nearby.
This was my thank you, for bringing me back, for helping me find my way again when no one else stood a chance at being able to.He was new, lacked the vivid reminders of my life, and took me as I came, as dented and scarred as that might be.
He was delicious, hot, clean.
“Fuck.Becca.”His release tightened his voice.He swelled in my mouth.I hummed around him and took him deeper, to the back of my throat and swallowed.One of his hands slapped the bed.The other pressed against my head.
He held me as he shot his release deep into my throat.
I took everything—willingly and happily and willfully.But he’d question it.
He was good at it.So I stayed close to him, released him from my mouth, pressed kisses to his thigh and his hip.He jumped as I kissed that sensitive area around his beautiful V-shaped muscle.
“That tickles.”I’d discover all his ticklish places by the time I was done.
I wasn’t given the chance.His hands went to my sides and I was no match for his strength.
He pulled me up against him and I smiled.It hurt my cheeks.“Okay?”I asked, although based on the way he gripped my hair, confirmation wasn’t necessary.
I wanted to beat him to the question in his eyes.
“Better than.”I’d said that in the kitchen weeks ago.
I grinned at the memory, wiggling my brows.He was beautiful.Tanned skin and strong jaw, piercing green eyes and a knitted brow.“Good.”
His hands settled on my lower back and I fell to his shoulder.A yawn escaped me and I draped my arm over my stomach.“Today was a good day,” I said through it.
I used to count them.I’d get to the nightfall and cry, and I’d make a list of everything I had to be thankful for.It was the only way to keep from surrendering to the heavy weight of all my grief.Count your blessings, my mom used to say, things could always be worse.
I was certain she’d been wrong because some days the only things on my list were: I’m alive.Animals are fed.
I didn’t even realize I’d stopped writing those lists months ago, before Cooper even arrived, until that moment.
I had been healing, in slow, unmeasured steps and moments where the pain hadn’t been completely unbearable, just painful.
Perhaps everyone was right.It was time to move on.To live and not simply survive.Maybe it was time to find my way on a weeded path I never would have taken on my own.
Sometimes those journeys could be the best.
