My heart swells as I press a soft kiss to Linc’s lips because I damn well want to. “I don’t want to hold back out of fear anymore.” I tip up his chin to meet his devastating gray eyes. “She can smear my name, destroy my business, try to blame the divorce on me—I don’t give a damn. We can’t let her win. We get to choose this version of us. So, if you really want to try this—”
“Ebony, I’m yours if you want me.” He punctuates his beautiful words with a kiss, so slow, so intoxicating, that the world around us fades away. It’s urgent, hungry, every brush of his tongue sparking against mine and tracing the outline of a story that’s been brewing for ten years in the back of my mind. In the ache of my fingers. Nestled in that hollow whisper just behind my ribs.
I don’t know if this is love.
For damn sure it’s more than lust, though.
My whole body is a heartbeat, throbbing, pulsing at the feel of his hands cradling my face like he’s afraid to let go.
And I feel it, too. It’s like something powerful is drawing us closer, something beyond our control. A gravitational pull, every second pulling us farther from everyone, everything we know.
I’m weightless, suspended in air.
Every inch of my skin tingles with the heat rising between us. The warmth of our breaths mingling. Our lips brushing like tinder, setting me aflame.
“You’re my choice, Lincoln Bridges. I only want you,” I say into the kiss, my heart, mind, and every inch of my body bypassing the hike and swim and going straight for the unwritten quickie stop on the agenda. “I need to feel you right now.”
Apparently, that makes two of us.
Linc stalls for a moment before he tears away from me, leaving nothing but the lingering ache for him—an echo of a force I can’t ignore. He doesn’t hesitate another second, roughly grabbing my hand, moving with urgency toward the car parked along the curb.
We drive for five excruciating, high-speed minutes. Then Linc skids to a stop in front of the first chain hotel he sees. He exits the driver’s side and opens my door to help me out, then snatches up our bags from the backseat, tanking my delusion of us old-school pretzeling our bodies in the backseat, just wildly going at it and fogging up the windows.
But not Lincoln Bridges.
Not my man.
“One sec,” he says, his voice as tormented as I feel. He dashes inside to the registration desk and returns a moment later with a key, breathing hard, and I can tell he’s barely holding it together, which only turns me on more.
We barely make it into the simple, no-frills room before he drops our bags and starts kissing me again, hard and messy. We’re a jumble of hands in hair and on skin, our breaths ragged as we tug at each other’s clothes until I’m in my underwear—an obstacle he doesn’t seem to appreciate as much today as he did last night.
Then he’s standing in front of me bare-chested, tattooed, and chiseled from the gods’ personal Pinterest board. Half naked. Hard. Beautiful.
Good Lord.
“Well…” I toss up my hands, surrendering, needing more than a minute. “That’s a funny way to propose, but sure, I guess I’ll marry you.” I giggle.
Linc snorts, barely containing his laughter. “Yeah?”
“I’ll just be over here, casually drooling.” I take a deep breath in, then release it slowly through my nose.
“Hey, you should seemyview.”
“No, seriously,” I say, because he’s not understanding that it’s been over a year—closer to two, not counting Missionary Mondays—since I had sex, and I’m starving. “I guess I assumed, you know, with the job, you’d sort of need be fit. But myGod…”
Linc licks his lips, slowly, torturously, unzipping his jeans. He strokes his tremendous dick through his black boxer briefs. If he wasn’t before, I’m sure he’s well aware now, and absolutely enjoying what he’s doing to me.
“I’m glad you like what you see,” he rasps, his voice gruff, gravelly in my ears, watching me as he works himself to the shaft, hardening in his hand, and all I have to say is…Baybee…Julian Livingston III could never. AI Linc 2.0 and castingdirector Zeek could absolutely N-E-V-E-R.
I shake my head, correcting him. “Lovewhat I see.”
When I think he couldn’t possibly get better, with his free hand, Linc slips his hand in his back pocket, fishing out a condom, and I burst out laughing.
Onecondom?
“Baby, I can do you one better.” I hold up a finger, then rummage around my tote, a second later revealing “the box” in all its supersized glory. “Plus…” I grab the lube, lingerie, and LBD for good measure, like,Tell me what you need.
Linc snorts a laugh. “Oh,wow. All the above, please. Woman, you came prepared, huh?”
