“Is that so?” I aimed for detachment, but the words left my throat sounding hopeful.
Her hands snaked out to pull at my wrists tucked into my armpits. Her breathing remained deep and even as she lockedour eyes together. “You need to say it out loud, Deck. I can’t make that leap for you, can’t force you to get over yourself.”
I tried to step back, but she held my hands in a vise grip, mouthing,“Not this time,”as she kept her gaze on me.
“You already know, Cori.” I closed my eyes before opening them again in slow motion. “You know I’m not like…those other men.” I bit down hard on my bottom lip. “It’s unfair to let myself want things when that’s what you’re used to. You’re sophisticated and smart and strong. You deserve everything a man like Graham can give you.”
She scowled. “Unfair to who? That’s what you don’t seem to understand. Graham is a great guy. And he is very educated and knows lots of interesting people. But there are important things he doesn't know."
I froze as her hands traveled up my forearms to my elbows.
“He doesn’t know the correct ratio to mix hot sauce packets from Taco Bell into pasta when that’s all you can afford for dinner. He doesn’t know how to avoid bill collectors and process servers and cops. He doesn’t know what it’s like to master your mom’s signature so you can sign all the permission slips for school. He’s never had to search for laundry quarters in the couch cushions, or put on a face for teachers or coaches or social workers. And Deck—”
Her thumbs scratched circles into the sensitive skin of my inner elbows, making my arms tingle.
“Yeah?”
“Graham would have turned Jayden in to the police today. Not because he’s a bad guy, but because of all the things he doesn’t know.” She ran her hands back down to link our fingers together, so our wrists and torsos touched. “He doesn't knowme, Deck. He can't. And as far as what he can give me…”
I swallowed, captured wholly by the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen, the ones that had haunted me since I was a teenager.
“He doesn’t make my heart race. He’s never made me crazy. Guys like him and Marcus, they’re nice. But I want more than that.”
“You make me crazy too,” I rasped out. “And you deserve everything. The entire world.”
She pressed herself flush against me. “And what do you deserve?”
My body was as rigid as a statue but also a fucking inferno. Her question hung in the air, loaded and tense. I felt every inch of her soft curves, saw the tic in her neck as her pulse beat a rapid rhythm. The words stuck in my throat like glue. I had to force them up past the threat of pain, force them up through years of guilt and self-recrimination.
At last, raggedly, they broke through.
“You, Cori.” The rough rise and fall of my lungs turned the words into stormy syllables. “I deserve a chance to show you how much I want you. How much I always have. More than anything.”
“Yes.” Her forehead pressed into my neck. “Because I feel like I’m awake for the first time in twelve years, and I didn’t even know I’d been asleep.” She ran her nose across my chest, murmuring, “And I want it. To be so known by someone that it makes me more alive, puts me at the mercy of my battered, beating heart.” She placed a soft kiss on my T-shirt. “Only you’ve ever made me feel that way, Deck. Like I wanted someone so much I wasn’t totally in control of it. Only you.”
“Only you,” I whispered.
She tilted her head back to gaze at me. “After everything, we deserve to try.”
Moving one hand to my front, she pulled up my shirt to place the bare skin of her palm on my belly, crawling it slowly up my torso.
And then my mouth was on hers, pulling her into me with the raw hunger of a man long denied. My first taste of Cori was not the delicate exploration it might have been when we were teenagers. This kiss was a brutal demand, communicating years of pent-up desire. My hands on her hips kept her firmly anchored as my lips sought purchase, my tongue darting out to wet the seam of her lips, seeking entrance. She opened for me with a low groan.
One of her hands held fast to my shoulders, but the other beneath my shirt continued its exploration, fingertips raking through my chest hair, pulling on my chains and tweaking my nipples.
I came up for air, looking at her with a question in my eyes.
She understood immediately and nodded. “Yes. I want everything, Deck. Everything. We’ve spent too long denying ourselves.”
“You’re sure?” I asked, feeling the swell of disbelief and wonder in my gut.
“Absolutely.”
I replied with something close to a growl, then kissed her again. After a moment, she pulled back, panting. “Please tell me you have an actual bed and not, like, an air mattress on top of U-Haul boxes.”
I bent down and picked her up as she circled my waist with her legs. “Let’s go find out.”
My bed—including not only a cushy mattress but also a box spring on top of a maple frame—was made neatly and efficiently, with a sage green comforter and two pillows. The bed-making habit had stuck after prison. When I’d first gotten out and stayed with my parents, I’d tried to revert to my teenage mode of being a slob, as though to solidify my return to civilian life. But after a while, I’d missed the ritual.
