She didn’t usually wake up at night, and she hadn’t napped today, which meant she was good until morning, but I didn’t want to risk it.
“Fuck. Sorry. I forgot.”
“No, no, it’s okay.” I ran my hands up his muscled arms. “It’s an easy fix.”
He hadn’t had four years to get used to having a child around and all the changes I’d had to make. Matty reached under me and lifted me with a grunt as he climbed to his feet. I wrapped my legs around his waist and clung to his muscular shoulders.
“I can walk, you know.” I nibbled on his jaw.
“Mychoice, Hudson. Besides, you love being carried around like a princess. Admit it.” He smirked, and for asecond, I recognized the nineteen-year-old boy still living inside him. Confident. Cocky. Charming.
“Go on, then. Don’t complain when you develop a hernia or slip a disk.”
“It’d be worth it to carry you like this again.”
“Matt, you’re still so sweet.”
“No longer a cocky bastard?”
I laughed. “No, you’re definitely that too. You’re many things, Matthias.”
He groaned. “Just for that, I’m going to make you suffer.”
Like I’d protest suffering for him.
He carried me through the hallway, past Ivy’s bedroom, and to mine. He lowered me to the foot of the bed, my body rubbing his all the way down. I was already so fucking hard for what was about to come.
One of his hands cupped the side of my neck. The other rested over my heart like he was checking that it still beat for him.
It did. Loud and unrelenting.
“Hud.”
I turned my face into his hand and kissed his palm. “Hmm?”
“You’re mine,” he said softly, matter-of-factly. “Always have been. And tonight, I’m going to fuck you like I own all of you.”
Oh God. I needed that. “Yes. Do it.”
He dug his fingers into the waistband of my sweats and tugged me toward him, lowered his head and brushed his lips against mine. “How soon can you get tested?”
I flinched, instinctively took a step back, but he pulled me against him. “Relax, it’s not an insult. I don’t like using a condom with you. I prefer the way you feel hot and tightaround me bareback. Plus, you know I love eating your ass after I’ve come inside you. So yeah, when can you?”
“Umm, I dunno. Maybe after work tomorrow, but I’d hate to have to take Ivy with me to the clinic, which isn’t ideal.”
“I got you. You don’t have to worry about Ivy. Ever again.” He pressed a gentle kiss against my collarbone, sniffing me. “You’re mine.” Another sweet kiss. “So that naturally means she’s mine to take care of too.”
“Matt, you don’t?—”
His lips closed over mine in a sweet kiss. “You say one word, and I won’t let you come tonight.”
My throat clogged up, and not because I wanted to come with him pounding inside me. Also, because he cared about Ivy, and she deserved that. She deserved to be loved and cared for, not abandoned.
I reached for his jeans and we undressed quickly, breath by breath, touch by touch, peeling away the fabric and the years with equal urgency. When we were bare, I couldn’t stop looking at him. He was all golden skin kissed by hours under the grueling sun, all ropey muscles and eyes burning like a bonfire at the lake in summertime.
And the way he looked at me. God, the way this man looked at me like I was enough. Like I wasn’t a mistake. Like I hadn’t fucked it all up.
I stepped forward to close the last inch between us and pressed a kiss to the side of his neck. His pulse leaped beneath my lips. I dragged my mouth across his collarbone, down his chest, tasting salt and skin and everything I’d missed. His fingers slid into my hair, and I dropped to my knees in front of him like it was the most natural thing in the world.
