“Yours, too,” I ordered, needing him just as naked, just as exposed. Everything about me felt raw, on edge, my emotions so big, so conflicting that I wasn’t sure anything besides Josh made any sense.
His tattoos rippled as he removed the rest of his clothes, each line of ink reminding me that under his love-tamed exterior, there was the barely restrained bad boy who always surfaced when unleashed in our bedroom.
He never looked away, letting me see the need behind those gorgeous eyes, his undeniable desire for me. Then he leaned forward, parted me with his fingers, and licked me. My eyes fluttered shut, and a moan tumbled free. “I’ve wanted to do that all fucking day,” he said. He knew every line of my body, exactly where to lick, how hard to suck to bring me to the edge. Josh played my body like an instrument, plucking at my nipples, humming at my clit while my head thrashed on the pillow.
“Josh…”
“December?” He gave me another long lick.
“I want you.” My fingers sank into his short hair.
“You have me,” he promised, pausing to suck at my clit. My muscles were locking, tension building through my entire body as he continued, the pleasure so deep I swore I could taste it on my tongue. “I need to see you come apart.”
He didn’t have to wait long. My back bowed as he sucked at me again, my orgasm ripping through me with a searing heat and leaving me limp with tiny aftershocks.
He moved over me, settling between my thighs. I felt him hard at my entrance and lifted my hips. “Josh,” I urged.
“I love you,” he whispered, melting my heart as he sank into me, my inner muscles quivering. I’d never been happier to be on birth control, that we were secure enough to not use condoms anymore. There was nothing compared to the sensation of him sliding within me, skin-on-skin.
He felt so damn good, like he was made for loving me. I guess that was right, since I knew I was made to love only him. “I love you, too,” I said, my breath choppy.
He kissed me, our tastes mingling as he began his steady, powerful thrusts. I felt the muscles of his back start to tremble with the effort to restrain himself. “I’m okay, Josh. Let go,” I urged, rocking my hips, swirling against him.
“Not until you do. I love to feel you come around me, the way you tighten. It’s incredible.” He buried his face in my neck and kept his rhythm, his words stoking the fire in me again, building the spiral.
“Again?” I asked.
“Again, and again,” he ordered. “I’m marrying you, December. Do you know what that means?”
How did he have the brain power to talk? My thoughts were consumed with the motion of his hips, on using the bed to push more powerfully against him. Luckily he didn’t wait for me to answer.
“It means that every night I’m going to make love to you. Every night I’m going to lick you, suck you, kiss you until you come. Then I’m going to slide inside you so deep”—he followed his words with a powerful thrust, stealing my breath—“that you’ll never be able to get me out. Even when I’m not with you, I’ll be there, with you, reminding you that you’re mine. Every. Delicious. Incredible. Inch. Of. You. Mine.” He punctuated each word with a thrust, and I whimpered. That sweet pressure had built again, wiping out every thought, and I wrapped my legs around his hips. I simply hung on as he used his whole body to love me, to tell me again what we both already knew—our souls, our hearts, our bodies, all of us belonged to the other. In giving ourselves over, we gained so much more than we could possibly ever lose.
“Josh,” I whimpered, the tension unbearable, hanging on the cusp of release.
His thrusts picked up precisely how I needed, as if he knew exactly what I craved. He slid his hand between us and changed the angle so he could slide deeper. Then he locked eyes with me and used his fingers to push me over the edge, until lights fired in my vision and my body shook with the force of it.
“Yes. God, yes,” he moaned, his thrusts finally becoming as uneven as his voice. “You’re so beautiful when you come.” His face tightened, and I gripped him with my thighs, swiveling my hips in the way I knew would push him past the point of return while my body still shuddered in waves. Then he met me, finishing with my name on his lips, his face buried in my neck.
He was perfectly heavy on top of me as our breathing regulated, the sweat cooling on our skin. As usual, he rolled to his side, pulling me with him, always scared that I couldn’t breathe under him no matter how many times I assured him otherwise.
“And that, Mrs. Walker,” he said with a kiss on my forehead, “is how we’re going to spend every night of the rest of our lives.”
Except when you’re deployed. The thought intruded, but I shoved it back, unwilling to lose this moment to bitterness.
“You set a pretty high standard,” I said with a smile, a scrumptious lethargy settling over me.
“You deserve the best,” he said, his voice trailing off in a tone of almost-sadness.
I looked into his eyes, letting all the love I had for him fill my fingertips as I trailed them down the stubble on his cheek. “Then it’s a good thing I have you forever, because that’s all I want, Josh. Just you.”
He pulled me closer, settling his chin on the top of my head, both of us unwilling to say what we were thinking.
There was a chance our forever would only be these next few days.
Chapter Eight
EMBER