Falling into Forever (Falling into You) - By Lauren Abrams Page 0,55
conceived plan of torture when he starts to graze my arms with his fingers. I lean over him, straddling his chest and rocking back and forth.
“You forget that I know you so well,” he says, tracing my jawbone. “You’re the most impatient person I’ve ever met. My turn.”
With that, he reaches up and pulls me beneath him, sliding my jeans and underwear off in one smooth motion and caressing the delicate skin on my legs with his incredibly patient fingertips.
I growl at him, but he only moves his fingers more slowly, studying my face carefully with each movement. He kisses the skin behind my knee gently before covering the rest of my skin with soft, wet kisses. I lift myself from the bed and beg him with my eyes, and sighing, he moves to cover my entire body with his own.
“Make love with me, Chris.”
I watch his eyes as I say his name, knowing that it, if nothing else, might push him over the edge. I’m not disappointed.
He closes his eyes tightly, his eyelids wrinkling, and whispers, “Damn it.”
I run my fingers up and down his spine as he takes a long breath once and eases himself into me. His movements are tantalizingly slow and I start to move my hips more rapidly, but he just shakes his head and kisses the inch of skin behind my ear.
I let a long, guttural sound escape from my chest.
“You know I hate that.”
“I know you love that.”
He’s right. I do love that. I grip the back of his neck and pull his lips to mine, tilting my head so that he can drip his tongue into my mouth as he fills me entirely.
His breath is ragged and I let out a strangled moan as he starts to pick up the pace, rocking in and out. His eyes stay firmly focused on mine and when I try to look away, he touches my skin softly and brings me back. I cling to him, feeling the first waves of the orgasm start to tear at me. I cry out, twice, and I feel his skin start to vibrate as he moves faster until he empties himself into me.
He doesn’t move. We stay, skin on skin, until he rolls to the side and props his hand against his elbow, still not removing his gaze from mine.
I had forgotten the way he once looked at me, as if he was memorizing the landscape of my skin. I let him do it now because it feels unspeakably good to let him.
Finally, when I’m burning from the intensity of his stare, I lean back against the pillows and tear my gaze from his. I reach down to pick up my shirt, but he pushes my hand away.
“Not this time, Hals. Not this time. We need to talk.”
I sigh, knowing that he’s right, that this, a real conversation between the two of us that involves more than a shadow of the truth, has been a long time coming.
I’m still afraid of what I’ll find when I look back at him.
I was right to be afraid.
Any notion that this, whatever is happening between us, was nothing but a few tumbles in the sheets is instantly removed from my brain when I see the expressions that are dancing across his features. There’s latent desire, a sad smile, a dreamy bliss that’s a direct result of our lovemaking. But there’s something else there, too. There’s love, the kind that goes on and on and on forever and doesn’t stop, despite the years between now and then. What’s worse, there’s a tiny tremor of fear that he’s not even bothering to hide.
Unless I’m mistaken, and I’m pretty sure I’m not, he still loves me. He still wants me.
I have to ask. Words can be lies and faces can be lies, but I have to hear the words spoken aloud. I have no idea what I’m going to do about it, but I need to know.
“What do you want, Chris?”
It’s a question, not an accusation, and it’s one that I desperately need the answer to. His answer is immediate.
“You.”
“It’s supposed to be as easy as all of that?”
“It is as easy as all of that. You. Me. Us. For the foreseeable and unforeseeable future.”
I release a long, shaky breath. “It’s not easy. I’m not easy.”
Wrong choice of words. He laughs, once.
“Ugh. You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“Chris, there are things that I need to tell you about, there are things that you don’t know