my chest, she propped up abruptly and shook her head with furious adamancy. “No, Blake. A lot of people wouldn’t have. I mean, I like to think that the majority of people are good, but they’re also selfish. They don’t step outside of themselves; they can’t. But you are a good man, and I love you for it.”
She pressed a kiss to my lips and I closed my eyes, holding on tight to what she alone had made me believe that I was—a good man. And hell, maybe I always had been. Maybe all of that guilt and blame had been for nothing, and I just needed this woman to show me that. Everything, all of the good that had come to me these past few months, all the sanity I’ve managed to hold onto during this week without my brother—it was all because of her. Only her.
My hands sought her face and held on tight as I whispered, “I love you” against her lips. I had said it to her before, and I had meant it, but this felt so much more like an eternal truth. Like what I felt now was too deep and too settled to ever leave. It went beyond my body, beyond the pumping organ in my chest, and made itself at home in the core of my being, made of color and stardust. And fuck, I found it so hard to breathe, so hard to do anything but grip my fingers in her hair and hold on for dear life. Like she was all that was keeping me from drowning.
I parted my lips and coaxed hers open, swallowing her air to keep my lungs working. Her moan was small and delicate as she swung her leg over my hips.
“Is this okay? Are you …” She started to ask if I was okay, if my mental state could keep it up, but she didn’t have to. The past week had been sexless and cold. But now, I needed it, proven hot and hard against her hips, practically begged for a distraction, a release, anything but the worries flurrying around in my head like the snow glittering the sky. Words wouldn’t form on my tongue, it had other things in mind, but I gripped her ass in my desperate hands and pressed her to me until she groaned and devoured my mouth again with a gentle nod of her head.
The open fly of my pajama pants proved to be little hinderance as I pulled Audrey’s underwear to the side. We fitted together easily, so comfortably tight and warm, and I sighed with the relief of coming in from the bitter cold. If I had allowed myself to think too much, I would’ve hated myself for needing sex so badly, while my brother was fighting for his life, but I couldn’t let myself think that. Not when this was too good, too soothing, and too necessary for my sanity, as I let her use my body however she wanted. I stared up into her blue eyes, dipping into their oceans and streams to float serenely on my back, until they closed and so did mine. I wondered about her neighbors and parents, and how much they could hear, as I was forced to cry out and her hand clapped over my mouth.
Audrey giggled like we were younger and this was forbidden, taking her hand away from my lips and leaning forward to press her mouth to my ear. “I love you, Blake,” she whispered, her words broken with the impact of her climax. “I love you so much, I forget to breathe sometimes.”
I pulled in the scent of her hair and nodded, kissing her cheek and her chin and finally her lips. “I know the feeling.”
“I feel like I should be scared of this,” she whispered, now resting her head on the pillow behind my head, her body still covering mine.
“Why?” I threaded my fingers between hers and kissed her knuckles, her palm, her wrist. Just to touch her and remind myself of her warmth and life, to hold onto when I felt cold and so alone in the solitary confines of my tomb of a house.
“Because I know this is it for me, and I don’t know if you feel the same way.”
My eyes met hers in the darkness. “What if I said I didn’t?”
She swallowed hard and gripped my fingers. “I’d still love you, anyway.”
I chuckled and shook my head, still unsure of how someone