From This Day Forward (The Wedding Belles 0.5)(18)

He understood.

Jason moved up her body, his hands finding hers on either side of her head. His fingers linked with hers in the exact moment he slid forward, joining them in a slick stroke that filled her to perfection.

Their eyes met, and she saw the same confused emotions on his face that she knew he was seeing in hers.

It was too much. It was everything.

“Leah,” he said, kissing her softly. “My Leah.”

Her eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected tenderness in his voice, but before she could analyze it, he started to move, sending all rational thought out the window, and centering every single fiber of her being to the throbbing spot between her legs, where he stretched and stroked her in exactly the right way as he pummeled in and out of her ready body.

Jason’s grip on her hands tightened, his breathing growing even more ragged, and she lifted one leg to wrap high across his back, creating the perfect angle for his pelvis to drag across her clit.

“Come for me, Red,” he said against her neck. “Come with me.”

It was all she needed. Leah cried out and arched up toward him at the same moment he tensed and bucked above her. Her needy, desperate fingers clutching at his as they rode their orgasms together.

He collapsed on top of her, and Leah welcomed his weight, their fingers still linked as both gasped for air.

Eventually, as her heartbeat finally slowed, Leah managed to open her eyes, staring blindly at the ceiling, relishing his warm breath against her neck, even as she tried not to freak out about what she was feeling.

It was both everything she remembered, and more. Somehow it was more. More intense than it had ever been, and somehow more important, too.

Because it was good-bye?

It had to be good-bye.

Didn’t it?





“So are you going to tell me what the hell’s got you so irritated this week, or am I going to have to guess?”

Jason glanced over to where his sister roamed around his studio, touching everything he’d asked her a million times to let alone.

Kathleen was a nurse and, as was the case more often than not when she stopped by, was still dressed in her magenta scrubs, which were not nearly baggy enough to hide her ever-increasing baby bump.

The thought made him smile. He was going to be an uncle.

“You’re going to get your fingerprints all over it,” he grumbled as he saw her pick up one of the lenses he’d stupidly left out, even though he knew she was coming over.

Kathleen rolled her eyes and set it down. “See what I mean? Irritable.”

“Do I come to your work and touch your shit?”

“Well, no, but I work in a hospital, so that’d be highly creepy and I think illegal.”

He and Kathleen hadn’t grown up together—they didn’t have all those sibling squabbles and childish “don’t touch my stuff” arguments as kids.

Didn’t matter. Because they had them now.

“Great,” he mumbled. “So I’m being punished because I work from home.”

Jason had a two-bedroom apartment in Hoboken, a city in New Jersey just across the Hudson River from the west side of Manhattan. It wasn’t a bad deal. The commute to the city was longer than some people liked, but he’d never minded. Plus, it was a hell of a lot more affordable than the city and enabled him to have enough space for a separate bedroom and a studio. In Manhattan, he’d be lucky to afford a place big enough to put his bed.

“What are you working on?” Kathleen asked, coming over and propping a hip on his desk as she glanced at his screen.

He rubbed his hands over his face and gave up on getting any serious work done until after his sister left. Jason shifted in his spinning chair so that he could better face Kathleen.

Pregnancy suited her, as did marriage in general. Her blue eyes were happy, her dark hair shiny in its high ponytail.

They didn’t look alike, not really. Just the same shared dark hair that a billion other people had. But it still made him proud to know that this feisty, vibrant woman was related to him. Somehow she’d come out of the same shit-faced foster system that he had, but whereas he’d spent years being bitter, she’d managed to make the most of it—managed to be grateful for the strength it had afforded her.

Then she’d gone a step beyond, found herself a guy who worshipped the ground she walked on and let him knock her up on their honeymoon.

She’d done well for herself, seeking out her happiness when it didn’t come directly to her, and her happiness made him happy.

Kathleen pointed a finger at him. “Oh no. Not that face. Don’t get dippy on me.”

He batted her hand aside, and she turned her attention back to the screen. “Holy crap! That’s the president. Former president. Whatever.”

Jason shrugged. “I told you I worked that wedding.”

“Right, right. I think I was half-asleep when you called to tell me. Last weekend, right?”

He nodded, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.

One week.

It had been one week since he’d had the best sex of his life, with the only woman he’d ever cared about, only to wake up at three a.m., naked and alone.

She hadn’t even left a f*cking note. She’d just been gone.

You could call her, the devil on his shoulder prompted. You could be an adult and initiate an actual conversation.