Hard Beat(105)

Chapter 33





Three weeks later


S

he’s so beautiful, it hurts sometimes to look at her.

I glance up from the bed to see Beaux standing at the edge of it, hair down, eyes on me, a soft smile on her face.

“Tanner,” she whispers as she sits down beside me. The mattress springs squeak, and we both laugh at the memory. She leans over, her hair tickles my face as it falls down to my chest, but I forget all about it the minute her lips brush mine. Her kiss tastes like her, like everything I’ve ever wanted, like forever.

The dream should end now. It always does, leaving me wanting more of everything – her presence, her kiss, her perfume, her warmth – but this time it keeps going. I know I’m dreaming. I tell myself not to wake up and ruin it, because this is more than I’ve ever had before, and therefore it’s one more thing to hold tighter to, one more thing to coax me to sleep and wake me up every day.

Our kiss continues with soft lips and murmured moans as her fingers thread through my hair, and as much as I want to remember every single nuance of the dream, I also want to lose myself to the moment, to feel her love one more time.

“Beaux.” I say her name between kisses, so many things I want to say and confess, but at the same time I’m afraid if I push my own agenda, the dream will end. “I miss you so much,” I murmur against her lips and can feel hers turn up in a smile.

“Tanner,” she says again, trying to pull away and look into my eyes, but I don’t let her because the silk of her hair on my hands and the warmth of her breath against my cheeks just feel too damn bittersweet to let go just yet. “Tanner,” she repeats.

Even in slumber, I hold tightly to the sound of Beaux’s voice saying my name. My mind is playing tricks on me. It has to be mixing the memory of her coming back from that first embed mission and that desperation I felt wanting to see her again with the constant loss I feel now.

“This is real. I’m alive. It’s me.”

That hazy state I’m immersed in between wake and sleep disappears in an instant, and yet I still can’t believe that I’m awake because there’s no possible way. Once I open my eyes, a startled gasp fills the room and shock jump-starts my heart from the depths of loneliness and despair when I look into green eyes that have filled my dreams for so long.

“Beaux?” My voice sounds nothing like my own: It’s full of incredulity, hope, disbelief, shock.

She bites her bottom lip, and tears well in her eyes as she nods her head cautiously like I’m going to be mad at her. I’m mad all right but only in the crazy sense because this just isn’t possible.

We caress each other’s cheeks, faces inches apart as we stare into each other’s eyes. It’s what I’ve wished for, what I’ve told the powers that be that I’d trade anything and everything for to happen… but how is this real? I can feel her skin, smell her perfume, see the love in her eyes. Moments that feel like hours pass as I start to believe this could be real.

“Is it really you?” I ask, wanting to look around me, make sure I haven’t been transported to another place and time, but am afraid of taking my eyes off her for just one second in case she should vanish.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, pressing her lips to mine, and this time I believe it, believe it’s real, believe it’s her. “We had to fake my death, had to erase my cover so I could have a life,” she murmurs in between deep kisses, each sentence solidifying the reality that I’m no longer dreaming. “With you.”

And on her last word, my heart that had fractured into a million pieces transforms itself into a living, beating, vibrant part of me again. There are so many questions I need to ask, so many things to understand about how and why, but that’s for later… much later because right now my dream has come true.

“You came back to me,” I whisper against her lips as my hands slide down her body and pull her tightly to me, because even air isn’t welcome in the space between us.

“I always will,” she murmurs as I taste salt in our kiss from the tears of happiness that we’re both crying.

And I can’t help it, because this is the second chance I never thought I’d get, so I take the kiss deeper, heart pounding with need, and my body reeling with greed.

There is no finesse, no seduction, just two bodies that know each other from memory finding each other in the early-morning light. I’m hard where she’s soft. Unwavering needs mix with wants I never thought I’d have the chance to fulfill again. Urgency escalates with each touch. Lips to my neck. Hands to her breasts. I push down her pants, she pulls up her shirt, my fingers dip into the heat of her * as a feral growl comes from deep in my throat.

She opens for me without any prompting; I slide into her sweet heat without asking, both of us moaning from the intimacy of that first connection. And this right here, not the endgame, not coming with her name on my lips, has to be the sweetest, most incredible feeling in the whole world. Getting the chance I never thought I’d get again to be a part of her in all ways possible.

I pause in my movements, lean up on my elbows, and look down at my dream, my woman, my hope, all mixed into one incredible package, and I smooth the wisps of hair off her face. Our eyes lock, the intensity of our feelings only becoming stronger now. “You came back to me,” I repeat again because I just can’t believe it. “Thank you,” I whisper as a soft smile spreads across her lips while the moment stretches out between us.