Drive(112)

“No, the miracle was that I didn’t strangle you the minute I found out you were no longer engaged and still hadn’t come back to me.”

The hurt was still there. A flicker in his eyes that had faded over time and lay limp, unthreatening, beneath the promise of always and the years of new memories we shared.

“I was working my way back to me, back to you,” I murmured. “I was giving myself some time.”

He hovered above me, naked and hungry. “Time’s up, wife,” he spread me beneath him and kissed a hot trail from my knee to my thigh.

“You bought it out from underneath me.”

“Just to get a proper first date,” he said, looking up at me while his tongue traced my sensitive flesh. “I had to make sure you didn’t run off again.”

“Leverage,” I said, tapping his forehead. “I was so mad.”

“Doesn’t suck to have money,” he said with a chuckle. “Are you going to let me fuck you tonight, wife?”

“Of course,” I pushed out, as he worked me into a puddle under soft lips and skilled fingers. I gripped his silky hair. “Once the story is over,” I taunted, as he blazed a trail to my center over my pulsing middle. He had me right where he wanted me, right where I belonged, with him, his. He explored me with precision, darting his wicked tongue to hasten the ache before he looked up at me with a smug grin. “We had sex on our first date, the end.”

“Reid, please,” I gasped, tugging his hair, asking for both our story and more of the heat in his eyes. I never wanted an ending to either.

He let out a sigh as I writhed, just as anxious but unwilling to let it go, needing the greedy satisfaction of heart and body. “On our first date, I put a mattress on the living room floor, and we had Ramen. And you talked a lot.”

“And?”

Butterflies swirled around as I gripped his jaw. He kissed his way up my stomach and then hovered. “I opened every window to the house and lit it up.”

“Thousands of candles,” I said dreamily.

“Hundreds,” he corrected sucking my peaked nipple.

“And then?”

He leaned down and nipped my neck as I locked my legs around him. “And then we argued,” he said biting my lip as his stiff cock nudged my entrance. “And it was the best fucking argument of my life, literally.”

“And . . . then?” I asked, out of breath as he sucked my neck then nailed me with his hungry, jade gaze.

“And then . . .”

He pushed inside me and filled me so full, I broke. And he was there to burn through every piece, molding the ones we missed together, and soothing the burn between us.

“I asked you not to let go,” he whispered as he thrust hard, drowning out my gasp with his groan.

“Never,” I whispered as he sucked at my nipple, teething it and drawing me tight around him. I trembled in his wake as he peppered kisses over every inch of flesh his lips could reach before he licked at my parted mouth, commanding my tongue, and stroked me deeply, rattling my core.

“Goddamn, Stella,” he rasped out, his touch worship, a promise in his eyes he would never leave me cold again. Swiveling his hips, he rolled his body, and without warning, I hit my crescendo, my fevered body igniting.

“Reid,” I whimpered as he slammed into me, on fire, his mouth parting when he felt my warmth spread over him. I was sheathed in his heat, glowing.

In his warmth, I was forgiven, desperately in love with the love that was embedded before I knew the meaning. The love that waited for me; the love that showed me the way home.

Complete.




“I love calling you my wife,” he murmured as he stroked my skin with lazy fingertips right before his breathing evened out, his hair tickling my chin while he lay on my chest. I ran my hands through his tousled dark locks as I peered at the bookshelf across from our bed. And on that shelf sat the last few years of memories. A picture of my parents knee-deep in the freezing Pacific with matching smiles, Neil and Paige standing on the edge of the sound, hand in hand, looking over their shoulder at me right before I hit the shutter button, and Lexi and her beautiful little boy, a replica of his father, holding matching starfishes in their hands.

Lexi and Ben made Benji on our wedding night, but remained apart, their story still unfinished. But I had faith. The sleeping man in my arms gave me enough to believe they would find their way back to each other, just as miraculously as Reid and I found ours.

Our black and white wedding photo, my favorite, stood proudly on the middle shelf. Reid was kissing me for the first time as his wife, and I’d never in my life been kissed that way. I didn’t have a second thought that day. I didn’t think of Nate or the wedding we would have had. Nor did I hesitate when I walked down the aisle on my father’s arm to the man who looked at me with a reverence so powerful he had six hundred guests tearing up. It was a moment I would relive for the rest of my life.

I used to think I was cursed for having fallen in love with two men. But, in hindsight, I realized what a gift it was. They were my lovers, my teachers, my best friends, and I would love them both until I took my last breath.

While I had also given Nate my heart, Reid had stolen the other half of my soul and refused to give it back. He was selfish with it, and never gave up on me, reciprocating my faith in him, reminding me he was there, always there, waiting for the day I would come back to claim it. He kept it safe and away from anyone who threatened to take it. And he did it by keeping his promise to me. A promise that I used to think had little to do with me, but I later realized was the start of him becoming the man he wanted to be. And in turn, we finished each other’s dream. A singular dream of a life full of love and music.