Thick & Thin (Thin Love, #3)(87)

I sat up then, my fingers raking up her sides, her back to push down on her shoulders as I jerked my hips up, both of us moaning at the sensation. “Slow,” I repeated against her sternum, moving my hands down until my thumbs grazed her nipples and gripped hold of her breasts. “Slow…” I tried but then Aly squeezed against me again and I replied with another hip thrust once, twice, three times before my body betrayed me and the feel of her wet * milking me, left me powerless and I exploded up into her body, spasm after spasm of release into the center of my world, my life.

“Wi, Ransom. Slow this time and the next and sometimes fast, sometimes very fast.” Her words fanned across my forehead until I could do nothing but sink back against the pillow, taking her with me, letting Aly ride me until there was no thought, nothing but the taste of her on my tongue and the rhythm of my heart reminding me that this was not a dream.



The slow, wet trail of my tongue against her back, down to the dip where her spine and ass met. The soft, round dark nipple pebbling under my tongue. The taste of her wet *, how it heated when I touched it, when I buried my face so deep that only sensation remained—in my nose, against my mouth, her fingers pulling at my hair. She was everywhere. She was everything.

She spooned in front of me, fitting perfectly against my chest, that sweet, supple ass nestled close, but we weren’t spent from f*cking. We weren’t resting. She had not stopped me when I wanted more, not asking, taking because she was mine now. She always would be and I was hers, more than I’ve ever been anything to anyone in my world, I was hers.

“Like that?” she asked, breath airy, lazy as she bent her leg, offering it to my waiting hand so I could spread her further apart as I took her from behind.

“Exactly like that, nani.”

Her sheets were damp with our sweat, despite the chill that had turned the air outside her condo into a mini front. The fabric was soft, but only the fitted sheet remained on the bed. Her precious jewel toned pillows, the flat sheet and comforter got lost in the tussle of our bodies coming together over and over—her atop me, me from behind, tasting her body, letting her lap her mouth and hands and tongue on every square inch of me. It had been hours and still we had not tired ourselves out.

We simply couldn’t get enough of each other.

“There,” I groaned when Aly clenched around me yet again, “there!” And I was lost, could only hold on to her, my mouth on her shoulder, my hands pulling her tight against me, holding her breasts in both hands as I came. “God…”

It was as close to a prayer as I’d come tonight.

We went still then. Quiet as we lay together, bodies still joined, sweat drying on my back, along her shoulder and I kissed one small droplet, loving the taste of salt in my mouth. It was that moment that always comes when you’ve worn your body and that of your lover’s from sex. It doesn’t happen always, only when you genuinely care for the other person. At least, that’s the way it’s always been for me. The quiet. The slow, lazy strokes of satisfaction, absently done, against naked flesh. Small kisses that help you come off your exhausted high of climax. Tender. That’s what I guess you’d call it. And that’s what this was with her now—tender. Quiet. Perfect.

Her breath had not quite evened out. Maybe, I thought, it would make her answer come easy if she was still distracted by her climax and the tangle of limbs and parts that made us fit together so perfectly.

“Nani?” She’d refused me so often I didn’t expect an answer. She’d stop giving them long ago.

She didn’t move and her chest had finally slowed to swift pants. “Hmm?”

The sweat on her shoulder had nearly gone, but I kissed her there anyway. “Nani…marry me.”

She didn’t stiffen or retreat from me and I held my breath, watching her profile as her closed eyes blinked open. Aly rolled on her back, moving her attention to my eyes as though she wasn’t sure she’d heard me right.

“Marry me. Okay?”

Breath still didn’t come easy then and for a moment I didn’t care if it ever did again. Nothing in that moment mattered but her expression, or rather, the lack of one. She knew what I had said and disappointment leached into my mind, telling me that I had probably spooked her, like the time before. Maybe it was too soon. Maybe she needed more time.

Maybes can run around in your mind so long, with such frequency that they become easier to take. They set you up for the inevitable and so, when she didn’t answer right away, it was those maybes that distracted me, right until I noticed how Aly tilted her head, how she reached for me, drawing a small circle under my bottom lip with her finger. Right until I finally moved my gaze to her face, to that slowly breaking bright, wide, dazzling smile.





A thousands lives haunt this place.

Music,

Love,

Death,

Sorrow,

Breeds of memory uncontained.



The thread woven

Mangled

Mended

Cloak the chill of night.



A thousand and one

Me and you.

Strengthen that tapestry.

Cover ourselves from the numbness.





Six Months Later


The French Quarter, New Orleans, on a Sunday afternoon



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