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Chapter Fifty-Eight

“I’ll go finish packing,”Skye announces before floating down the hall. Yes, floating. I don’t think her feet touched the ground. She’s high on happiness. My brother is a lucky bastard and so is she. Lucky, that is. Not a bastard. I’d never call a girl a bastard.

I look at River from my spot just inside the front door. I’m trying to gauge how she feels about my moving in. I didn’t catch the whole of their conversation. Just the last part. If I were a betting man, I’d bet that the whole convo was about me moving in. Wait? I did have a few bets with River, so I guess it does make me a betting man.

She looks at me with a mixture of apprehension and joy. I know she’s happy to see me, but I also know we’re kind of early in our relationship if one is counting days and weeks and months, but we’ve also shared a shitload of stuff that most people never have to deal with, and it has brought us closer somehow.

All of our insecurities and cracked pieces fit together and fill each other’s gaps. Our weaknesses together make us stronger.

She watches me in silence as I walk into the room and drop the box I’m carrying on top of the dining table. I walk back to her and sit on the coffee table across from her. She has one leg folded under her, the other on the floor. I reach over to her and grab her hips, pulling her to the edge of the couch. She comes willingly, both of her bare feet on the floor now. I slide my hands up her sides and over her shoulders until I’m cupping her face in my hands and then I kiss her. Just a gentle touch of lips. Just a taste before we talk. I nibble at her lower lip and her mouth parts. The tip of her tongue teases me and that’s the end of my good intentions, of just giving her a hello kiss.

This kiss goes from sweet and innocent to R rated in three seconds flat. I pull her closer and she climbs onto my lap, straddling me on the coffee table. My arms wrap around her back, melding her into me. And from then on, all rational thought is lost. There are only sensations and feelings.

Her hard nipples on my chest. Her legs around my hips, the heat of her center on my cock, the taste of her mouth on mine, the silkiness of her hair brushing my arms, the tremble of her skin under my fingertips. The sounds of our shallow breaths filled with little moans and grunts.

It is fierce, it is raw and honest and beautiful. I love this River.

The River who hides nothing, who gives all, who takes all.

She’s mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.

The possessiveness surprises me. I have never felt this way before. It overwhelms me and scares me, but I don’t pull back. I don’t retreat. I push forward past the fear and break through it. More than break through it. I embrace it. I recognized it for what it is. I look it in the eye and man up. There’s no going back from here. Realization washes over me. I don’t want to anyway.

I love this girl. I love this girl. I love this girl.

And this is it.