Page 59 of A Summer Thing

I run my thumb along the Little D that marks the inside of my left ring finger, back and forth in a soothing gesture to help calm my nerves, before inhaling a deep breath and showing her.

Her breaths catch in her throat, and a soft cry of surprise spills out of her.

“You can’t be serious.” Her words are filled with awe and disbelief. She bites down on her smile, before looking up at me, as if asking, Is this real? Did you really tattoo my name on you not just once, but twice?

I bite back my own smile and nod. “There’s one more, actually.” I crook my finger into the band of my sweats and tug them low. An intricate D written beside my hipbone, in the crease where my lower stomach meets my uppermost thigh.

Her cheeks flush, and her eyes spark.

Her breaths still on her inhale and then gust out of her at once.

“What in the actual fuck, Jude?” she says the soft words through her smile, eyes brimming with tears before they spill over.

Lifting herself onto her knees, she straddles me, full attention on the letters of her name on my chest. “I cannot believe you did this,” she says, finger stroking back and forth over it rhythmically.

When her blue eyes meet mine, more tears slip free.

“This means so much to me. Everything. I love them,” she says, the words so quiet I feel them move through her more than I hear them.

Her finger continues moving in a soft path over her name, before she leans down and presses a kiss to it. Long, lingering, and warm.

Despite myself, my cock immediately springs to attention. But I keep my dick in my pants because right now isn’t the time for fucking around.

She brings my tattooed finger to her lips next, kisses her nickname, and sets my hand back down at my side.

And then, she slides lower, pushing herself down my body, and replaces my index finger with hers in the band of my sweats.

With a final, earth-shattering glance at me that rocks my entire world to its core, she presses a warm, open-mouthed kiss to the third and final tattoo.

And yeah, my dick jerks beneath my sweats once more.

She smirks—a wholly mischievous smirk—and wastes no time rubbing a palm over the hardness beneath my pants, before tugging them lower and forcing my cock free.

It stands thick and proud, jerking at her attention.

The way she licks her lips and bites down on them while eyeing my dick has it jumping again before she wraps her pink-tipped fingers around me.

She strokes me, from tip to base and back again.

My head falls back against the headboard with a guttural groan.

Because fuck, have I missed this, too.

It’s been a while since we were together last, and I’m certain I’m going to embarrass myself and come too soon if she keeps this going. I dig my fingertips into the mattress to keep from doing just that.

Tentatively, she strokes my dick some more, watching, paying attention to what I enjoy most—when she squeezes at the tip, twists, and slides all the way back down.

I thrust into her touch, unable to help myself.

She offers a smile, a lick of those gorgeous lips, and then they’re parting, working down my thickening shaft, and taking me into the warm heat of her mouth.

When she moans around me, I’m already a fucking goner.

With an audible pop from her mouth that makes me harder, I lift her off me, lay her down, grasp the sides of her face as I bend down to meet her, and kiss the living fuck out of her.

I sink my tongue into her mouth. Bite the bottom curve of her lip. Suck it into my mouth.

The hum that vibrates through her body sets my veins on fire.

They scorch through every limb, urging me to run my hands over every inch of her body to satiate the burn.

Gripping her curves in my palms, I grind against her, kissing her deeper, kissing her for so long we’re both gasping for breath when we part.

Nothing but harsh breaths and blazing eyes between us.

“I want to be inside you, Declan. Can I—”

“Yes,” she’s nodding before I can finish my sentence. “Please.”

We strip each other unceremoniously, too desperate, too fast, too uncoordinated, blinded by lust and want and outright fucking need, until we’re both naked, aching, pressing our bodies together, legs parting to accommodate my width, and my cock sinking inside her.

“Fuck, baby ,” I groan, long and guttural. “I missed this. I missed you. So fucking much.”

We move together in a practiced rhythm, a remembered cadence. Slow, deep, grounded thrusts, while I lay a thousand kisses to her skin—her lips, her face, her neck, her chest.

My heart skips a dozen beats, clenches, with how fucking right she feels. With the weight of how much I love her.

A tear slips down her cheek, and I trace the wet trail with the pad of my thumb, before kissing the salty moisture off her face.

Soft hands sink into my hair in return, blue eyes holding me within their grasp. “I love you,” she confesses, “I love you so much it terrifies me, but I’m done being afraid. I want you. I want you forever.”

It’s everything I’ve ever wanted to hear her say. That yes, life is scary, and there is no guarantee, but I’m worth the risk. I’m worth her fighting for. I’m worth loving.

It’s no question she always has been for me, too.

Pulling myself in and out of her in long, leisurely strokes, thumb circling her clit in an unhurried rhythm, I extend the waves of pleasure that crest and crash between us.

“I love you, Declan, baby. More than I ever have, or ever will, love another person. And I’m not afraid to show you just how much for the rest of my life. ”

“Me too, Jude. I—Oh, God.” She shatters apart beneath me. I put her back together with light kisses and softly-spoken words. With my hands smoothing over every inch of her exposed body before dragging her deeper into my hold. With my heart thundering in a relentless rhythm against her own.

She urges me closer with a soft hitch of her breath, fingers digging half-moons into my skin. I bury myself in her desperate hold, in the now messy strands of her bright pink hair, face pressed into the gentle slope of her neck as I murmur a dozen more confessions into her summer-kissed skin.

“You’re it for me,” I tell her, desperate myself—wanting to tattoo my words onto her heart, onto her soul.

I settle for inking them onto her skin by the shape of my lips.

“You’re all mine. And I’m all yours. We only have to love each other one last year from across the country—through every visit, every phone call, every day spent apart—until we can love each other up close.

Alright, Little D? You’re it for me. It’s you and me, baby. You and me.”

Tears spill down her cheeks as she nods along with everything I say, agreeing with sweet words of her own, and my heart bursts with unsteady beats that race through my limbs.

She clenches even tighter around me, and I’m not going to last much longer at this rate.

Thankfully, she’s already there again.

Crying out as she undulates beneath me, chasing her second release.

I watch in rapt fucking fascination as her body contracts, muscles tightening, mouth parted in a gentle oh, features contorting with the onslaught of her pleasure and walls clenching around my shaft in endless waves that milk my own orgasm free.

It starts at the base of my spine and rips down my body.

Her warmth spills over my cock as I spill inside her, I love you whispered so many times between us I’m certain it’s the glue that now pieces us together.

We hold each other in desperate grips, my hands sunk into her thighs where her own floral tattoo now lies, her fingertips dug into the muscles of my ass, ferocious in the way we mold our bodies together, fuse our mouths together, as we come, until it feels as if we’re one solid entity.

MeAndHerAndHerAndI.

It’s a long damn time before we come down from the high.

Declan beneath me, pink hair a mess around my pillow, swollen lips parted as she works to catch her breath, but her arms and legs still hooked around me, pinning right where I am.

My heart swells three times its size looking down at her. This summer might’ve been a brutal one for us, but it was worth it.

Lying here, Declan’s ocean blues staring up at me, happiness, clarity, confidence, and unwavering love shining within them, her hold on me as desperate as my own on her, it was damn well worth it.

I lower my face down to hers, lips meeting her soft ones as I murmur, “I love you so much, baby,” fully intending to prove my words to her through my actions every day of this upcoming year, until next summer, when she’ll be mine for good.