Page 133 of After All The Wreckage

I huffed out a breath and was rewarded with goose bumps covering her skin.

“Don’t rush me. I need to take my time with you.”

“Later. Take your time later. Right now, I need you!”

I smothered her perfect lips in a fierce kiss. I’d give her what she needed. What we both needed, but I had to do it my way tonight. I had to make love to her. I had to embed every single ounce of emotion I felt into each and every movement. So, even when she gripped me harder, nails digging into my skin, I didn’t go where she wanted.

Instead, I slowly took my time until she was panting and writhing all over again.

When I’d taken her almost to the edge once more, when I felt like I might explode myself, I eased back and asked, “Bare? Or I have a condom in my wallet.”

She shook her head. “We’ve already established I’m on birth control, and I got tested last week. I need you. Right now.”

I dropped my forehead to her shoulder, attempting to regain an ounce of control before I slid home. Otherwise I’d go off like a teen with a wet dream.

We’d done this once before, but it felt like it had been in another lifetime. Like it had been so long since we’d been joined that we were completely different people. And in some ways, we were.

That night in the hotel, there’d been fear and anger and loss surrounding us. And now, there was joy and love and healing. We were finding a path. One neither of us had to travel alone.

I lifted my head and met her gaze as I slid inside her. A deep groan escaped my chest that was echoed in her breathy exhale. It felt like heaven. Like leaving this earth to dance among the clouds while simultaneously landing home. A dichotomy I’d never understand.

Part of me was demanding I move—pound in and out of her so fast and furiously that we’d reach the summit in a flash—but part of me wanted nothing more than to stay put. To stay buried inside her where we were joined as close as we could ever be. Where the connection was more than just physical. Where it was souls tying knots around each other, whispering promises of forever.

Rory let me set the pace, even as her hips shifted and her nails continued to bite into my skin. I’d never felt anything like this. Not even in the epicenter of a storm. Here the lightning was inside us rather than around us, but I found deep pleasure in chasing it. I sought every bolt, every charge, and every roar until it was shaking through us like our own little thunderstorm.

Her body tightened, trembling, before she sang my name and let go. I joined her, leaving pieces of me inside her that I’d never get back. That I didn’t want back. They belonged to her.

We lay, still joined, our breathing uneven. Eventually, I moved to place a gentle kiss on her lips, and when my eyes foundhers, my entire body froze. Her eyes were cloudy with emotions, tears filling them.

“What. God. What’s wrong?”

She shook her head.

“Pipsqueak…” Worry and love merged together.

“It was just… perfect. So damn perfect.”

And I couldn’t deny it. It was. It had been.

Nothing in my life could have prepared me for this. For her. For us. For the amount of love that I felt pouring through me. Not even the love I had for my family. What I felt for them wasn’t necessarily less, but it was light-years different.

What I felt for Rory was unnamable. Uncatchable.

The magic of a rainbow that I got to hold and the peace that came with it.

EPILOGUE

Rory

BEAUTIFUL AS YOU ARE

Performed by Journey

TWENTY-SIX MONTHS LATER

The commute hometo Cherry Bay had left me more exhausted than anything that had happened at work. I used to think driving into D.C. was ugly, but going around D.C. and up to Fort Meade for my job at the NSA was downright grueling. Even though I’d requested an early shift, most of the time my days depended on how and when our intel came in and how we were repackaging it. If an op was in play, sometimes I was there for twenty-four hours or more.

But I loved it.