Page 56 of Falling Backwards (The Edge of Us #1)

While Luke carries me to his room, I drown a little bit in minutes-old memories of him making slow love to me with his fingers, and in how much hot honesty was in everything he said, and in how he looks and feels in only jeans and socks like that time in the sporting goods store. It all stirs the flutters in my stomach anew, makes me feel like my lungs don’t quite work even though they definitely do.

I’m so ready to keep going. To be each other’s in this new way. He’s ready, too, I know.

As soon as he sets me on the edge of his bed, I urge him into a kiss. He plants his hands on either side of me while each of us tries to own the other’s mouth, and then his touch is high on my thigh again and pushing up my dress, and I get to relish the feeling of his bare chest beneath my palms for two seconds before his hands are elsewhere yet: at the zipper on the back of my dress. I get ready to help take the thing off.

“Love this dress on you,”

he says over my lips.

“Also gonna love it on my floor.”

A smile overtakes me, then a hushed giggle.

I think I hear him add something under his breath—it sounds like.

“Trace the swirls another time.”

I halfway process what that might mean, then move past it to tell him.

“Yeah, I thought you’d love it.”

I feel his grin.

“You thought right.”

The dress is unzipped now, so we gather it in our hands and pull it over my head. It hits the floor, indeed. Our mouths hit in another kiss. The air of the room hits all my exposed skin, bringing up chill bumps.

And worry about my body hits my insides.

But only briefly.

It fades right away again because I don’t want it. I have no use for it. It doesn’t serve me.

Also because Luke has already stopped kissing me to straighten up and look at my body in the faint light reaching this room from the other one, and I can see well enough to make out the utter appreciation on his face.

I’m his ten.

His eyes meet mine. He curves a hand to my cheek and I instantly lean into it. I want to close my eyes, but I resist; I want even more to look right back at my ten.

The love that lives in my chest is so full, so solid.

Talk about feeling like my lungs don’t quite work.

I adore it, though. I adore him. I adore what we have and how far we’ve come and who we are when we’re together. I adore knowing the future is firmly in our clasped hands, no longer under our feet.

“I am so,”

I whisper.

“in love with you.”

I don’t know how his expression can go so sweet and so heated in the same moment, but it happens.

“Thank you,”

he murmurs throatily.

That response makes my heart swell. The fullness in my chest grows impossibly more intense.

His thumb brushes my cheek while his other hand spreads over the middle of my spine, warm and strong. As he dips back down towards my lips, I know I’ll never forget how his gaze dances over my face, because this is nothing short of a look of reverence.

“I’m so in love with you too,”

he says.

“and it makes my life incredible. I swear I can feel it happening more and more by the minute.”

I nod as big as I can without shaking his hand off my face. I swallow hard.

“Thank you. For that and for making my life incredible like that. I…”

I fumble to touch his stomach, his waist.

“…I can’t wait to stay this way forever with you.”

He makes a quiet, gravelly sound into the kiss he gives me, and it trickles down the back of my neck and along my spine, sends my hands to the front of his jeans. I don’t miss the catch in his breath, can’t miss the slip of his tongue along my bottom lip. It’s hard to decide whether to focus on intensifying our kiss or on getting the jeans undone.

“I can’t wait either,”

he says.

“Pencil me in for forever.”

His hands leave me to help with his button, his zipper.

“With permanent marker, though, not actually pencil. ’Cause you and I are endgame, Maggie Moss.”

I nod harder, and I kiss him, too, and it’s clumsy and off-center, but there’s no room for embarrassment because there’s a new smile on his lips and it keeps him from kissing me properly in return even though he tries.

His jeans and socks get stripped off. We get on the bed, get under the blanket, get laid down facing each other.

And with our barely-clothed bodies pressing together, our hands finding purchase on each other, the soft comfort of the bed around us, all our words of love and intimate joy still hanging in the air…passion swells up and takes over.

Our lips seal in a kiss—in two kisses, in three—and there is no clumsiness here. These exchanges are as firm as my hand pulling on his lower back, as intent as his grip moving up my thigh. I’ve been living with an ache for him and it grows stronger now, making me all but writhe against his hardness between us, bringing a sound from the back of my throat that has him suddenly deepening our kiss, his fingertips pressing harder into my leg as he pulls it over his hip.

I feel like I’m drowning in him again, and not just a little bit this time.

I welcome it.

The air making its way into my lungs has never been sweeter.

His hand slides up until it’s under the side of my panties; he holds my hip for a long, warm moment and then twists his hand, hooks his fingers around the fabric, and tugs downwards. Our dive of a kiss dwindles into mouths grazing chins so we can deal with the underwear. His is next, and once it’s gone, I can’t keep from stumbling my hand around him.

Luke’s moan has become one of my favorite sounds. I love it as much as I love his laugh and the way he says my name.

My lips stamp invisible claims on his jaw, his neck, as I touch him just because I want to, because I like what it does to him. I can feel it affecting his breaths, tensing his body, nudging him into movement. It’s his own version of what him touching me did to me.

With quiet admiration, I state.

“Gorgeous. You’re gorgeous.”

He makes a sound that gets muffled by the full land of his mouth on mine. Our kiss is as intoxicating as my hand on him.

But I don’t do this for long. It can wait. We want more.

I skip my hold from there to his hip, and he knows what I’m thinking because he turns away from me and to the nightstand.

In no time, we’re pressed together again, protected, sharing breaths and a kiss. His fingertips graze down to just above my knee.

“How do you want me?” he asks.

I already know. I lie back and tug at him. “Please.”

He’s above me in short seconds, between my thighs, and the feel of this gets a low gasp from us—my body underneath his, all our naked skin except for my bra, one strap of which he drags his lips over before going up my neck.

“Careful,”

his voice thrums through me.

“Keep saying ‘please’ about having me inside you and I’m gonna form a new obsession to go with the shoulder drop and you folding your bottom lip into your mouth.”

Even as I tremble from the deliciousness of that paired with the moment we’re in, slight confusion touches me.

“What’s ‘the shoulder dr—’?”

A breaking breath cuts off my question—from him, too, not just me—because he’s easing into me. I flatten my hands to his back, and his lips catch on mine for a fleeting kiss before he presses our foreheads together.

“I’ll tell you later,”

he shudders out, coming forwards.

Later works for me.

Now, our breaths huff out of us as we thrust together for the first time.

Then the second time, a little unevenly, completely wonderfully.

I clutch at his back as.

“Oh, babe,”

escapes me. “Oh my….”

“I know.”

He keeps himself braced on one arm, takes hold of my thigh with his other hand.

“God, I know.”

In another few seconds, we’ve found our rhythm. And we get lost in it.

I get lost in him.

Time slips away and I get completely lost in the heated and heartfelt way we kiss, the way he sounds when my fingertips sink into his spine and hair and then jawline, the way it feels for us to be doing this. Just like when he was giving me his fingers earlier, he feels so damn good with me—even better than I imagined he would. Better than anyone ever has, ever could.

I have to tell him.

“Luke,”

I scrape out of our kiss.

“I’ve never felt anything as good as you.”

His gaze catches on mine, hazy and arresting.

“I haven’t either,”

he tells me.

“It’s like I’ve missed you worse than hell even though I’ve never had this with you.”

A wild, breath-stealing truth.

“That’s exactly how it feels,” I agree.

Our mouths meet again, then again, just like our hips, like our touches on each other’s body. I wrap a leg around his and manage to draw him impossibly closer. One of my hands settles in the dip of his lower back. His fingers by my head tuck under to hold the nape of my neck. His other ones travel from my thigh to my waist, my stomach.

And beneath his touch, I feel it again: beautiful. The places I thought were too much or too soft don’t matter. What I used to think were imperfections don’t matter.

He groans it past my lips.

“You’re so beautiful.”

I begin to thank him, but my voice wisps away from a sudden swell of emotion and from the sliding splay of his hand up over my chest. It goes farther still to pull the closest bra strap off my shoulder, and he drops a hot kiss there.

I’m not sure which of us starts reaching around under my back to the clasp of this last piece of clothing we hadn’t bothered with yet. We work together to get it undone and pulled off of me. Then my breast is fully cupped in his hand and his mouth is rushing down to it and, with a breathless sound I can’t keep in, I’m given a hard shove closer to the edge of all this pleasure. Between this moment, him working me up earlier, and how he feels in me now, I’m already not far from losing my mind.

It has never been like this for me.

Sex, touching, simply making out—none of those physical things have ever unraveled me so quickly or intensely as they do with Luke.

It really is like my body has missed him even though it never had him before recently.

I hate to tug his mouth off of me, but I want to kiss him, so I do it. I kiss that mouth and his cheek, his jaw. To the tune of his heavy moan, I kiss the place on his neck where I can feel his heartbeat thumping. I kiss his collarbone and, for the first time in my whole damn life, hope I’m doing it devoutly enough that it’ll leave a mark.

An even deeper moan from him now. His hand flexes around the back of my neck as his thrusts go a little harder.

“Magnolia.”

Even though my voice doesn’t beg him to keep that up, my hips do, chasing the pleasure that won’t stop mounting.

He drops kisses over my hair until I finally move my mouth up to his again. Our kiss slides deep past parted lips. He props himself up more and his hand goes from my chest to my hip, his seeking thumb pressing there—briefly, though, because—

His name fires out of me from his touch going low between us, between our hips, right where I didn’t think I’d need it.

And I fall apart.

Unstoppable sparks go all through me as I grip his arm and mindlessly fling my other hand up against the headboard and catch the brush of his mouth to my ear, the warm and rasping urge of his voice through the noise of my uncontrollable lungs.

“Oh, God, Maggie. Baby, I feel you. Come for me.”

I do.

For him, because of him.

Trembling, clinging.

When it passes, my hands find his face, draw it over mine, all my clenched muscles relaxing even as I wrap my legs around him.

“Do it too,”

I murmur. My breath is jagged.

“For me, Luke.”

We take each other’s mouth, and he hums desperately.

His hand between us sweeps around under the small of my back, shifting me even more tightly against him.

Another rock of our bodies together.

Then his hips hit mine and stay there. They press while he comes, too, press mine into stillness as our kiss slips away, but I still send a hand down his spine to hold him to me. His back rises and falls with his sharp breaths.

I love it.

His voice comes out in the same tremble that’s in his body—the same tremble my own body had known.

“God Almighty. This is….”

Even though he doesn’t finish the thought, I know what he means. I nod into turning my head to touch my lips to the arm by my face.

“It’s so…you’re so….”

Balmy breath drifts down my neck before his lips deliver their own gentle kiss to the scar there. I can’t help squeezing his body with mine at how sultry and sweet it is at once. I can feel the tension creeping out of his muscles, settling him on me in the most comfortably caging way.

Not for long, though. We’re soon shifting, rolling, lying to once again face each other. I instantly miss our most intimate point of connection, wonder if we should’ve tried to make it last longer, but peace is coming up fast as we settle into slumps and work on slowing our breathing.

We intertwine our fingers together between our chests. Our eyes have adjusted to the shadowed room enough that we can easily see each other, so I look at him—at those sated eyes, his soft expression, mussed hair, bare shoulders and collarbone and chest.

The word that whispers through my mind has me belatedly realizing I didn’t finish the sentence I started before.

“Glorious,”

I whisper.

I find his gaze has been wandering over me too. It comes back to mine. “Hm?”

“That’s what you are. What being with you is.”

I bring our hands closer to my face so I can nuzzle his.

“What being yours is.”

The corner of his lips curves up. He adjusts his other arm between us so he can unhurriedly thumb at my scarred eyebrow.

“Oh,”

he whispers back.

“That’s my word for you too.”

His expression warms with stark love, with the ghost of all that desire. His thumb brushes inwards across my eyebrow and down the slope of my nose.

“The most glorious fucking thing, Maggie. You. Being with you. Being yours.”

Maybe it’s silly that him echoing those sentiments plants a lump in my throat; maybe it isn’t.

I scoot into the small space separating us, my free fingers seeking out his chest so I can touch some other part of him on my way to wordlessly ask for another kiss.

He understands the silent question and answers it right away. The sink of our lips together and the mutual squeeze of our hands make us sigh. Make us smile even more so, breaking the contact just slightly before we push back in.

But then a thought comes back to me, and we’re interrupted again.

“Hey, what shoulder thing were you talking about earlier?”

Luke almost immediately erupts into deep, hearty chuckles, shaking his body and mine a little bit too. Even as I smile more fully, I can’t help wondering whether the slight hoarseness to those little laughs is cute or sexy.

Both, I decide as they cascade over me. It’s both.

“Ah, that,”

he murmurs. He untangles his hand from mine and rests it on my back, then starts a light up-and-down rub. “Well….”

—

So comfortable.

I’ve had the thought again and again for a while now, but it’s starting to take on a drowsy quality.

Indeed, I’m tempted to go ahead and doze off right here in Luke’s arms on the couch. We’ve long been in pajamas. We’ve eaten something. We’ve received texts from Joy, Emma, and Paxton that they’re all home safe. There’s nothing left to do tonight.

Every time my eyelids start feeling heavy, though, I end up thinking about Luke’s bed for one reason or another. It always brings on a mixture of delectable contentedness and amusement; it’s impossible not to—yet again—replay being together and recall his explanation of the so-called shoulder drop. Which means I either keep being stirred into snuggling back against him and finding a way to kiss some part of him, or I keep being stirred into smiles and stifled head-shakes about that little secret he’s been keeping for months.

I can’t believe that’s a thing to him.

Knowing about it makes me feel warm with affection…at least, it does for now. I may be less tickled and endeared the next time it happens because he’s exasperated me.

After he told me about it, I asked if he ever annoyed me on purpose just to get the shoulder drop out of me. He grinned and admitted to having done it two or three times that he remembers. I’m still not sure if I’m more charmed by that truth or by the idea of him naturally coming to enjoy getting that response from me; it feels sweetly flirty to think of him doing it intentionally, but something about him initially not noticing or caring and then slowly forming an attachment to it tugs at my heartstrings.

Presently, he shifts around behind me and gives my middle a flexing hug with the arm that’s enclosing me. I tune in to how I’ve gotten distracted from the Marvel movie we have on the TV. Haven’t heard him chortle or make any remarks, though, so maybe he has been distracted or drowsy himself.

Before I can ask if he’s ready for bed, a vibration comes from his body. He releases me to search out his phone in his sweatpants pocket.

Are our friends okay? Has something happened even though they’re all home now?

I lean over the edge of the couch to check my own phone. It’s been on the floor and the ringer is off on it, too, so I would’ve missed any calls or messages….

But I’m relieved to see I don’t have any notifications. I settle back into lying down. Whatever is on Luke’s phone probably isn’t an emer—

The faint light of his dark-mode screen catches the corner of my eye. Turning my head to it, I see he’s holding the phone for me to look at. I first notice a portion of an unresponded-to text sent sometime before now—clearly not what he wants me to read at this time. So I find the TV remote between us and pause the movie, then read the message that came in just moments ago:

hey, even though you haven’t talked to dad or ryan or answered my last text, you should still come to the reunion. dad has been saying you don’t want to, but you should! i think it’ll be good and helpful for you to visit with family. it could help heal what’s off between you and dad, at least. i really do hate to see him so upset about you and honestly about you not congratulating ryan. don’t you think it’d be better to make amends than to have all this happen? just consider it :)

There’s no name at the top of the screen, just a number, but I know who this must be. Especially since glancing over the previous message shows me it’s pretty much exactly what he told me his stepsister said to him.

I hadn’t liked it then, but I’m distinctly vexed by what she has sent now.

This isn’t about me, though.

I focus on Luke. I’m able to gently guide his phone back into his own space before I roll to face him so I can look at him—at the slight frown he wears, the pensive way he rereads the message himself.

“How do you feel about that?”

I whisper.

His breath in is deep.

“Like I wanna respond this time,”

he says surprisingly evenly.

“Like…I finally know what to say instead of just ignoring it all.”

He looks at me too.

“I mean, I still don’t wanna talk to my dad and definitely don’t wanna see him, but…I can say something to Wendy. You’ve helped get this stuff out of me and it’s less of a jumble now, even though I am still pissed and really…um….”

Hurt. You’re hurt. Sad.

A pang hits my chest.

But I realize I’ve softened with understanding and a unique kind of happiness for him. I can’t stand that he’s wounded, but him being able to face it and talk about it is a good thing.

With a smile that’s soft, too, I find and squeeze his arm. “Okay.”

His frown lightens away. He returns the smile to me.

I ask.

“What do you wanna say?”

Breathing deeply again, he returns his attention to his phone.

I’m quiet while he thinks for a bit; even with him having mentioned knowing what to tell her, I’m sure it’s hard to actually condense it into something that feels right. He taps his thumbs to the sides of his phone and I rest a hand on the front of his shirt, lightly rubbing back and forth, observing his heartbeat.

Its pace feels only slightly accelerated. It isn’t fast or hard with nervousness or anger.

And I know that’s just for now. I know he still has those emotions to work through; him feeling steady right now doesn’t mean he’s never going to get mad about his dad again or cry again or get into a low mood again. But that’s okay. Feeling your feelings is how you deal with them and find a way to recover from what stuck you with them. Despite how tough that can be, bottling the feelings away is what does true damage.

I can’t wait to watch him keep growing into peace. Even if it’s slow. Even if it’s difficult. Even if it’s not the kind of peace other people are expecting.

His muscles flex into action; he’s typing. I don’t peek.

Shortly, he holds the phone up to me again. Now my eyes zero in on what waits to be sent:

I’m not ready to have anything to do with my dad, and I don’t care about the reunion. I’d appreciate it if everyone would accept that even if they don’t get it or like it. If I have something to say, I’ll say it when I want. Good job to Ryan on his award. Y’all enjoy your holiday season

“What do you think?”

he murmurs.

I wrap my arm around his waist and give him a hug there, hoping it feels as good to him as when he did the same thing to me before. Since he drops a hand to stroke affectionately at my arm, I think it does.

“It sounds great,”

I murmur back.

“They should leave you alone about things. I’m mad that she has kept acting like she knows what’s best for you and the situation.”

“Yeah. She wants us all to get along and for things to be happy, but….”

“But it’s not that simple.”

“Yeah.”

I put my hand back to his chest.

“I have two questions.”

“Shoot.”

“I agree with how you feel about the reunion, but would you decide to go if I’d go with you?”

I assure him mildly.

“I’m not pushing you at all. Just asking.”

He wraps his hand around mine.

“I know you’re not pushing me.”

I’m glad to hear that.

Once again, I wait patiently while he thinks.

“No,”

he decides.

“Not even if you went with me.”

“Okay,”

I say easily.

“Is that mean to Reese and Wendy and Ryan?”

I shake my head.

“I don’t believe it is. I mean, they’re not responsible for everything like your dad and stepmom are, but you still have complicated emotions about them. Like I said the last time we talked about all this, you shouldn’t dishonor how you feel just to placate them.”

He squeezes my hand.

“Okay. Yeah.”

“Is it mean in your opinion?”

I pause, then add.

“This is related to the second thing I was gonna ask, actually. I wondered if your message says that about Ryan and holiday wishes because you think it has to or because it’s what you want.”

His single laugh is unexpected, half-hearted though it is.

“I don’t think it’s mean of me not to go. Most of the people who’ll be there have always been even less present in my life than my dad and his new family. I feel like it’s stupid to expect me to eagerly travel to see them.”

I nod my agreement.

“That’s true.”

“The other stuff…. I don’t know, the answer is split. I do feel strong-armed into finally congratulating Ryan ’cause I’m tired of people complaining and it’s not that hard to say a few polite words, but on the flip side, it’s cool anytime someone wins an award, you know? And you’re right, he hasn’t done anything to me like my dad has, so me being all whatever about everything doesn’t mean I should piss on his accomplishments, even only by ignoring them.”

Mmm. That makes sense.

“And I really can’t tell what my holiday wishes mean. In a way, I feel sarcastic. In another way, I hope they leave me alone and really do just go ahead and have fun in their little world.”

He sighs.

“It’s not like I wish bad things on them, you know? I don’t wish for death or a house fire or someone hurting any of them.”

Softly, I tell him, “I know.”

“I just…like you said, I just feel a lot of complicated things.”

“Yep.”

We fall quiet again.

I look at him. He looks at his prepared message.

At length, he says.

“I’m gonna send it.”

I whisper.

“I’m happy for you.”

He sends the text, locks his phone, and tosses it across me. It thuds onto the carpet.

Then his arms are snaking around me and pulling me into a full hug. I hold him back as tightly as I can as he kisses my shoulder once, twice.

“It feels weird,”

he says, his breath warm there.

“to be facing all this in any kind of way after so many years. And I’m still in the mess. The tangle. But…I’m happy for me too.”

As we loosen out of the hug a bit, I say.

“You should be. The baby steps matter so much.”

“Right? They turn into regular steps.”

I grin.

“That is right.”

Then I tell him.

“I’m with you, by the way. Baby steps, regular steps, backtracking steps. I promise I’ll help you get through whatever happens or doesn’t happen.”

“Thank you,”

he exhales, brushing my nose with his.

I nod.

“Anytime and always, Luke.”

A smile comes to his lips just before they claim mine again, long, slow, holding.

And I’m not sure anymore whether I’m sleepy or interested in finishing the movie. For the moment, all I care about is celebrating this small victory with this person whose importance to me is larger than life.