Page 65 of Midnight Between Us (The Timberbridge Brothers #4)

Chapter Sixty

Keir

There’s no rush when you’re touching something sacred.

Simone is in my arms, and for the first time in years, the world doesn’t feel like it’s slipping away from me. The noise fades. The ache in my chest fades. Her arms are around my neck like she’s been here all along—like I’ve finally come home.

I carry her into the house, her legs wrapped around my waist with a familiarity that undoes me. She exhales against my throat, and it sends a shiver down my spine. I could stop here and take her against the wall, but that’s not what this is about.

So, I don’t pause. I don’t fumble. I go to the room I never let myself step into now, hers.

We’re not tearing at each other. There’s no frantic edge to this. No undoing each other in haste. I want to feel this. Every second of it. Every layer she sheds, I want to meet it with reverence, with love.

I set her down gently, our foreheads touching. She’s breathing hard, but it’s not nerves. It’s everything else—wanting, remembering, breaking a little, and hoping we can build something in the space that breaks open.

I cup her face. Her skin is warm. She’s here right in front of me. And somehow, despite everything I broke, she’s letting me touch her again.

My thumbs trace her jaw, my mouth brushing over hers like a secret. I want to go slow. I want her to know this isn’t just lust. This is years of yearning condensed into one trembling breath.

“You okay?” I ask, voice barely more than a whisper.

She nods. Her eyes search mine like she’s still trying to decide if I’m real.

She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t have to.

Her hands are in my hair, pulling me closer to her. Her mouth finds mine with a tenderness that splits me wide open. It’s not new, but it’s different. It’s not a kiss that asks. It’s one that remembers. That says, We’ve been here before, and we’re still here, but this time better.

She parts her lips, and I meet her there—deeper, slower. My mouth lingers at the corner of hers, trailing lower to the spot beneath her jaw that used to make her breath hitch. I kiss her like I’m making a vow in silence. Like I’ve been waiting for this exact moment since the last one slipped away.

She tastes like cinnamon and something bittersweet, like everything I’ve been afraid to need. Her fingers tangle in my hair, a desperate tug that tells me I’m not the only one unraveling. Not the only one pretending this means less than it does.

I slide my hand along her waist, slow and reverent until my fingers brush the edge of her sweater. Her breath catches again—soft, involuntary. She’s not saying no. She’s not saying anything. But her body arches closer, her hips finding mine like they remember something we never said out loud.

“You sure?” My voice is low, hoarse. I won’t push. I can’t afford to get this wrong.

She nods, barely. “Don’t make me beg.”

Fuck. That does something to me.

I take my time, like I’m peeling back something sacred.

Her sweater slips over her head, and she shivers—not from the chill, but from letting me look.

The vulnerability of letting me see her like this again.

She doesn’t cover herself. She lets me look.

Lets me see the faint marks from time and the way her skin flushes when I drag my palm from her ribs to the dip of her waist.

“You’re beautiful,” I whisper because she is. Not in a curated, filtered way. But the quiet, heartbreaking kind that makes a man ache in all places. The kind that makes you need.

She scoffs, a small, disbelieving sound. “You need your eyes checked.”

“Then I’ll keep telling you the truth,” I murmur, brushing my mouth against her collarbone. “Until you see it—until you believe it.”

Her laugh is tight. “You always were a stubborn bastard.”

“Still am.”

I shrug off my flannel shirt, then tug the shirt underneath free from my jeans and shrug it off. She watches, eyes fixed on the scar near my shoulder, the one she kissed the night before I left. Her fingers lift, brushing it like a question. Like she’s wondering if it still hurts.

It does. Not the skin—the history.

Clothes become a trail on the floor. My jeans, hers.

Her bra, caught halfway off. We’re slow, not for show, but because neither of us wants to miss any of this.

Not the way her breath hitches when I kiss the center of her chest. Not the tremor in her fingers when she traces my jaw like she’s trying to memorize it.

Sims says, “You,” and that’s it. I’m done pretending this is about anything else.

She parts her legs wider, eyes burning into mine like she’s daring me to take what’s always been mine.

My palms slide under her thighs, dragging her to the edge of the bed until her hips are tilted just right, and I can see everything.

She’s wet—dripping, swollen, slick with want—and I haven’t even really started.

I bend forward, pressing a kiss to her inner thigh, then another just beside it. Her breath stutters. I hook one arm beneath her knees and the other behind her back. She gasps, surprised—but she doesn’t resist.

I lift her. Just enough to shift her fully onto the mattress, to lay her down like a vow I never stopped making.

The way she looks at me—lips parted, pupils blown, heart wide open—it wrecks me. And still, I press her into the bed like she belongs there because she does.

“Fuck,” I murmur, my mouth hovering just above her. “Look at you.”

I dip my head and drag my tongue through her slit, slow and firm, just to taste her. Her whole body jerks.

“Oh my God—” she gasps, fingers diving into my hair, clutching like she needs something to hang on to.

I do it again, tongue flat and greedy. Her clit pulses under the pressure, and I hum against it, letting the sound vibrate through her.

“You’ve been starving for this,” I murmur, voice low. “Haven’t you?”

“Don’t talk,” she pants. “Just—fuck—just do it again.”

So I do. I suck her clit into my mouth, firm and slow, then pull back and do it again.

My tongue works in tight, filthy circles, then long, messy strokes down to her entrance, where I lick into her like I’m trying to devour every ounce of her sweetness.

Her hips roll, chasing my mouth, and I give her what she wants.

Two fingers slide into her—slow, knuckle-deep, curling until I feel that spongy spot that makes her cry out.

“There,” I say against her pussy, the heat of my breath making her writhe. “That’s where you want it, right?”

“Yes. Fuck. Yes.”

I suck her harder, fingers moving in rhythm, fucking her slow but deep while my tongue laps at her clit. Her thighs shake. She’s soaked—my hand, my mouth, the sheets under her. Her taste is everywhere, and I want more.

“Can’t believe how wet you are,” I growl. “So fucking desperate. You gonna come like this? On my face?”

“Don’t stop,” she chokes out. “I’m gonna—I’m?—”

She comes fast and hard, pussy clenching around my fingers, hips bucking into my mouth. She screams my name, loud and ragged, and I don’t stop. I work her through it, tongue flicking, fingers driving into her slow and deep as her body trembles.

I keep going until she whimpers and tries to pull away, thighs clamping around my head. “Too much?—”

I pull back, mouth wet, breathing hard.

“You taste better than I remembered,” I rasp, licking my bottom lip. “Honestly, I could’ve stayed down there all day, probably even the night.”

I crawl up her body, cock dragging against her inner thigh, thick and aching. She’s still flushed, dazed, lips parted like she’s about to say something, but can’t remember what words are.

I lean in and kiss her, deep and slow, letting her taste herself on my tongue as I grind against her hard. Just as I grip her hips, she stops the kiss and looks back at me, flushed, breathless, pupils blown.

“Top drawer,” she says. “The condoms are in the top drawer.”

I still. “You keep condoms in your drawer?”

She lifts her chin, mouth twitching with something between a challenge and a confession. “I was hopeful, and it’s not like you can go out to buy any.”

I reach for the nightstand. The foil packet’s already there—like she placed it just in case like she dared to dream of this moment, of me.

I pick one and tear it open, rolling the condom down over my cock with slow precision, my breath shallow as I fight the urge to pin her down and fuck her until she forgets everything that came before this.

This time is only us, now, and hopefully our future.

I press a kiss to the soft dip just below her navel, dragging my hand down the inside of her thigh as I settle between her legs.

She’s spread open for me, flushed and glistening, her pussy twitching like it’s aching for me to fill her.

I line up at her entrance, my cock thick and straining, every muscle in my body pulled tight with restraint.

“Keir,” she whispers, and fuck if my name doesn’t sound like a prayer.

“Breathe,” I rasp. “Let me in.”

The head of my cock presses against her, and the heat of her nearly unravels me. She’s tight—so tight I have to grit my teeth as I push forward, easing in an inch, then another.

She shudders. “Oh—fuck.”

“Fuck, baby,” I groan, my hand curling around her hip to steady us both. “You’re squeezing the life out of me.”

Her body tenses, trying to take me, stretch around me, and I go slow. I want her to feel every inch. I want her to remember this. Us. The way we never really stopped fitting together.

I push in deeper. Her slick heat envelops me, inch by inch, tight and trembling, pulling me in like her body knows exactly where I belong. Her back arches, her fingers claw at the sheets, her pussy flutters around me as I bottom out with a low, guttural groan.

“You okay?” I ask, breathing hard, barely holding back.

She nods, eyes glassy, mouth parted. “I can feel all of you. Every fucking inch.”

My cock throbs inside her. “That’s the point.”