Page 46 of Where She Belongs (A Different Kind of Love #3)
She guides me toward the bedroom, our lips never breaking contact, hands roaming and exploring with the desperate need of lovers reunited. The bed is turned down invitingly, and we fall onto it together, a tangle of limbs and whispered endearments.
“I love you,” I tell her again as I trail kisses down her neck, across her collarbone, worshipping every inch of skin I can reach. “I love your brilliant mind and your stubborn streak and the way you hum when you’re concentrating.”
She laughs breathlessly. “I don’t hum.”
“You do,” I insist, my hands working at the clasp of her bra. “And I love that about you too.”
Her breasts are full and firm, and I lower my mouth to one nipple, feeling her arch against me. “Oh god,” she moans, tangling her fingers in my hair. “Don’t stop.”
I comply, moving my attention to her other breast as my hands drift downward, grazing the curve of her hip, the fabric of her leggings.
“Tell me you want me,” I murmur, my tongue swirling against her nipple. “Tell me you need me as much as I need you.”
She gasps, grinding herself against me. “I do,” she whispers. “More than you know.”
Her words ignite a fire in me, and I hook my thumbs in the waistband of her leggings, easing them over her hips and down her legs. She arches against me, giving me better access, and I’m suddenly very aware of my own pants, of the way my erection strains against the fabric.
She notices, too, her eyes dark with desire. “Take them off,” she orders, nodding toward the offending garment. “I want to see you.”
I hesitate only for a moment. Insecurities about age, about size, about comparison to whatever men she may have known before me float briefly in my mind, but they vanish the moment I see her expression. She wants me. She needs me. And I’m ready to give her exactly what she craves.
“How do you want me?” I ask as I strip off my pants and underwear in one quick movement.
Her eyes widen, drinking me in as if she’s parched and I’ve just handed her water, and the sheer approval and hunger in her gaze gives me the confidence I need to continue.
“Tell me exactly how you want me,” I repeat, needing to hear her say it.
“Inside me,” she breathes with a hint of pleading, the anticipation in her voice a sweet torture. “Please, Gabe.”
I reach for my pants, intending to grab a packet but Andrea stops me, her hand on my arm, her touch electric. “No protection,” she whispers, her eyes locking with mine. “I think we’re past that.”
She’s right, of course. We are past that. Past doubt and denial and uncertainty. Past the fear of what being together might mean, or change, or demand of us. We are in a new place now, a place where we’re forging something lasting and real.
I crawl onto the bed, positioning myself between her thighs, wanting to enter her slowly, fully, savoring every inch as I let her adjust to my length. She watches me with a ferocity that takes my breath away, her expression an exquisite mix of desire and anticipation.
When I sink into her, she lets out a sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob. Her legs tighten around me, a wordless plead for me to take her harder.
“Oh god,” she whispers, arching her back to take me deeper, burying me inside herself with such reckless abandon that I can’t help but groan. “Never stop.”
Her wet heat envelopes me, a perfect pressure building with each urgent thrust. Her arms wrap around my neck, pulling me closer, her mouth finding mine, kissing me with an intensity that makes me shudder with need. We move together, an instinctive rhythm, the communication of body and soul.
Each subtle shift in mood and intention is understood without words, a perfect synchronization that makes this more than just sex. This is us, open and bare and taking what we’ve craved for so long.
As we near release, I feel Andrea winding tighter and tighter beneath me, her breath hitching in anticipation as her fingers dig into my shoulders. She’s so close, so impossibly close.
“Come for me,” I urge, pushing harder, faster, desperate to see her in the throes of it. “Let me see you come apart.”
Then she’s crying out, her orgasm slamming through her with unexpected force, clenching around me so fiercely that the sudden contraction sends me over the edge, too.
“Oh fuck,” I manage, spilling hot and deep within her as my muscles tighten with release. I never imagined it this way, never imagined the way she would surrender so completely to me. Her eyes are wide and stunned, still locked on mine as I ride out the last waves of my own climax.
We collapse together, bodies entwined, hearts pounding in unison.
Breathing hard, our limbs a tangle of intimacy, we are lost in the delicious blur of post-orgasmic haze.
It leaves me utterly speechless, breathless, dazed with the kind of satisfaction and wholeness I haven’t experienced since I was a teenager.
A sense of homecoming wraps around me like a warm, familiar blanket, soothing and perfect and real.
“That was...” she begins, her voice as winded as mine, trailing off as if the words are too immense to grasp. She pauses, searching for the right way to capture this moment. Maybe there aren’t words, not even for her.
“Perfect,” I supply, feeling the truth of it deep in my bones. “Beyond perfect.” My face nuzzles against her neck, breathing her in, the scent of our shared exertion mingling with the rain-soaked air from the storm outside.
She pulls me closer still, her grip strong and possessive, unwilling to let go.
I settle against her, feeling the incredible rightness of it.
I am content to stay just like this for hours.
Days, even. The idea of moving, of breaking this tender connection, seems unimaginable.
There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than right here, skin against skin, hearts against hearts, cocooned in the fragile shelter of our intimacy and forgetting that the outside world even exists.
Because right now, this is the only thing that matters. Her. Us. This absolute certainty that we belong together, that we’ve wasted precious time denying the truth we both understood long ago. How could we have been so blind? So stubborn? So afraid?
We weren’t just two people who fit well together. We were more than a perfect match. We were made for each other.
And if that sounds too good to be true, I don’t care. I want to believe it, to revel in the joy of it, to chase it for as long as I’m able.
“I love you,” I whisper again, pressing a tender kiss to her forehead, my heart swelling with the enormity of it all, the way I never quite imagined. “I love you, Andrea Martin.”
She smiles, nestling closer, burrowing into my side, her eyelids growing heavy with the kind of peaceful exhaustion that only comes from losing oneself completely.
“I love you too, Gabriel Alejandro Vasquez,” she murmurs, the sound a sweet, sleepy song. A perfect reassurance. “Don’t leave.”
“I’m here,” I promise, my forehead resting against hers, sealing the vow with a closeness that feels eternal. “I’m not going anywhere.”
And I mean it.
Because this woman in my arms, this brilliant, stubborn, beautiful woman, is worth everything. Worth the wait. Worth the risk.
Worth the fight.