Chapter 29

twenty-nine

Lily

"I don't know if I can come back for good." Unconsciously my lower lip is between my teeth, I'm chewing through my thinking. Holy shit, I need this to happen, shut up and don't prevent this . "I am confident that I can make you come. Tonight, tomorrow, for as long as we're sharing this too small bed in the mountains." Before I can say too much or the wrong thing I pull him back towards me placing kisses, little licks, and nips up and down the column of his neck.

Together we work his shirt from the hem up and overhead, and I resume my trail of kisses from below him pausing over his heart. It's a frantic pace and I blurt out, "I don't know what else we will have, but I know that I want this so badly. I want you so badly. If you're someone else, you're here for a good time, not a long time. Follow the dopamine, darling. Keep touching me. Kissing me. Do you want to keep touching me?"

"You always did keep me on task," he laughs out before sliding our bodies against one another to be face to face and claim my mouth. It's like it opened him up to take off his sweet, sincere persona and revel in his basic desires. He tries to take off my leggings from the ankles, but they just barely move. I lift my hips and peel away the waistband so that his next yank from the feet causes them to spring free in one swipe. The soft clingy black fabric is gone, and I'm there in just a tiny dusty blue mesh thong and gray T-shirt that's lifted up showing my stomach.

In a flash of insecurity I mumble out, "I really didn't expect, I mean… I didn't know, and…" I glance at my legs.

Running each hand down from my waist along the inside of my thighs to the calves, I hear him chuckle. He blushes at the unintentional sound.

"Darling," he steps between my spread ankles and prods my knees farther apart, "not the first time I've seen a woman naked before, I do not care about the fact that you didn't plan to let me taste you. I only care that the wet spot I see growing is for me."

Holy shit. I can't breathe.

He continues to run his hands lightly like this up and down my calves as he studies me. I've never had a poker face, and while I have been unable to think, speak, breathe he's still the one who always knew me inside out and manages to make me laugh and relax a bit further.

Rubbing his beard against the stubble down my legs, leaving a trail of kisses and adding in little moments of deep skin sucking and light bites along the way, he hovers over my core and meets my eyes.

"I didn't shave my legs for you either, so we're even. Now, relax, I need to learn how you sound when you are getting everything you deserve."

Fuck, I can't keep track of what he can hear at this moment. I yank off my shirt showing off my matching set of comfortably cute underwear and bralette; smooth and soft, a little sheer. Following his gaze, the man is cataloging me, every curve and divot, every marking of the passage of time since we'd swam together in our teens. I fight every instinct to cover myself when a very excitable streak of auburn fuzz zooms past, hops over next to me, hops off, and disappears.

I slip out from under River and pop the fridge open, grabbing a cheese stick and toss a bit towards Pete. The rest I drop into his crate and he chases it in, and I watch River slam the door shut before draping a blanket over the entire thing.

"Well, that's at least one jealous man I'll have to contend with eventually," he teases before pulling me into a hug .

"And how many fans do you have? Hot bartender, must have ladies throwing themselves at you all the time, no?"

He grows serious, pressing me against the wall and looking intensely in my eyes. "I haven't been with anyone else in months. Not since I saw you, couldn't even consider it. I was tested this fall and am all clear." Then just as his hands reach the sides of my breasts, before dipping his head to pull at my nipples with his teeth through the mesh, he adds, "Also, I cringed about Nessa because she added condoms to the plane ticket. With staples directly puncturing the middle of each one."

I do my best to reply, between gasps and spontaneous intrusive thoughts about babies and what did my friends know about this trip.

"Me too. Tested, regularly, always after each partner. But, fuckkkk, since September, I haven't been with anyone… other than my friends in the shower, who you met earlier."

Growing back to the self-assured woman I usually am with partners who aren't from that town, I add the important things like, "On top of that, I have an IUD because most of the time when I sleep with men, well, you know, trust issues. Daddy issues. I don't need to add a person to this mess until it's a bit more figured out. So, tell me more about these other fun things and we'll see what happens as we go. There's no rush."

Despite the words, every action we take suggests otherwise.