When We Let Go, Delancey Stewart [early reader books .txt] 📗

and something else, something masculine and strong. But there was another feeling that came from having him so close, and it was confusing. It reminded me of being a child in some way, not in that I felt like a little girl, not at all. But the happiness I’d felt running these mountains wild as a girl, the freedom and lightness that came with youth, with being oblivious to the weight the world would one day put upon me, it was all tangled up in the way I felt being near Connor.

After what felt like years in suspended animation, our foreheads touching and my hand resting along the side of his jaw, Connor inhaled a sharp breath and then softly touched his lips to mine. And something unlocked, released like a gate being opened, a harness removed, and I was lighter in that moment than I could remember being. Connor’s lips were soft at first, then more insistent, and finally the kiss deepened and our bodies found each other as we melded into one another on the couch.

It could have been minutes, it might have been hours, and in that time we became more than two lonely people who’d been struggling on separate paths to make sense of the worlds we’d unexpectedly found ourselves inhabiting. Instead, for a little while, we shared each other’s burdens, told each other secrets in the form of kisses and caresses, whispers and quiet laughter in front of a glowing fire.

“It’s not the right thing to say,” Connor said after a while, sitting back and running a finger across the lips he’d been kissing. “But I want you to stay tonight.”

Surprise made me widen my eyes and sit up straighter. “We don’t know each other well, Connor.” I found that I wanted to say yes, if only to spend a night surrounded by that warmth and strange familiarity that came in being by his side, but I knew it might only serve to confuse me in the end.

“I know,” he said, and there was a hint of pain in his voice. “So why do I feel like I’ve known you forever?”

I wasn’t a big believer in karma or destiny or anything like fate. But if we both felt like there was some link between us, some kind of bond that transcended our current time, our current situations, then was it wrong to just embrace it?

“I’ll stay,” I said, surprising us both. “Between the wine and food … and, this,” I said, failing in my effort to include everything happening between us, “it would be hard to leave.”

“Good,” he said, and a smile spread across his face that made my heart swell. It was nice to see Connor happy—I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him smile like that before.

We stayed before the fire for a long time, and eventually, Connor took my hand and led me upstairs.

He looked back at me as he led me into a room at the top of the stairs, and then stepped inside, flicking on a dim light. I moved with him, our hands still connected, and when he tugged slightly, I moved into his arms, finding myself encircled. The sudden warmth and closeness was overwhelming, and the scent of him had me reeling. It was the scent of something familiar but unidentifiable, something that smelled like childhood, like home. I squeezed my eyes shut against his hard chest, my hands finding their way around his body, skating over planes of hard muscle and pulling myself into him.

My breasts were pressed up against him, and my nipples hardened until the contact with his body sent little spikes of arousal straight through me. The nearness, the smell, my attraction to him, it all combined to make my knees wobble and my arms grasp more tightly to a man who I was fiercely attracted to.

And then something changed. The smell of Connor, the hard solidity of him, and the way he whispered my name as he held me, all sent me deeper into the moment, into my own desire. I clung to him, feeling suddenly unsure as a mild fear passed through me, and a vague thought about Amanda Terry and the accusations against this man swirled in my mind. The thoughts and feelings in me combined, making me feel almost drunk, like I was spinning out of control. My breath beginning to come faster as his hand slipped lower down my back and cupped my ass.

Even when Jack and I had been together that last year, when I was living up here and he was living two lives between here and San Diego, there had been only a few moments of closeness between us. And those intimacies we shared felt rote and rehearsed. We followed a very bland and unimaginative script for sex.

There was something wild and unbound in the room with Connor and me now, something threatening to erupt and ravage me. And I was equal parts terrified and tempted. The hard nearness of Connor, and the firm pressure I felt against my stomach as he pulled me closer drove the rational voice warning me away into silence.

Connor’s fingers traced the line of my jaw and then circled it, his thumb near my ear as his fingers tilted my head up. His mouth met mine as I felt his other hand twine through the curls at the back of my head. His lips were tentative at first, but as my mouth opened to him, they became hard and insistent. There was no more asking permission, no more quiet carefulness between us. I’d come here willingly, pressed myself against this man, and opened myself to him. And this thing happening between us now was the result of all of those decisions.

I tilted my head back and Connor found my throat, his mouth hot on my skin as his tongue flicked and tasted me. His hand supported my head as he explored me, and my breath was coming in gasps. I pressed myself against him, one leg wrapping his thigh to increase the contact where I needed to feel it. Connor’s hands found the bottom of my blouse and pulled it free of my jeans, sweeping it off over my head. He paused, pulling back to look at me, his eyes burning. The lamp in the corner illuminated him from behind, and caught the burnished gold in his hair, bringing the image of a fire god back, making me unable to stop myself from grinding against his thigh.

“You’re so beautiful, Maddie.” His voice was low and rough. He picked me up and sat me on the edge of a firm solid desk next to the sweeping window near the bed, his mouth exploring my shoulders as his hands cupped and squeezed at my ass, pushing us together.

I found the waistband of his jeans, my hands fumbling with the button there, and Connor stopped. He stepped back from me, his eyes never leaving mine. He pulled off his shirt, grabbing it with one hand behind his neck and pulling it over his head in one fluid motion. And then he unfastened his pants and pushed them down, stepping free.

He stood before me, not moving for a moment. I didn’t know if he was giving me one last chance to change my mind or if he was considering changing his. But as the light danced across the ridges of muscle in his chest and highlighted the bulge of his erection, I found myself teetering on the edge of self-control. I could walk away now. But a minute longer and the choice would be gone.

I opened my mouth to stop things, to let my common sense back into this overheated room, to interrupt this strange sensual moment with a near stranger. And I whispered his name instead.

From that moment forward, there was no going back.

Connor fell on me like a man who hadn’t eaten in months, his mouth and hands everywhere at once. I wasn’t conscious of him pulling my jeans off, but when he looped his arms around my thighs and lifted my hips off the table so he could taste me, he had my complete attention. He teased and sucked until my legs were shaking and all I could feel was the aching emptiness that I knew he could fill. I twisted myself from his grasp and reached for him, grasping his hard length through the boxer briefs before pushing them off of him.

His erection stood up, the vein along the top pulsing in the shadow of the dim room, and I traced the line with my finger before stepping down off the edge of the desk and bending over to trace it with my tongue. Connor’s groan emboldened me, and I put my hands on either side of his taut ass and turned us both around, pushing him back so that his butt was against the edge of the desk. His hands immediately found the edges of the surface and he braced himself as I took him into my mouth.

I hadn’t done this for Jack in years. He’d complained about something I did once, and my confidence was shot. But Connor seemed to be enjoying it enough, and I experimented as he moaned above me, saying my name in a gravelly voice that spoke of approval and desire.

Soon, Connor was grasping my shoulders, pulling me up from the floor, and I complied. The ache between my legs responded immediately to his hands, which had fallen to my breasts as his mouth retook mine. I was wet and aching with need, and I nearly crumpled to the floor when Connor stopped, biting out, “Be right back.”

I watched as his round, perfect ass moved away from me, the strong muscled legs carrying him through a doorway on the far side of the room. I stood still in front of the window, feeling cold and desperate. He said he’d be right back.

He returned, holding a foil packet in his long fingers. “Sorry,” he said, pulling me against his body again. “I knew I had one somewhere.”

I took the packet from him and opened it, rolling the condom down the length of him as he watched.

“God,” he whispered, picking me up when I was finished and pulling me against him, my clit pressed against his stomach and his erection pressing up the line of my ass. He walked me back to the edge of the table and set me down, his mouth devouring my neck as his fingers played at my entrance. “You’re dripping,” he breathed.

I grasped the firm length of him, guiding his tip to my center, and pressed myself forward. I moaned, and he pressed inside slowly. His delicious size filled me, stretching me and meeting