My head fell softly against his, our foreheads meeting, and we sat there, breathing each other in. I had never been so full, in every sense of the word.
"Jesus, Kenz," he whispered, his hands grasping at my shoulders, holding me down.
"Hayes, I need to move," I whimpered.
"Just give me a second. If you move right now, well, this will all be over before it really starts."
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my mouth to his. As the kiss built, so did my need, and my hips moved to give me any kind of relief I could find. I rocked back and forth slowly on him, trying to give him the time he needed, but also trying to simply put out the fire that was quickly burning through me.
One of his hands moved from my shoulder down to my ass, holding me even closer, which only added more friction to my clit.
"Oh, my God," I cried, my mouth still pressed against his, but neither one of us were kissing anymore. I was clinging to him, grasping at his skin as my hips ground against him. The feeling of his cock inside me and the electricity of my clit rubbing against him in just the right way, were sending me into a stratosphere I'd never been to before. "Hayes," I whimpered, "I'm gonna come." I sounded afraid, and I partly was. Afraid of the enormity of what I was feeling. I was dangling on the precipice of the most powerful orgasm I'd ever had and the panic of feeling too much was definitely overwhelming, but not strong enough to stop me.
"I've got you," he said, still using his hand to make sure I was feeling everything I could.
"Hayes," I moaned. His hand tightened on my shoulder. Then, my entire body lit up. My core clenched around him as waves of pleasure rocketed through me. I grasped at him, trying to hold on as my entire body gave out on me. His hands wrapped around me and held me close to him, and I simply tried to breathe through my release.
After a few long moments of settling, of breathing and trembling, I finally came back around, and that's when Hayes picked me up and twisted, laying me on my back again.
"That was fucking amazing," he said, smiling down at me. I smiled back, lazily, but then gasped as he pulled out of me just slightly, then pushed back in. He smiled even wider, thrust just a little bit harder, and everything after that became one blurry and continuous form of sensual torture.
It was as if my body were so aware it was him, so thankful Hayes was the one inside me, it refused to come back down from the plateau. Everything felt magnificent. Every nuance was accentuated. A kiss on my neck wasn't just a kiss; it was a match on the wick of a firework. The caress of his hand against my skin damp with sweat was a boat crashing through the waves of a storm at sea. Every single thing about being with Hayes was magnified and exponentially better.
He took his time with me, almost as if he were trying to make up for all the time we'd lost, but I wasn't complaining. Nearly every fantasy I'd had about Hayes was fulfilled. He used me in a way that made me feel delicate, and he tossed me around, taking whatever he wanted in that moment. He made love to me, he fucked me, and everything in between.
In the end though, when he finally found his release, he was back on top of me, his lips to mine, and his hand cradling my face.
"This is us. Forever," he whispered as he shivered, the cold air in the room making our damp skin pebble. "It'll never be long enough, but I'll give you everything I can."
"I don't need anything but you."
Epilogue
Hayes
It'd been a little over one year since McKenzie had allowed me back into her life, even though I didn't deserve her. I'd gone back to Bellingham with every intention of trying to win her back, but also with the expectation that she'd turn me away-with good reason. So, when she took me back in the most gracious way, without one single instance of holding my past against me or using our time apart as a weapon, I never took it for granted.
Tomorrow she would graduate from college and I was so proud of her. School wasn't hard for her-she flew through every class she took-but she had this drive that amazed me. Her mom and dad were coming down to watch her ceremony and then to take us out for dinner. The surprise was that my mom was coming with them.
About a year after my mother and I had been in Montana, when she'd seemed stable and I'd had some counseling of my own, I told her about McKenzie. I told her everything. I'd done it in her therapist's office, hoping for the best but knowing it might have been a trigger for a setback, and I wanted to do it the best way for my mom. At first, after listening to my story, she cried. It took nearly ten minutes for her to calm down enough to explain that she wasn't crying because my and McKenzie's relationship upset her, but more so because she felt responsible for the outcome.
From that day forward she'd been my biggest cheerleader and tried to convince me every day to go back for McKenzie.
I'd dated other women in Montana, each one a desperate attempt to cover a wound, to try and force myself to move on even though I knew, so very deep down, it was impossible. My mom had been polite and kind to each one, but never missed an opportunity to tell me I was being an idiot for trying to make myself forget about McKenzie.
They hadn't seen each other since four years prior, but I knew my mom was anxious to wrap her arms around her, to see her again, to feel that love she'd thought she'd lost. She'd always known McKenzie would be her daughter one day, and above everything else, she was so glad that hadn't been lost along with everything else. I wanted my mom there when I asked McKenzie to be with me for the rest of our lives.
McKenzie was asleep next to me, like she'd been every night since the first we spent together here. We both seemed to understand that there was no reason to be apart any longer. That first day, after our long walk through an entire night, we made love until neither one of us could move, and then the next morning she went to her house, loaded up her car, and moved in. Neither of us ever looked back.
I let my eyes wander over her, loving the way her wild hair was everywhere, the way her legs never stayed on her side of the bed, but also the way-even in sleep-she kept me close.
It was with the same surety I'd felt since my brother's party when I finally kissed her and confirmed what I'd thought was true-that she was the only one for me-the same certainty, that I knew she'd end the day wrapped around me, wearing my ring.
The End