Beard Up(34)

Couldn't fucking think.

All I could do was feel.

Remember.

Taste.

She fisted my shirt, and I took it for the demand that it was and shrugged out of it.

My cock was throbbing, pulsing with heat and need. Feeling her so close, knowing that what I'd wanted for so long was nearly mine for the taking … that was a heady feeling.

I wanted to rush. I wanted to go so slow that I could savor every single second.

I wanted to devour her.

But then her hands touched the bare skin of my chest, and my breath hitched. 

"I should've demanded to see your body." Her hands ran over the rough ridges of damaged skin on my chest. "I wanted to … but everyone convinced me that I didn't need to see that."

She didn't.

I didn't even want her to see the aftermath now.

"You were so hurt," she whispered. "Oh, God. Tun. God."

Tears continued to slip out of the corner of her eyes, and she couldn't say anything without her voice wobbling.

But she was doing better than me. I couldn't even fucking speak.

The fact that she was here, underneath me, was so surreal that I couldn't make my brain work.

"You needed me, and I wasn't there," she whispered brokenly.

I brought my hand up to her face.

"You needed me, and I wasn't there," I countered back. "I watched you cry into that stupid cat's fur every night, wishing that it was me there instead of her. Wishing that I had something to offer you that wouldn't kill you if I did."

Her eyes closed, and when she opened them again, she was still crying.

Her eyes, so freakin' bright right now that I never wanted to look away, pulled me right in.

And then, there was nothing but us.

Nothing but the way she felt. Smelled. Sounded.

She caught the change, and our mouths met in a tangle of tongues and teeth.

I bit down lightly on her lip causing her to hiss in a sharp breath.

"Don't be soft and gentle," she ordered.

Too late. That was all I'd wanted for so long that I would settle for nothing else, and I think she sensed that.

My hands went to her hips where her small scrub top seemed to swallow her upper half.

"I've let myself go," she whispered. "I had no one left to impress."

I moved my hands up, pushing her shirt with it.

She raised her arms high over her head and let me pull the top off.

Pens, medical scissors, and her cell phone clattered to the floor, but neither one of us reached for them.

"I don't care if you have to roll around on the floor to get to where you need to go, I'd love you still," I informed her, dropping a kiss to her collarbone.

She lifted her hands to my sunglasses, ones I hadn't noticed that I still had on, and slowly drew them off my face.

The moment she got the first good look at my eyes, her eyes once again started to spill over with tears.

"I've missed you so much," she sniffled.

I pulled her to my chest, her breasts pillowing against my sternum, and I forgot how to breathe.

The next few minutes happened fast.

My remaining clothes were discarded, followed by hers.

She didn't question taking my holstered gun off, nor did she put it where I couldn't get to it easily if needed. She knew me, and knew me well. She'd also done the same damn thing almost every time I came off shift whether she was awake or not. We woke up for each other, and always helped each other get undressed.

So, this moment where we were taking each other's clothes off for the first time in a long time, it was so sweet and tender that it was hard for either one of us to not lose it.

And when she was fully naked, I didn't see the small pooch of her stomach where she carried our child. I didn't see the stretch marks, or the changes in her body and face from time passage. I just saw her. My Mina. My everything.

I maneuvered to my back and pulled her down on top of me, using the spread of our clothes as a blanket as I went.


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She followed me, straddling my hips with her legs and forcing me to remain still as she climbed onto me.

Her mouth came down on mine, and I lifted both hands to move the hair back out of our faces.

With one hand fisted in her hair holding it back, the other started to shift down her side, feeling her, breathing her in. Remembering every inch of her body and becoming reacquainted with the thing I'd craved most over the last six years.

"I've missed you so much," I couldn't help saying again against her lips. "I feel like I'm in a dream."

Her eyes opened, and she stared at me, eyes so full of love, that I wanted to squeeze her to me and never let go.

"I love the beard," she whispered, running her hands along the rough hair that covered my jaw. "But most of all, I love having your eyes."