One Chance(8)

We moved for each other, urging our bodies to work as one. I could feel my body vibrating as the waves of pleasure came faster and faster. William’s pace hurried and I knew he was close. I grabbed him and pulled him in even further, squeezing him inside me like I was drinking him in. His forehead pressed against mine, our eyes just an inch apart. The waves crashed inside of me and around him, urging William until he couldn’t resist any longer. Our bodies shuddered and jerked together, just the way I had wanted.

As the aftershocks rippled through our bodies, William kissed me as sweetly as I had ever been kissed and pulled out of me gently. He rolled onto his back next to me and pulled me with him. I leaned over him, my hair trailing over his face as I kissed him softly on the lips, slowly grappling with the idea that this wonderful man was mine.

“What’s wrong?” William asked as he brushed my hair out of my eyes.

“Nothing.” But that wasn’t entirely true. “I’m sorry I’ve been so impossible.”

William stroked my hair all the way down my back. “What do you mean? You haven’t been impossible.”

“Yes, I have. I pushed you away so many times.” I sighed and pressed my cheek to his chest, calmed by the steady beating of his heart. “I just wasn’t ready yet.”

“Ready for what?” William’s voice sounded hollow with my ear pressed to his chest.

“For you, I guess.” I lifted my head and thought about how to explain it so that he could understand. “Before I met Paul, I believed in love. Even after losing my parents, I still believed that I would find love someday. I don’t know if I ever really loved Paul, but after what happened with him, I started second-guessing everything. I stopped believing in the possibility of love, and I hated him for that. I wanted to be able to believe again, but I didn’t think it would ever happen. And then you came along…”

“And I rocked your world?” His lips curled into a dazzling smile and I nodded. That was putting it mildly, actually. “Welcome to the club, kid.”

“Have you ever been in love?” As much as I didn’t like the idea of William being in love with someone else, I also didn’t like the idea of him being lonely. He deserved to be happy.

“Besides right now? No.” William twirled my hair between his fingers. “After what happened to Chris, I had a hard time letting anyone into my life. I know how much it can hurt to lose someone you love, and I didn’t ever want to feel that way again.”

“So how do you explain this?” I asked, grazing my fingers through his thin chest hair.

“I thought I told you earlier.” He tilted my chin up so that he could see my face. “You’re worth it. All the pain in the world couldn’t keep me away from you. I’ve got the swollen knuckles to prove it.”

I kissed those knuckles and leaned into his hand when he cupped it around my cheek. “Are you really mine?” I whispered, still disbelieving.

“Forever and always,” he said definitively. “You’re my home, Olivia. The only place I ever want to be.”

William was my home, too. He was my family, my best friend, my everything. Now that I had William, nothing else in the world mattered. I just wanted to be with him, forever and always.

It took us several hours and another round of orgasms before we drifted to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, the sheets next to me were empty. I rolled over, still half-asleep, and found William sitting on the edge of the bed. He had been watching me sleep and didn’t seem at all embarrassed to have been discovered. I drank in the sight of him, marveling at the fact that even in his wrinkled T-shirt and boxer briefs, he looked positively delicious. He leaned over to kiss me good morning and I noticed that his hair was damp.

“You showered without me?” I pouted and stuck out my bottom lip. William caught it between his lips and nibbled it gently.

“I need to go in to the office. We both know that when we shower together, not a lot of cleansing gets done.” William tapped my nose with his finger.

I sighed. He had a point. “True story. Will you be working all day?”

“Hopefully not.”

“I suppose you would like your shirt back?” I started to remove his dress shirt, which I had pulled around me in the middle of the night when I got cold.

William stopped me. “Leave it. In fact, stay right here. Don’t change anything. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“I’ll keep the sheets warm for you.” I stretched lazily and William’s eyes traveled from my toes up to the hem of his shirt and he groaned. I winked and said very sweetly, “Hurry back, dear.”