Our Now and Forever(57)

“I thought I was in charge,” she teased, relishing the feel of him hot and naked against her.

“I tried,” he answered before taking her mouth at the same moment he slid a hand between her legs. When he found her hot and ready he mumbled, “Thank God” against her mouth as he drove into her.

Snow’s entire world lit up at the same moment her eyes snapped shut and her body lit on fire. She stretched to accommodate him and the whole planet fell away. There was nothing but her and the man clenched between her thighs. She’d feared this wouldn’t be as good as it once was, but she never dreamed it could be this much better.

“Oh, Caleb,” she said as her hands slid down his sweat-slick back. “Oh my.”

She felt him nod in silent agreement, his forehead pressed to hers. Snow kissed his chest and his collarbone, the base of his neck and his strong jawline. His brittle scruff scratched her delicate skin, but she didn’t care. So long as she had him in her arms, and in her bed, Snow didn’t care about anything else.

The thought sent a brief shiver of panic through her mind before she shut it down. This wasn’t about losing her will to her libido. This was more than that.

“Snow,” Caleb said, her name like a prayer on his lips. She looked up to see him watching her, his shoulders strained. He was holding back. For her.

The look in his eyes told her everything she ever needed to know, and Snow handed over her heart as she always knew she would. Tightening her knees against him, she lifted her hips, meeting him stroke for stroke. They were kissing wildly, biting and nibbling and increasing the pace until Snow didn’t know if she could take any more.

With one last powerful drive, Caleb’s head dropped to her shoulder as a guttural sound ripped from his chest. Snow was cresting the wave as Caleb shuddered against her. As they went over the edge together, she was already looking forward to the next round.



Caleb struggled to hold his weight on his arms. He didn’t want to crush Snow, but his muscles were on fire. As was the rest of him.

“I hope you don’t mind if I catch my breath before we do that again,” he said, rolling onto his back and pulling his wife with him until she lay sprawled along his front. “I’m more out of shape than I thought.”

Snow blew a mass of damp curls off her forehead, then dropped her chin onto his sternum. “If this is out of shape,” she said, “I’m not sure I could handle you fit.” The source of his ego jolted against her stomach, resulting in one raised dark brow. “Someone’s caught his breath already.”

He laughed, which threatened to throw her off him. Caleb caught Snow under her arms and pulled her higher on his chest. With a deep sigh of satisfaction, he twisted a curl around his finger. “I missed you,” he said in lieu of the other three words brimming to get out. A temptation that took him by surprise.

There was no doubt that he cared for, and physically wanted, his wife. They’d exchanged “I love yous” after their nontraditional wedding, but neither had ever made the declaration in a moment like this. A moment, he now realized, that really mattered. What would she say if he spoke the words now? She’d pointed out that their future was still undecided. Bringing love up at a time like this would get her thinking, and that was the last thing he needed.

The precariousness of Caleb’s position bore down on him. She’d run from him once, and there were still no guarantees she wouldn’t call things off for good. He could refuse to accept her decision for only so long. Eventually, if she really wanted out, he’d have to honor that.

And doing so would tear him apart.

Feeling vulnerable wasn’t something Caleb had much experience with. The morning he’d awoken to find Snow gone was the last time he’d felt anything akin to the uncomfortable frisson of fear currently poking at the back of his eyeballs. He’d determined right then and there that once he found her, she would never leave him again. A bold decision for someone who clearly had no more control over his wife than he did over the weather.

He didn’t then. And he didn’t now.

Which put a remarkable amount of power in his wife’s dainty little hands.

“Earth to Caleb,” Snow said. “Did I fry your brain?”

Shaking his head, he dropped the curl to wrap his arms around her. “Singed maybe,” he joked, sliding the previous thoughts to the back of his mind. “The last thing I want to do is get off this bed, but there’s something I need to throw away.”

Her face scrunched up in the cutest way. “You go do that,” she said, shifting herself onto the bed. Lying on her side with her head balanced on her hand, she said, “Don’t take too long.”