Worth the Wait (McKinney_Walker #1)(59)

In the dark and the quiet, they took the time to rediscover each other. This was not about the past, she thought. This was now. Two new people coming together, but still achingly familiar.

Nick caressed her, possessed her, took everything away except for him and them. He traced his fingers along her collarbone, over the swell of her breast and between. His hands were gentle, but his eyes grew hot with his deliberate seduction.

He covered her and took more, stripping her raw. He made it impossible to hold back, to keep any part of herself safe from him. She burned with his touch, felt his erection press hard between her legs as she clung to him with a desperation that frightened her. Was it the memory of her feelings the last time he’d made love to her like this or the lingering torrent of emotions whipping through her? The years of missing him, of loneliness.

Or could it just be him? Still, after all this time? She knew it was.

He closed his lips over her aching nipples, touched her everywhere she needed to be touched, but still didn’t give her everything. She wanted more, needed to be closer. Still afraid to let her heart feel this but wanting him badly enough to face the pain tomorrow.

“I’ve got you. I’m here.”

It was true. He had her. She felt every touch, every breath, as surely as if his teeth were scraping along her heart. With each beat, he kissed her longer, harder, deeper. He possessed her heart as surely as he possessed her body. Her breath caught, very near a cry, when he plunged into her. He thrust harder, faster, demanding she give him everything. Everything she had and the enormity of it had tears burning her eyes.

He raised her hands above her head on the mattress, twined their fingers tightly together. “Hold on to me.” Then he stole her breath and her mind.





* * *





AFTERWARD, THEY LAY TOGETHER, Nick’s fingers sifting slowly through her hair like she loved. The past was still there, hanging over them. Old hurts and some new ones. In the quiet, their bodies bare, their hearts stripped. Both painfully aware of what they’d lost but accepting they couldn’t go back.

They could only go forward to something new if they both chose to. But that would be the future, the great unknown. Before, they’d been young, there had been no fear or uncertainty. They’d come together with both their hearts whole, no bruises or wounds inflicted by life or each other. No regret or forgiveness. There was only love and discovery and more love.

She didn’t know what they could be now. She only knew what they had been, and her heart remembered every drop of blood shed when it had ended.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“It was a long time ago.” And she didn’t want to think about it right now. Her cheek on his warm chest and his fingers in her hair felt too good. However afraid she was to need him again didn’t change the fact that she needed him now.

“Not that, though there’s plenty to be sorry for. I meant the other morning. When you left. I hurt you, and I’m sorry. You don’t remind me of the bad, you just…” His hand paused on her head for a second, and she held her breath until it moved again. “I still wonder. I know I shouldn’t, but I still wonder how things might have been different. It doesn’t help to want to go back and undo it, but I do.”

“Nick—”

“No. That’s not all. I didn’t say everything I should or everything I wanted to. I didn’t know how. I still don’t.”

“I know.” She’d been scared for both of them to travel down an old road. Should have known before she ever walked into his kitchen that the past would be stirred up like muddy silt on the bottom of a pond. That was the problem. Their past was muddy, dirty. Bloody.

But he was here now, his hand stroking slowly over her back in apology and comfort. Always the protector. She’d loved that about him, his fierce need to protect. So much to love about this man. She’d fallen hard as a teenage girl, then even more as a woman. It terrified her to think of falling again.

“I’m sorry for before, too, Mia. More than you’ll ever know.”

He spoke slowly, his voice deep and filled with so much raw emotion. She’d never wanted to leave him, still made her sick to think about it, but they couldn’t ignore it. She shifted so they lay on their sides, facing. “I went back to the house a few days later,” she said softly, her heart squeezing at the memory of what she’d found. “I didn’t think you’d meant it.”

“And I thought you had,” he said so wearily she reached out for him.

There was regret on both parts. She’d never have left if she’d thought for one second he wanted her to stay. And even so, she wouldn’t have left Hannah. So she’d waited, stayed with a girlfriend from the hospital for a couple of days, waiting for Nick to come to his senses. Because it couldn’t be over, not them. Not Nick and Mia.