Cora Carmack - Keeping Her

Bliss cleared her throat, and my eyes went back to her. To her mouth. Her chest. The small of her waist that seemed perfectly sculpted to fit in my hands.

She was the ultimate game changer. I hadn’t known what it was like to meet a person so full of joy that just by being near her, I was elevated to a happier place. I’d never been with someone who was able to captivate every part of me—­mind, body, and soul.

Body, of course, being my primary focus at the moment.

Her bottom lip stuck out, calling to me, and she said, “How long are you going to make me stand here naked while you’re fully clothed?”

I took a seat on the toilet, and smiled cheekily up at her. I leaned back, laying one leg across my other knee, and said, “I could do this all day.”

And I wasn’t lying. I wanted to study her, to memorize her, to be able to close my eyes and see her perfectly as she was.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, well, it might be a little awkward if I were to stay naked all day. Though it would make going through airport security much simpler.”

I barked a laugh, and she added, “Wasn’t your goal to distract me and make me less self-­conscious? You’re falling down on the job, Mr. Taylor.”

Well, I couldn’t have that, now could I?

I gripped her waist and pulled her forward until my chin brushed the skin just below her belly button. She shivered in my arms, and the reaction sent my blood screaming through my veins. I let my lips graze her just slightly and said, “You have nothing to be self-­conscious about.”

Her hands laced into my hair, and she looked down at me with glazed eyes. Firmer this time, I dragged my lips over her belly button and up to the valley made by her ribs. I tasted flour on her skin even here, and smothered a laugh.

Above me, she sighed and said, “You’re back on track with that distracting thing.”

Suddenly impatient, I stood and pulled my shirt over my head. I was rewarded with a breathy sigh and a bitten lip that made it incredibly hard not to be cocky. And not to take her right then.

She swallowed, drawing my eyes to her neck. God, I didn’t know what it was about her neck, but it was constantly my undoing. I felt like a teenage boy, wanting to mark that pale, unblemished skin as mine again and again. I brushed a thumb over her pulse point, and she swallowed again, her eyes wide. I laced my fingers through her sleep-­addled curls, and tilted her head back.

“How about now?” I asked.

If she was even half as distracted as I was, I’d say I’d done my job. Her eyes pulled away from my bare chest and she said, “Uh . . . what?”

I laughed, but the sound stuck in my throat when her slim fingers smoothed from my chest down to the waist of my pajama bottoms. Her fingers curled around the band, and I swallowed. Looking down, I could see the way her curves reached out toward my body, and I wanted nothing more that to seal our bodies together.

Before I completely lost my train of thought, I said, “No more worrying about my mother, right?”

For either of us.

She gave me a half-­glazed glare.

I used one hand to pull her closer, and the other to cup her breast. Then I repeated, “No more worrying.”

“Do you promise to do this every time I do worry?”

I gave a quick pinch to the tip of the breast in my hand. She flinched, and then moaned. Her eyes fluttered closed and her body swayed toward mine.

She breathed, “No worrying.”

And I thought, Thank God.

Because I couldn’t wait another second.

I crushed my lips against hers, wishing for the hundredth time that I could just permanently affix our mouths together. Every part of her tasted divine, but her mouth was my favorite. It was so easy to lose myself in kissing her, mostly because I could tell she was doing the same. Her body pressed against mine, and her fingernails dug into my shoulders like she was dangling off a cliff, and that was the only thing holding her up. The harder I kissed her, the harder her nails bit into my skin. I trailed a hand from her neck down the line of her spine, and her mouth broke away from mine. She shivered in my arms, her eyes closed.

I leaned my forehead against hers, and pulled her bare chest to mine. Between the shower steam and her skin, our tiny bathroom felt like a furnace. I never would have thought I could feel such peace while my heart hammered and my skin burned, but that’s what she brought me. I’d always thought love was this complicated, messy, frankly ugly thing. Possibly because, growing up, I’d not had much of an example for what a relationship should be. I didn’t know it could be any other way. But Bliss chased away the gray and made everything seem black and white. No matter the question, she was the answer.

She was my everything—­the lungs that allowed me to breathe, the heart that had to beat, the eyes that let me see. She’d become a part of me, and all that was left was a piece of paper to tell the world we were as inseparable as I already felt we were.

It was just a piece of paper. The feeling mattered so much more, but a part of me sang with nervous energy demanding we make it official. Soon. It was the same part of me that worried about how Bliss would react to my family . . . to the way I grew up.

She stepped out of my arms, biting down on her already red and swollen bottom lip. Then she pulled back the shower curtain and stepped into the tub.

I hated the fear that chased the heels of my love for her.

Despite the fact that our relationship had begun in the most troubling and impossible situation—­between teacher and student—­things had been almost perfect since then. A rose-­tinted world.

But it couldn’t stay that way. Logic, reality, and a lifetime knowledge of my mother made me certain of that. The feeling always came out of nowhere. I’d be watching her, touching her, kissing her, and then suddenly, for one infinitesimal moment I’d feel like it was all about to come crashing down. Like we were balanced on a precipice, it felt inevitable that eventually we would fall. I didn’t know how it would happen. Her insecurities. My stubbornness. The interfering hand of fate (or family). But for a few seconds, I could feel it coming.

Then always, she would pull me back. Those seconds of inevitability and uncertainty would dissolve in the sheer magnitude of my feelings for her. The doubt would be erased by the touch of a hand or the quirk of a smile, and I would feel like we could hold off that fall for forever and a day.

She did it again, peeking one last time around the shower curtain wearing nothing but a smile. I heard the water pattern change and knew she’d stepped under the stream of the shower. So I pushed my worries away in favor of a much more pleasant use of my time.

I kicked off the last of my clothing and joined her in the steam. We weren’t in London yet, and I wasn’t going to let fear steal another second of perfection from my grasp.

As long as we both kept pulling each other back, we’d make it. We’d keep our rose-­tinted world.

Bliss

OUR MORNING IN the shower turned into a morning back in bed, and that miraculous man loved every ounce of stress from my body. Seriously. I think his tongue had some kind of special ability to melt my bones because I felt so relaxed that I was practically liquid. Just call me Alex Mack.

“That, Mr. Taylor, was a very good answer to my question.”

His fingertips tickled the back of my knee and his mouth moved lazily across my shoulder. I shivered as he said, “What was the question again?” The hand on my knee trailed up the sensitive skin on the inside of my thigh. “I got distracted.”