Page 37 of Creeping Beautiful

“That’s because I was here. And you knew I was here. And you didn’t come back to me.”

She relaxes against my chest and breathes for a few moments. “I needed you to come back to me.”

“I wasn’t the one who left.”

She sits up in my lap. “Really?” Her eyes are locked with mine. But then she frowns and a stab of panic washes through my body. I don’t want her to remember. I don’t want her to know any of the shit she’s forgotten.

I reach up and grab her hair. Pull her face to mine. And I kiss this creeping beautiful girl the way she should be kissed.

I kiss her the way a man kisses a woman he’s spent several lifetimes dreaming about.

I kiss her the way a woman made of messy, lovely darkness needs to be kissed on a stormy night.

I kiss her like a man who accepts all the pieces of gorgeous misery locked inside her heart.

I kiss away all her pretty little nightmares until there is nothing left but emptiness.

And then I just… fill her up again.

She moans into my mouth. Her tongue searching for things she’ll never be able to find. Her soft lips lingering on mine like this connection is the last thing she’ll ever feel before she dies.

“Take me into your bedroom, McKay. Before you change your mind.”

I wrap my arms around her and stand up. Her legs immediately grip my waist and I slip my hands under her ass and hold her as I walk down the hall and into the dark bedroom.

I don’t flip on the lights. We need the darkness tonight. We might need the darkness every night after this too.

I lie her down on the bed and paw at the waistline of her sweats, jerking them down her legs. And when the back of my hand touches the soft, young skin of her thigh my cock swells inside my jeans.

I toss her sweats aside and she reaches for me. But I step out of her reach and just bend her knees—slowly hiking them up to her chest as I lower myself to the floor and press my mouth against her pussy. Wet, and warm, and waiting for me.

All these years. Waiting for me.

My hands reach around her legs. I tug her forward to the edge of the bed and then my thumbs begin caressing small circles over her hipbones.

She arches her back and moans, her fingers digging into my hair, clutching at it like she’s falling and I’m the only thing that can save her.

I wish that were true. I want to be the one who saves her.

But I can’t change that. Only she can. I lick her. Flick my tongue against her clit until she lets go of my hair, slips her fingers up my short sleeves, and begins clawing at my shoulders with her fingernails.

I shove her shirt up her stomach, reaching for her tight, round breasts, then roll her nipples between my thumb and forefinger.

She moans. “I want you inside me, McKay. Now, please.”

And my heart hurts for her.

For all the bad things coming, even though they’ve already happened.

For all the tears she will cry, even though she sobbed herself dry years ago.

For all the memories that will be ruined, even though they haven’t even been made yet, and never will now.

I pull away from her, unbuttoning and unzipping my jeans as I stand. I kick my jeans off, push her up towards the top of the bed, and then ease my body between her open legs. The top of my cock pushes against her opening as I brace myself on the mattress with open palms and lean down to kiss her mouth again.

I want to give her all the breath she will need to get through the pain. And when I enter her, she gasps into my mouth, giving it back.

“Take it,” I tell her. “Take all of it and all of me, Indie. It’s yours. I’m yours.”