Page 39 of The Snuggle Is Real

He’s worshipful. Equal parts gentle, and rough when it calls for it. He makes me come, over and over, with his tongue, his fingers, his cock. I’m open and in agonized bliss, amazed at how right and real it feels to have him buried deep inside of me.

I lose track of how many times I cry out his name and how many times he tells me I’m incredible.

Finally, he gives a final shudder and eases himself down beside me.

We both pant. We stare up at the ceiling.

I don’t know about him, but I ponder my life and all my choices.

We could have been doing this for fifteen years.

It’s a lot to contemplate.

The quilt is half on the floor with the pillows. Malcolm uses my hand to pull me up and over, until I'm lying across his chest exactly the way I woke up this morning.

That was an accident. This is so very intentional.

God, I love this man.

His fingers are in my hair. Slow, idle circles. Outside, the wind moves through the trees on Rye Road, and somewhere far off, a dog is barking. I'd bet money it's Barrel, protesting the kennel. Ian’s house is right on the other side of the town square.

"You okay?" he asks, into my hair.

"I'm great." I am. That's the terrifying part. "You?"

"I think I need to sit down."

That makes me laugh. "You're actually lying down, if you didn’t notice."

"I need to sit down anyway." He presses a kiss to the top of my head. "Fifteen years, Emily."

"I know."

"I could have just said something. At that stupid table in Brentwood."

"So could I." I trace a lazy line down the center of his chest. "But you were moving to Chicago. And I was starting at that hotel chain and was miserable about it. And we were twenty-two and we were idiots."

"We were idiots," he agrees.

"Two peas."

He laughs, and I feel it under my cheek more than I hear it.

“We didn’t want to rock the boat,” I murmur. “And that wasn’t a bad thing. Our friendship was so important to me. I couldn’t risk losing that.”

“Me either,” he says gruffly, his voice low.

It doesn't take long for his breathing to slow. His hand stills in my hair. Malcolm Lennox, who wheezes delicately and swears he doesn't, falls asleep the way he does everything—decisively, all at once.

I don't.

I lie there with my ear over his heart and listen to it, steady and slow now, and I look at the leaf-shaped key on the nightstand, and my phone, which isn't mine tonight. It's his. He's holding mine in the pocket of his jacket across the room, and somewhere in it are a hundred unanswered emails from brides who need me.

Tomorrow is the wedding.

Sunday, I go back to Nashville. To my apartment, and Bill the DoorDash driver.

Malcolm goes back to his house with the porch swing he's never sat on.