Tears filled my eyes and my heart started beating triple time.
“What’s happening here?” I whispered.
His head went back up and his hand came to frame my face, his thumb sliding out high across my cheekbone under my eye.
“Please don’t cry anymore, Ivey.”
I pulled in a trembling breath in an attempt to get a lock on it, succeeded in that endeavor and repeated, “What’s happening here?”
“I need you to know I don’t think you’re anything but Ivey.”
My head shook slightly with confusion and I asked, “Sorry?”
“You’re not anything but Ivey. Way those two guys got your back, you never have been.”
“I don’t…” I cleared my throat because my voice came out croaky, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t think you’re a whore. I don’t think you’re trash. I don’t think you’re anything but Ivey, the prettiest thing I ever saw seven years ago and seriously the prettiest f**kin’ thing I’ve ever seen five minutes ago wearin’ that f**kin’ nightie.”
My body froze under him and my eyes froze on his face.
Gray wasn’t done speaking.
“I loved you then. I love you now. I’ve loved you every day for seven years. You left, flashback to my Mom, flashback to my Dad pinin’ for my Mom. He loved her, Christ, he loved her. Ate away at him when she left. He never got it. Never. And that pain dug deep and grew bitter so when she came back he never forgave her. Three years they lived in the same town, he never forgave her. She came to his funeral and she looked crushed. She actually looked it. Like her world just ended and even now I see her and that haunts her eyes, what she lost, what she threw away, what she’ll never get back. And that was me when you left, Ivey. I knew it was happening to me, I felt it, I understood it, I lived it with my Dad and knew it was happening to me and I didn’t do f**k all to try to stop it.”
He couldn’t be serious.
This couldn’t be happening.
“You love me?” I breathed.
His eyes didn’t leave mine and the intensity didn’t leave his.
“Yeah.”
“You love me,” I stated.
“Yeah.”
“Every day for seven years?”
“Every day, every minute, every second since you blew on me.”
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
I stared into his eyes.
He was serious.
This was happening.
Oh my God.
Gray’s thumb slid across my cheekbone again and he said gently, “Now, you get that, can you relax so I can kiss you then I can f**k you then we can talk about important shit then I’m gonna f**k you again then we’ll go to sleep and while we do, we’ll cuddle.”
I stared at him again then whispered, “Say it.”
“Say what?”
“Order me to tell you I love you.”
The instant the words came out of my mouth, his eyes closed, a shadow of pain crossed his face and he dropped his head to the side of mine.
He remembered.
He missed that too.
He missed it badly just like me.
Then his hand found mine, his fingers laced tight and his lips went to my ear.
And there he whispered words I longed to hear for over seven long years, “Say you love me, Ivey.”
I turned my head, my arm stealing around him and I whispered back, “I love you, Gray.”
His head lifted, mine kept turning and we both went for it, our mouths colliding.
We had a lot of making up to do. Seven years.
And it was clear both of us had the same thing on our minds.
Desperate, even greedy, mouths taking, tongues driving, hands bumping into each others, I tore his shirt over his head then I yanked at his belt. Gray took over and I multitasked, moving down, pulling off his boots, his socks then tugging at the legs of his jeans.
Then he was naked, gorgeously na**d and hard, hard everywhere. He rolled back into me and, whoosh! My panties were gone then, whoosh! My nightie was gone and then we really went for it, driven, near frantic, like one or the other of us would disappear into thin air and we had only that moment then the next and the next.
Then Gray’s fingers between my legs were making me whimper into his mouth and my hand stroking his c**k was making him groan into mine and he shifted.
He lifted up, jerking me up as he went. He positioned me, my legs opened to straddle his hips, his arm was around my waist and he pulled me down on him, filling me.
Gray filling me, inside me, connected to me.
Yes.
My hands went into his hair, fisting, my head fell down, my forehead crashing into his and I rode him. Moving up, driving down, again, again with the same desperation we’d both had since we started. My mouth was against his, our breath mingled. I kept going and my mouth moved, lips open, tip of my tongue trailing, down his cheek, along his jaw.
God, I loved the taste of him.
Always did.
His hands slid up my back, gathering my hair, holding it at my neck in his fists, his arms tight around me as I kept riding him.
It didn’t take me long, it had been over seven years, it came fast and I gasped, “Gray.”
He heard it, knew it was coming and he twisted me. I landed on my back, he kept thrusting and his mouth came to mine as it swept through me, bright, burning, beautiful and I moaned my orgasm into his mouth. Then both his hands went behind my knees, jerking up and, still mewing through the glorious aftermath of my orgasm, I kept taking him, rocking my h*ps to take more of him, give more to him. He buried his face in my neck, grunting with each thrust, his hands shoving back my knees and I knew he was close.
“Baby, I wanna see,” I whispered and his head came up.
My hand moved to one of his, took it, he twisted his, laced his fingers with mine and pressed it into the bed beside me as he kept driving into me.
“Missed you,” I kept whispering, watching his face, drinking in his beauty. “Missed you so much, Gray.”
He held my eyes and kept moving as he whispered back on a groan, “My beautiful Ivey.”
“Missed you, honey.”
Then he gave it to me. His c**k drove deep, his head shot back then it fell forward, his forehead to mine and I watched it move through his face as his h*ps bucked into mine again, again, again, again and one last time before he stayed rooted and his weight hit me.
When I sensed it was fading for him I whispered yet again, “Missed you.”
Gray closed his eyes and then his head slanted and he kissed me, wet, deep, yes, God, yes, I missed him.