But it’s not enough.
I need to get closer.
“Lulu,” I breathe.
“Yeah?”
“Bring your knees up.”
She pulls them up higher, opening wider. “Like this?”
“Just like that.”
I adjust us so her legs drape over my shoulders, and this is fitting, this is how we’re meant to be together.
“I love this,” she murmurs, and the verb seeps into me.
Love.
With her under me, bent up and beautiful, I can control everything, including the revelation of the vintage of my emotions.
Because fucking her is everything.
It’s everything I imagined it to be.
And soon, we’re rushing, racing, chasing each other to the cliff.
She falls first, chanting my name, calling out God’s name, announcing her pleasure. Then it’s my turn, and I’m less coherent. I’m all grunts and sizzles as the wires crackle and pleasure burns, detonating in every cell in my body.
It’s enough to loosen the iron grip on my words.
A minute later, I’m holding her, stroking her hair as she murmurs sweet nothings.
That was incredible.
That was amazing.
That was so good.
And I whisper something that is wholly and wonderfully true. “I’m so in love with you.”
30LULU
I wear my heart on my sleeve.
I am the girl who believes in big, messy, beautiful love.
The kind that glows, spills over, and shines like a treasure chest rich with rubies, rife with sapphires.
I’m not scared.
I’m not afraid of feeling love again.
Because this—the way I want to curl myself around this strong, sensitive man, the way I want to smother him in kisses and sling quips in his direction and make him spicy peppers and run my hand over his sandpaper stubble and discover all the things going on inside his head—is new.
I don’t want to compare men. I don’t want to balance and weigh loves.
Leo is everything I thought he would be.
Because I know him.
There’s no darkness to be revealed in the bright light of morning. There’s no madness that’ll seep through the cracks.
Leo is who he says he is. The ingredients that comprise him are the ones I want most in the recipe for a man to love—he’s loyal, he’s kind, he’s funny, he’s caring. And he’s sober.
Also, he’s one hell of a fiend in the sack.
I climb over him, cup his cheeks, and look into his soulful brown eyes. “I’m so in love with you.”
He smiles at me from the inside of his soul. “Yeah?”
I drop a kiss to his nose. “Yes. So much yes. It’s crazy and wonderful, and I’m kind of ridiculously in love with you. How the hell did this happen?” I burst into laughter. “Someone tell me how this happened. It’s fantastic!”
He laughs, threads a hand in my hair, and tugs me close for a kiss. “It was time.”
I furrow my brow, my laughter ceasing like a faucet has turned it off. “What do you mean, ‘It was time’?” Something sounds portentous in his words, and I flash back to my mother’s comment—years in his eyes.
Has he always?
