I grin back at him and chase his touch, placing my hand over his to move him just the way I like. “Earn it.”
His laugh is a rough thing, breathless with the way he’s still moving against me. He collapses on one arm and tangles his free hand in my hair. He rolls his hips harder, staying deep.
“I’ll take whatever you’ve got,” he tells me. His fingers curl into a fist in my hair and he kisses me like he doesn’t want to do anything else, ever again.
Just this.
Me and him.
It sneaks up on me, the bright burst of rolling pleasure. It licks up my spine and I arch beneath him, a laugh caught in the back of my throat. I’ve never felt like this. Not ever. Stardust, it feels like, right in the center of my chest.
He keeps moving through it—frantic and without his smooth control—and I’m too occupied with the fuzzy lightness in my limbs to do anything but hold on as he chases his pleasure. He shudders and freezes against me, hands grasping, mouth working soundlessly against my neck. Everything settles in soft waves of pulsing warmth, my body perfectly, deliciously worn out.
I blink up at the sky above me, the tree branches dancing in the light breeze. I smooth my palm down his back. Beckett drops his forehead against mine and breathes out my name.
“I hope your plan includes carrying me back to the house,” I yawn, the back of my hand pressed against my mouth. Every bit of me feels stretched and sated. Lazy. “Because I don't plan on moving.”
He presses up on his elbows. His eyes are soft, his touch even softer. He brushes a kiss to the tip of my nose.
“I’m not carrying anything.” He collapses at my side, eyes heavy and smile loose. “Let’s just lay here. One more minute.”
“Alright,” I yawn again, a shiver racing down my arms. He chases it away with his palm against my skin, urging me closer. “One more minute.”
We lay there much longer than a minute.
Eventually, Beckett bundles me up in my sweatshirt and carries me on his back on our trek back to the house, his hands hooked under my knees and his palms rubbing at my thighs. With my arms looped over his shoulders, he makes quick work of it, pointing out different constellations as we go. Andromeda and her chains. Taurus and his mighty horns. A million stars and a million stories. I bury my nose in his neck and drift to the sound of his rumbling voice.
I startle out of my lull with his boots against the steps of the porch, his hands adjusting his grip to dig in his pocket for his keys. I begin to slip sideways and he lets out a muffled curse, placing me carefully on my feet. I yawn and dig my fists into my eyes as he unlocks the door, dragging my fingers through my hair. I snort when several twigs and some blades of grass fall to the porch, remnants from our time in the field.
Maybe this is what happy is supposed to be. A person, a place. A single moment in time. Beckett in the hallway helping me untangle the sweatshirts from around my shoulders. A family of cats jostling for our attention as we trip into the kitchen. Tea in the kettle on the stovetop and two mugs sitting side by side right next to it.
I collapse onto one of the stools lined up against the countertop and watch him move around the kitchen, settling into the warmth expanding in my chest.
“What’re you thinking about?” he asks, hands busy with a tin of tea. He hands me the honey before I can ask and there it is again, that flutter right beneath my ribs.
I shake my head and reach for a spoon. “Nothing,” I say. “Just watching you.”
He hums like he doesn’t believe me, a smile hidden behind the lip of his mug. We sit there at the counter and drink in the calm quiet of the house. We watch the cats bat around a ball of string and I rest my forehead against his shoulder, his hand finding my thigh, fingers drumming.
A yawn creaks my jaw and Beckett noses at my hair, curling his fingers around my mug before I can drop it. He places it in the sink and comes back to me, bracing himself with his arms on the countertop. I find the galaxy on the inside of his bicep and trace the color.
“Come to bed with me,” he says, his voice a rough whisper. I lean into him until my chin is on his shoulder and the whole top half of my body is resting on his. I could fall asleep, just like this. It would probably be the best sleep of my life.
“I don’t think I have another round in me.”
Beckett shakes his head and guides me off the stool, directing me towards his room with a gentle pat on my ass.
“Neither do I,” he agrees. He drops a kiss to the back of my head and walks us forward, knees bumping against the back of mine. “I want to feel you next to me. Just sleep.”
I’m too tired to pretend that’s not exactly what I want, too. I twist my fingers through his and nod. “Just sleep sounds really nice.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BECKETT
I wake to Evelyn sprawled across me, her thigh tossed over my hips and her nose at my shoulder. I smooth my hand down her bare back and watch as she shifts closer, a single beam of morning light dancing down her skin. I chase the light with my touch, my thumb easing over brown skin and her nose scrunches, a huff in her sleep as she rolls and settles again.
I love how she looks beneath my sheets—the gentle curve of her hip and the dip at her waist. The graceful line of her arm across her bare breasts. She looks like a piece of art. Painted with oils and pressed into canvas with rough fingertips. Bold strokes of burnished gold and rich plum and deep, forest green.
Despite my insistence that all we’d do is sleep, I woke up before dawn to soft fingers grazing against my stomach, searching kisses in the dark. I had pulled her over me and touched her until she was breathless, hands tugging at my clothes. A lick of heat curls against the base of my spine as I remember the sound she made as I sunk into her that second time. A low moan. Pure, unadulterated relief.
Desire pulses hot and I dig the palms of my hands against my eyes until I see spots. I need to get out of this bed if I have any hope of getting anything done today. I still feel desperate for her, needy for her sounds and touches and body.
For the way she looks at me. For her laugh and smile and careful attention.
I flip back the blankets and slip from the bed, Evie immediately rolling into my space. I drop a kiss between her shoulder blades.
Her hand tangles briefly in my hair, a gentle tug and then a soothing rub with the pads of her fingers against my scalp. A deep, satisfied sound rumbles low in my chest. Evie grins into the pillow.
“Like a cat,” she mumbles.
I nudge my head further into her hand playfully and she pushes me away. “Pancakes,” she says with a sigh. “Bacon.” She still hasn’t bothered with opening her eyes.
“Alright,” I trace the swell of her cheek with my thumb. I want to bottle up this moment, her body soft and sweet beneath my sheets, the sounds of the house settling around us. Tree branches scratching at the windows and floorboards yawning in the hallway. “Let’s start with coffee and go from there.”
I’d make her pancakes and bacon and a fucking all-you-can-eat buffet—anything she wanted if she told me she wanted to stay. But I push that thought away as quickly as it enters my mind. Bury it deep. It’s wishful thinking in the worst of ways. Evie is too big to be contained by a place like Lovelight. Far too bright to be tucked away on a small-town farm. I won’t have her lose her shine because—because I can’t stand to see her go.