A deep, heady pulse erupts in my spine, sending my body into a wave of euphoria.
Somewhere in the hazy moments right after, I hear him shucking his jeans, and then he’s standing before me, giving me my first uninhibited view of his body. I admire his size as he lines his powerful thighs up with mine, his palms hot and forceful as they seize my hips.
Only when he pushes into me, when my body stretches around him, welcoming him, and his hips are already moving, do I finally remember.
“Wait.” My God. Why can’t I seem to think straight when I’m with him? “Did you bring anything with you?” The only condoms in my drawer are surely expired.
“It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?”
If diseases were the concern, yes. I hesitate, not wanting to ruin the moment. “I’m not on any birth control.”
His hips stall, his focus drifting from my face down to our current predicament.
I search for a hint of annoyance in Tyler’s expression, but I see only curiosity. “There was no risk the last time.” Unlike Vicki, I’ve always been aware of my cycle and able to tell the signs. “I haven’t been on it in years.” All the Lehr women have struggled with hampering side effects. I relied on an IUD while I was with Jonathan, but never replaced it with a new one when the old one was removed. There was no need.
“And now?”
“It’s pretty risky,” I admit sheepishly.
His mood is unreadable as he studies my face for a long moment, his chest heaving with shallow breaths.
And then he leans down to kiss me again, his lips supple and affectionate as they pry mine open. I prepare for him to slip out, but instead he whispers, “Do you want me to stop?”
“Well, no.” I laugh, my hands smoothing over his jaw, the moment oddly intimate, even on my dining table. “I never want you to stop this.” If I can feel like this every day for the rest of my life, I’d die happy.
His lips catch the corner of mine in a teasing caress.
And then his hips start moving again, a slow grind.
“Tyler.” My warning is weak as my hips curl into him.
“I can pull out right before.”
I chuckle. “And if that foolproof method doesn’t work?”
He sets his forehead against mine. “Then it doesn’t work.”
I push his face back to get a good look, to make sure I understand him, and make sure he understood me.
He seems to be searching for the same answer in mine. “Tell me that’s not what you want, Marie. Tell me you don’t want that with me.” Vulnerability shines in his gaze.
I open my mouth to say … what? Every day that I spend with this man, every detail I learn about him, I fall harder. In my gut, I already know I want this—all of it. Tyler, sitting beside me at the dinner table; Tyler, stripping me down the moment we step inside our home; Tyler, next to me when I wake, whether it’s in my bed or in the frigid Alaskan tundra.
Tyler, loving me.
And, fate willing, a chance at what I’ve started believing I would never experience.
Tyler knows all my secrets, he knows what I want, and he’s not shying away from any of it.
At this moment, I know there is nothing I want more than him. All of him.
“Then it doesn’t work,” I echo, granting permission of sorts.
In seconds, he’s collected me in his arms and lifted me off the table to carry me to my bed. My body feels like it’s about to erupt beneath his weight and his hot skin as he climbs on top of me, even as my mind grapples with what’s happening, with what I’ve agreed to.
Tyler completely takes over, pinning my arms above my head, his hips thrusting against mine without any hesitation. Soon, I’ve dismissed any concerns that dare poke at my conscience, and I’m rocking my hips to meet his, our bodies moving together in an erotic dance full of unspoken promises, our lips never breaking, all the way to the end.
Our cries meld in the quiet night.
I welcome each pulse of Tyler inside me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I note the red Honda Civic in the parking lot as I push through the clinic’s front door.
“See? Click there.” Mom and Cory are behind the desk, Mom squinting at the computer screen through her thick-rimmed bifocals while Cory hovers over her shoulder, explaining the booking system we installed years ago.
A plate of home-baked muffins sits on the desk counter, as it always did on Monday mornings when Mom sat behind that desk. The scene brings a wave of nostalgia. “Morning,” I call out in a singsong voice that’s very unlike me. But the high I’ve been floating on since my eyelids cracked this morning shows no sign of abating.