by Lili Valente
I have to tell Lark what I found. I have to show her.
There is no other choice.
By the time I find the evidence I hoped didn’t exist, Lark has already left with Mason for their fifth date. I debate calling her and telling her the truth over the phone, but decide it isn’t right to spring something like that on her when she’s alone with Mason, miles from home, with no one there to back her up if things get messy.
So instead, I send a text, warning Lark that I have some bad news and that she should come home as soon as possible.
And then I stick my phone in my pocket and wait.
Felicity gets up from her nap and we play in the backyard with her toys for over an hour, and I wait. I put on Blue’s Clues and whip up a lemon meringue pie for desert, while Melody makes chicken stir-fry for supper, and wait. I feed Felicity and give her a bath and spread out toys for her on the floor of our room while I fold clothes, and wait.
I read my daughter a bedtime story and put her to bed and go downstairs to read until Lark gets home, but Felicity’s eleven thirty feeding comes and goes and still Lark doesn’t respond to my text.
She doesn’t respond, and she doesn’t come home.
By twelve-thirty, I realize she’s not coming home at all and make my way slowly to bed where I end my day the same way I began it, lying staring at the ceiling, certain something terrible is about to happen.
Chapter 20
Mason
Date Five
The musical—a dark comedy about competitive table tennis that somehow manages to be fun to watch—is much less torturous than I was expecting. The mojitos and appetizers at Damon’s afterward are amazing, and the walk through downtown Atlanta as the street musicians play and the restaurants light up for the night is completely atmospheric.
Not that we need atmosphere.
We’re creating our own atmosphere.
All day long, Lark and I have been drifting through the world in a protective bubble. Nothing bad can trouble or touch us. Not traffic, not the hellish parking situation that led to paying forty dollars to park in a hotel’s garage, not the four-year-old behind us at the play who kept kicking our seats, not even the thunderstorm that blows through around eight o’clock, turning the sky dark just as we’re about to head back to Bliss River.
We’re too happy, too tipsy on mojitos and drunk on each other to let anything bring us down.
“It’s getting pretty nasty out there. Could make the drive home dangerous,” Lark says, eyeing the leaking sky from beneath the parking garage’s overhang. “Think it’s going to keep it up for a while?”
I tighten my arm around her shoulders. “I don’t know. If it gets too bad we can always pull over somewhere between here and there. Get a coffee or something and wait it out.”
“We could.” She hums beneath her breath.
A thinking hum.
“Yes?” I ask, smiling as she turns to look up at me, a mischievous light in her eye.
“I was thinking…” She leans closer, until her lips are only inches from mine and it is hard to think about anything but how much I want to kiss her.
“Yes,” I prompt again, when she lets the silence trail on.
“I was thinking that we’ve already paid for parking at the hotel, so…” She purses her lips. “Well, maybe it would be a good idea if we just went ahead and…got a room.”
“Got a room,” I repeat, wanting to make one hundred percent sure I heard her correctly, that my hopeful ears aren’t playing tricks on me.
She nods. “I’m ready to get a room. Aren’t you?”
“I am completely ready to get a room,” I breathe. “I can’t think of anything I’ve ever wanted more than getting a room with you. Ever.”
“Ever?” She gins wider.
“Ever ever,” I promise as I take her hand and start toward the entrance to the lobby.
A few minutes later, we’re at the front desk being booked into a room on the top floor. Not long after, we’re in the hotel shop buying toothbrushes and toothpaste and condoms.
Condoms. Because we’re finally going to be together. After all the years of dating and waiting and even more years spent living apart from the girl I love, wondering if this dream was ever going to become a reality, wondering if I’d ever be with Lark like this, it’s finally going to happen.
The ride up to our room seems to last a thousand years, and the walk down the hall a second thousand. But then, I’m sliding the key card into the slot and the green light on the door flashes—a sign if I’ve ever seen one—and we’re alone in a beautiful room with a view of the city sparkling twenty stories below, and nothing to do but get our clothes off and our hands on each other.
I put the bag from the shop on the nightstand and wander to the desk on the other side of the room before turning to face Lark, nervous. It’s hard to believe this is really happening.
She’s so beautiful, so good and fun and sweet and…mine.
Finally mine.
I want this night to be perfect. This isn’t just our first time together, but also, I hope, our last time sleeping with someone new. I never want to touch another woman. I want it to be Lark’s lips I kiss goodnight from tonight until the day they put me in the ground.
This is it, one of the biggest moments of my life, and I’m suddenly feeling the pressure.
And of course, she knows. She can sense it. She can read me like no one else ever could or ever will.
A smile gentles her lips. “Nervous?”
“No,” I lie.
She narrows her eyes. “Are you sure? Because you look a little nervous.” Before I can respond, her fingers move to the top of her red dress, slowly slipping the button at the top through its hole, robbing me of my capacity for speech.
“But there’s no reason to be,” she continues, undoing another and another, until she reaches the final button near her waist and the front of her dress gapes open, revealing a black satin bra, making my heart beat so fast I can feel it punching my ribs like a fist.
She holds my eyes as she reaches for the zipper on the side of her dress and drags it down with a smooth buzz that’s audible in the almost silent room. The only sounds are that zipper, the patter of rain on the windows, and the blood pumping too fast through my veins.
“I mean…” She begins bunching the skirt of her dress in her hands, revealing more curvy thigh with each passing second. “We’ve both done this before.”
I swallow, finally finding my voice. “No, we haven’t. Not together. And I never have, really, not with someone who matters the way you matter. I’m crazy in love with you, Lark March. Always have been, always will be.”
She pauses with her dress bunched so high I catch a glimpse of matching black panties. “Me, too,” she whispers, her eyes shining.
“So I think it’s okay if—” My words end in a swiftly drawn breath as she draws her dress over her head in one smooth motion.
The filmy red fabric floats to the ground between us, but my attention is all for Lark.
Lark, standing in front of me in nothing but a bra and tiny black panties that make her skimpy bathing suit seem modest in comparison, all her curves on display, every dip and hollow practically begging for my lips to explore them. The black satin emphasizes the pale beauty of her skin, making her seem to glow in the dim light.
She’s breathtaking, like something out of a dream, too beautiful to be part of the everyday world.
“You’re staring,” she murmurs, her fingers tangling together in front of her.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
She shakes her head, but her eyes don’t leave mine. “I need to lose fifteen pounds.”
“Bullshit. You’re perfect.” I cross to her in three long steps, gathering her into my arms, my pulse leaping as my hands find the soft skin where her waist begins to curve into her hips and squeeze just hard enough to make her eyes darken.
“You don’t need to lose a pound,” I continue
, drawing her closer, my hands skimming up and down her sides, from her hips to just under her breasts as I back her toward the bed. “In fact, I’d be angry if you did.”
“Is that right?” she asks in a breathy voice. Her knees hit the bed and she scoots on top, sliding back toward the pillows as I kick off my shoes and pull at my socks. “Well, I wouldn’t want to make you angry.”
“No, you wouldn’t. I’m a shit when I’m angry.” I quickly work open the buttons on my shirt, shrug it off, and reach for the bottom of my undershirt, tugging it over my head.
“You’re sexy when you’re angry,” she says, her chest rising and falling faster as her gaze skims down my chest to where my hands work at the close of my pants. “Your eyes do hot, flashy things when you’re angry.”
“Hot, flashy things?” Holding her gaze, I step out of my pants, wearing nothing but black boxer briefs that I know do nothing to conceal the way she affects me. I’ve never been this hard. Or wanted to be with a woman so much. And it isn’t just a physical want, it’s a soul deep need to get as close to this incredible, intoxicating, deeply-lovable person as I can get.
I adore her, and I can’t wait to show her how much.
“Yeah, just like that,” she whispers, reaching a hand toward me. “Now, get over here. I need to touch you. Everywhere.”
She doesn’t have to ask me twice. A second later, I’m on the bed with Lark beneath me, her arms wrapped around my neck as we come together for the first time in four long years.
Warm, soft skin, meets warmer, softer skin and for a second I forget how to breathe. Her kiss is an electrical storm sweeping through my nervous system, short-circuiting the usual pathways, leaving me to hack out a new way to feel, a new way to experience what she does to me.
Our mouths move slowly at first, testing, exploring, and then the tip of her tongue brushes across my bottom lip and slow is a thing of the past. Mouths open and heads angle and soon I’m lost in the taste of her, the feel of her mouth so alive against my own, the softness of her body as she squirms beneath me, hips lifting, legs parting to wrap around my waist, drawing me tight to the heat between her thighs.
I press against her, the thin barriers of my boxers and her panties too much, and not enough, at the same time.
“Wait,” I murmur against her lips before I pull away, putting a few inches of air between us. “Let’s slow down.”
“I don’t want to slow down,” she says, pulling at my shoulders, urging me closer once more. “I want you.”
“And I want you, you have no idea how much.” I reach behind her back to unhook her bra, using both hands, knowing I’m already too unsteady to manage it with just one. “But I have unfinished business.”
She arches her back, giving me easier access to the close of her bra, bringing her breasts within inches of my mouth in the process. I groan as I free the hooks from their clasps and draw the bra down her arms before tossing it to the floor.
There she is, bare to my mouth for the very first time. Back when we were dating, I touched her just about everywhere, but always under the bra or over the panties. We never let ourselves get more than partially undressed, knowing we wouldn’t be able to keep our promise to wait until we were engaged and living together if all our clothes came off.
But now…
Now…
I close my eyes for a second and open them again, still not completely sure this isn’t a dream. She’s even more beautiful than I imagined. Her full breasts are creamy white, and her nipples the palest shade of pink drawn into tight points that beg for me to taste them.
I drop my head, brushing kisses to the soft underside of her breast, bringing my mouth to hover above her nipple, circling the taught flesh with my tongue before drawing her into my mouth.
“God, Mason.” Her breath shudders out as she drives shaking fingers through my hair. “That feels… I can’t even describe it.”
I suck with a gentle pressure, teasing her with slow circles of my tongue until she whimpers and her fingers fist close to my scalp.
“Please,” she begs. “Please, Mason.”
“I’m not finished yet,” I say, ignoring the throbbing, bruised sensation between my legs. I want her so badly it’s painful, but I don’t want to rush. I want to take my time, make her as crazy as she makes me. I want her to come so hard the force of her orgasm banishes the memory of any man but me.
I might not be her first, but I’m going to be her last.
And I’m going to make sure tonight is a night neither of us will ever forget.
Chapter 21
Lark
I’m on fire, burning up from the inside out. There is no relief, only flames that build higher and higher as Mason tortures me.
Torture. It is torture.
But wonderful, sweet, mind-blowing torture.
My head falls back and my body arches into his mouth, forcing my breast into deeper connection with his lips, his tongue, his….teeth?
Oh, God, yes.
Yes, those are his teeth, raking over my nipple, sending an electric shock coursing through my body and the need building inside me spiraling even higher.
“Mason, please,” I moan, legs shifting on either side of his hips, wishing and aching and dying for him, all of him.
I’m so near the edge. I could probably come from rubbing against him through what little remains of our clothes, but I don’t want that. I want him inside me, want to feel that close, that connected to the man I love before I let go, surrendering to all the things he makes me feel.
“God, Lark, I want you so much,” Mason murmurs against my skin as his palm smoothes down my stomach. His hand dips below the elastic of my panties, his fingers finding where I’m so hot, so wet, and pushing inside.
I dig my nails into Mason’s back, moaning as he withdraws his fingers with the same aching slowness while his mouth continues to tease back and forth between my breasts and his thumb circles my clit, building the tension coiling inside of me to the breaking point.
“Stop, not yet,” I pant, reaching down to grip Mason’s thick forearm, stilling the sinful rhythm of his fingers between my legs.
He glances up, meeting my eyes with a hungry look that’s almost enough to tip me over the edge. “Now?” he asks, sounding as breathless as I feel.
“Now,” I beg, nodding too fast, making the room spin. “Now, please. Now.”
Mason claims my lips in another mind-numbing kiss as he makes quick work of his boxers and my panties. The satin is simply there one second and gone the next, and a moment later Mason is between my thighs, rolling on a condom.
I stare, my mouth going dry and my heart skipping a beat.
Or three.
I’ve never seen Mason completely undressed, never seen that thickness I’ve touched hundreds of times through his clothes free to stretch all the way up his flat stomach. He’s bigger than I remember, or maybe just bigger than I’d realized back when we were kids fumbling around in the back of his truck, too nervous to take all our clothes off for fear of taking things too far, too fast.
“You okay?” Mason’s thick arms flex as he finishes with the condom and gives my thighs a gentle squeeze.
Lord, he’s gorgeous. Perfect. Even more stunning than I’ve imagined. I’ve pictured us like this more times than I can count, and now it’s finally going to happen. It’s enough to make me shiver as I nod and reach for him, pulling him down for another kiss.
“Are you sure?” Mason asks against my lips as his fingers return to my breasts, rolling one nipple gently between his finger and thumb, sending a fresh wave of beautiful agony coursing through me.
“Yes.” I spread my thighs and lift my hips, issuing an invitation I hope he can’t refuse. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
He groans low in his throat, whispering my name as he reaches down to position himself. I feel the blunt head of him at my entrance and then, a second later, he pushes inside, filling every aching inch, stretching me, opening me in a
way that almost hurts, but doesn’t because it feels so good.
So. So. Good.
“God, Lark.” Mason’s hands cup my bottom, shifting my hips, guiding me even closer, until he reaches the end of me, until he’s buried so deep it’s like we’re two halves of one whole.
“You feel amazing,” he breathes into my neck. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too.” I run my hands down his back to dig my fingernails into his ass as he begins to move, thrusting in and out with a smooth, liquid rhythm that quickly brings me back to the brink.
I lift my hips, grinding into Mason as he thrusts forward, squeezing my eyes shut as I get closer, closer, until my entire body hums and—
“Look at me,” Mason breathes above me. “I want to see you.”
My eyes open, meeting Mason’s, and that’s all it takes. I cry out, my body locking down around where he still thrusts inside me, waves of bliss shooting through my every nerve ending until pleasure burns and pulses and vibrates inside me.
“You’re so beautiful,” Mason says, as his pace grows faster.
Faster, faster, until he’s driving between my legs with a rhythm that makes me moan and wrap my legs tighter around his waist, pulling him deep as the exquisite tension in my core begins to build all over again.
I come a second time, calling his name, and seconds later, he joins me, losing himself with a guttural cry that is primal and male and so thick with unrestrained joy it leaves no doubt in my mind that we’re in the same place.
It’s a special place, a sacred one, a paradise we can only find in each other’s arms.
Afterward, we stay locked together, neither of us wanting to move, to venture a single inch apart. But finally, Mason kisses the tip of my nose and reaches down between us.
“I should take care of this,” he whispers, pulling away and moving into the bathroom.
I lay spent on the bed, eyes glued to Mason as he leaves the room and returns less than a minute later. He turns the corner and freezes, smiling as his eyes meet mine. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were ogling me.”