“Evan,” she cried, reaching for his chin to guide his eyes back up to hers. “Evan, please, I . . . I need . . .” A shuddering sigh ran through her body as she squirmed beneath his touch.
He glanced up at her face and realized that his touches had become torturous for her. The desperation on her face made him feel powerful and spurred him on. He ran kisses down across her stomach, smiling as her skin flinched with each touch of his lips.
When he reached her hips, he pressed a kiss on either side. Before he had a chance to satisfy some of her need, she stilled him before sitting to kiss him. “There’s time for that later,” she murmured. “Right now, I need you inside me.”
Evan was shocked by her direct approach, but it made him harder—the thought of acting on her words made him ache.
“I need that too,” he murmured.
She placed her hand on his chest and guided him back onto the mattress. She disappeared for a second and when she returned, there was a ripping sound and then her hand was on him, rolling a condom down his length.
He grunted at the feeling of her warm hands touching his cock.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
A grin lifted his lips. “Safety never felt so damned good.”
She chuckled as she moved over him. She placed her lips near his ear. “That’s nothing,” she whispered as she sank over him.
The sensation stole his breath away. It was so much better than anything he’d imagined. He clutched at her hips and looked up at her body as she started to move over him.
Holding onto her hips to keep her in place, he sat up and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her lips back down to his.
He brushed her hair back off of her face so that he could have an unimpeded view of her gaze as he moved inside her. When he was buried deepest, her eyes widened slightly and her lips parted with a silent sigh.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and tipped her head back. The position left her chest exposed and Evan couldn’t help himself. He nipped, and licked, and sucked until Becca came apart around him.
As waves of pleasure rushed from her to surround him completely with bliss, she leaned against him, pressing her whole weight against his chest. Proud that he’d made it through their first time without blowing it by going too early, Evan adjusted Becca in his arms and let her relax into the mattress with a goofy smile.
“That was . . . great!” She sighed.
“What do you mean, was?” he growled as he hovered over her. “We’re still going.”
Her back arched off the mattress as he moved inside her again, timing the action perfectly with a tremoring aftershock of pleasure that continued to course through her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Evan held Becca tightly as she drifted into slumber. Personally, he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He could rest—not sleep, because cupids didn’t really ever dream and it wasn’t recuperative at all. But so many emotions crashed through his system that he wasn’t even sure he could relax. He’d never expected for a simple act of physical intimacy to feel so, well, so intimate. Twisting his head, he pulled Becca closer to his side and buried his nose in her hair.
Eventually, he felt his eyes drifting closed as a weariness unlike any other he’d ever experienced dragged him into something that very closely resembled sleep.
When he woke, it was to nothing—the same nothingness that he’d awoken to prior to being offered the choice to become a cupid.
He panicked.
Has my time come?
He couldn’t leave Becca, not now. Not ever. He didn’t want to.
“Take me back,” he demanded. Just like the last time, he had no voice but he knew those entities which he could feel around him could hear him anyway. “I need to go back.”
You have made your final match.
The words echoed around him, through him, the nothingness suddenly bursting with a voice that didn’t form words as much as implant the thought straight into his mind.
“You can’t take me away from her. I love her, and she loves me too. We’re meant for each other.” His panic rose with each word he tried to voice. He wouldn’t leave Becca if he had any chance to stay. He would fight for her—for them both—until the bitter end if he had to.
You will not go anywhere.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
You are free.
“I don’t understand!”
You are free.
The words raced around him on repeat, coursing through his body like the echoed rightness he’d always assumed was the permission of these entities. Or entity. It was hard to know plurals from singular when it applied to nothing and to everything all at once.
You are free.
“I don’t want to be free though. I want to go back!”
Becca stretched languidly as she woke slowly from a great sleep—the best sleep she’d had in a very long time.
She couldn’t remember her dreams, but she could recall the feelings they’d left her with. The memory of a voice calling to her lingered for a moment, but she couldn’t remember the words. Her bed was empty, which wasn’t unusual because it was always empty in the morning, but it still struck her as odd for some reason.
She frowned and fisted her hands into her hair as she tried desperately to bring her dreams back to the front of her mind. It was like trying to shift sand with an open hand, all the individual grains rushed away even as she tried desperately to drag them all closer to her. The voice had uttered something about love, or loss, or something. It faded completely as she roused herself fully awake.
When she did, she took in the rumpled sheets, her naked state, and the trail of clothing that led to the bed and she realized why an empty bed was wrong.
Evan.
She’d fallen asleep in his arms, something she hadn’t done with anyone ever before.
But he was gone.
Why’s he gone?
For a moment, she held her breath and listened for any sound nearby that would indicate that he was still there. A footfall, a clatter of cooking utensils, a shower, anything. There was nothing. Only silence reached her waiting ears.
Where could he be?
She was struck by the inescapable fear that he’d left. That the voice in her head during her dream had been him telling her goodbye. Her heart ached at the thought of him going.
Not now, she thought. Not after that perfect evening that she wanted to relive again and again.
Not ever.
She climbed from the bed, hoping that she would find Evan sitting quietly at the kitchen table like she had so many nights where they were alone together. She grabbed her robe and wrapped it around herself before tying the sash around her waist to hold it in place.
“Evan?” she called as she made her way through the small house. There were only so many places he could be, but no noise came from any of them.
“Evan?” her voice was louder as her fear that he’d left grew.
Had they crossed some line with their actions the night before? Was he being punished for it now?
The sound of her garage door lifting grabbed her attention and she raced toward the noise. Just as Becca threw the side door open, Millie’s engine rumbled to a stop.
Evan glanced at Becca through the driver’s window, clearly confused by the look on her face. Once he’d taken it in, he climbed from the car as quickly as he could. Worry coated his features and she was certain he could feel her panic.
The instant he was out of the car, she was in his arms.
“Oh my god, I was so worried that you’d left!” She peppered kisses over his face.
“Why?”
“You were gone and I . . . I got worried that maybe they’d made you leave.”
He brushed his hand across her cheek. “Never. I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
He said it with such conviction that she knew something had to have happened.
“Something changed last night. I don’t even know how to
begin explaining it, but what I can say is that I’m in this for life. Our life, if you want?”
“You’re not going anywhere?” She almost didn’t dare to ask the question, being that it was so loaded with hope and the potential for disappointment.
He shook his head. “Not unless you want me to.”
She fought a smile. “How do you know?”
“I had a dream last night, and well, let’s just say my contract has definitely expired.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s different now. I’m different.”
“What are you saying?”
“That I’m not a cupid anymore. In fact, I think I’m—” As he spoke, she wrapped her arms around his neck. The action caused her robe to rise up at the back so that when he hugged her, his fingertips brushed across the skin at the back of her thigh. He gently tugged at the collar of her robe, exposing a sliver of her breast. “Are you naked under that?”
“Aren’t we all naked under our clothes?”
“What I mean to say is are you telling me that all that’s between me and that beautiful body of yours right now is this flimsy bit of satin?” He swallowed heavily.
“It could be even less than that, if you want,” she purred in his ear.
He pressed his nose against the curve of her neck. “As tempting as that is, and you have no idea just how tempting it is”—she had an idea because she could feel him straining against his pants—“there’s something much more important I need to do right now.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, it comes back to what I was saying before you distracted me with your nudity.”
“Near-nudity,” she corrected.
He nodded. “Near-nudity. Well, what I was saying is that I think, in fact I’m almost positive, that I’m human ag—”
She cut him off again. “You’re human?”
“Completely, ordinarily, human.”
She felt a slight pang of disappointment that he’d given up everything he’d known just to be with her. “Are you okay with that?”
“Okay? Becca this here”—he motioned between them—“a life with you, if you’ll have me, that’s my reward for my service to love. This, you, it’s my paradise.”
She smiled. “A girl could get used to hearing things like that.”
“Well, you should. I’ve been given a second chance at life, and I’m going to spend every minute of every day of it reminding you just how beautiful you are, and how precious you are to me.” His fingers trailed along the collar of her satin gown, and for a second the more important things he’d been talking about earlier seemed to have slipped his mind.
His stomach growled and he gave an embarrassed smile before reaching into the car for a paper bag.
“But right now, I need this.” He held up the bag that obviously contained whatever food he’d gone in search of.
“Are you hungry?” Becca was almost disappointed that she was losing the battle of attention to food, at least until his next words.
“Hungry? I haven’t eaten in over fifty years. Becca, I’m famished.”
The End
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Also by Michelle Irwin
Through the Fire (Daughter of Fire Book 1) - Available Now.
Besieged by Rain (Son of Rain Book 1) – Coming February 2015
About the Author
Michelle Irwin has been many things in her life: a hobbit taking a precious item to a fiery mountain; a young child stepping through the back of a wardrobe into another land; the last human stranded not-quite-alone in space three million years in the future; a young girl willing to fight for the love of a vampire; and a time-travelling madman in a box. She achieved all of these feats and many more through her voracious reading habit. Eventually, so much reading had to have an effect and the cast of characters inside her mind took over and spilled out onto the page.
Michelle lives in sunny Queensland in the land down under with her surprisingly patient husband and ever-intriguing daughter, carving out precious moments of writing and reading time around her accounts-based day job. A lover of love and overcoming the odds, she primarily writes paranormal and fantasy romance.
Comments, questions, and suggestions for improvements are always welcome. You can reach me at [email protected] or through my website www.michelle-irwin.com. Thanks in advance for your correspondence.
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Happily Evan After (Fall For You Book 1) Page 23