No Apologies
Page 30
“Yes,” she hissed, thrusting her hips against mine.
I pulled my fingers out, cupped her face and rocked against her, just barely touching the slick heat that was all for me. Her eyes closed and she moaned in pleasure. She’d never looked more beautiful but I wanted to see her when I sank deep. “Look at me, Hummingbird.”
Hooded blue eyes found mine.
I pushed inside her.
“Ahhh!” She violently jerked in my arms and her inner muscles tightened around me.
Wrapping my arms around her, I forced my body to go still. Just an inch inside, I didn’t pull out. “I got you, I got you baby. I’m gonna go slow but you have to stretch for me. It’s okay, I promise.”
She was so wet but she was tight. Jesus, she was tight. I could’ve come that instant. Forcing a breath and trying to control the insane pounding need I had for her, I focused on the one thing that mattered. Hummingbird. My Hummingbird.
Sexy heat glistening her face and dampening her hair, she stared back at me. And I saw it. No fear. My Hummingbird, no fear. Her body pulsed around the inch inside her and a fierce, possessive groan shook my chest. Then she pushed her hips up.
Ahhh, fuuuuck.
I sank so deep, I felt her, everywhere. “Oh my God, Hummingbird.” Jesus, I didn’t have the words. Nothing could describe this feeling.
“You’re not hurting me,” she whispered, breathless.
Shuddering from the base of my spine, I wanted to roar in triumph. “You. Are mine.” Tangling my hands in her silky golden-white hair, I kissed her. No condom, no barriers between us, my body in hers, I rocked forward and pushed deep inside my Hummingbird.
Brave and free, she unfolded her wings to show me what love was.
And I made her mine.
Epilogue
“It’s beautiful.” Carly’s fingers absently feathered through my short hair as she peered over my shoulder.
“Yeah, it’s cool.” Gunnar’s voice was deeper than last month.
The tattoo gun buzzing across my upper back, I was sore but I’d never admit to it. I pulled Carly in close. “You’re beautiful.” I gripped her chin and brought her mouth to mine.
“Quit moving,” the surly tattoo artist grumbled.
I stroked my tongue across Carly’s before I released her. When I let go of her chin, she was blushing. Six months later and she still blushed when I kissed her in front of other people.
She shyly touched her lips to my cheek. “I love you,” she whispered.
“Love you more.” I smiled.
“Does it hurt yet?” Gunnar had been asking me every ten minutes if it hurt. I couldn’t figure out if he was psyching himself up to get inked or just worried. He worried a lot.
“Doesn’t matter, you’re not going to find out.”
“I didn’t say I was getting a tattoo.” His voice hit a high pitch.
“You’re right, you’re not. Not until you’re eighteen,” I warned. I’d grown more protective of Gunnar and I tended to sound like his old man instead of his brother.
Carly, smiling, rested her hand on my forearm. Her engagement ring caught the light and I calmed down.
The first night I’d made love to her had been the best night of my life. I’d never known what it meant to give myself to someone, what it felt like to have someone give themselves to me. Carly had given me everything: her trust, her love, her body. She’d told me once that forgiveness was the sincerest form of love. I’d never apologized to her for sleeping with those women but she forgave me just the same. The feeling was indescribable.
I remembered telling Myles that Carly had scars I couldn’t fix. At the time, it’d killed me to admit to that kind of helplessness. I’d wanted to be her hero. I’d wanted to be the one who made everything right for her but I realized nothing could undo the past. Carly had to live with hers and I had to live with mine. Except, I hadn’t been living with mine, I’d been fighting it and letting it own me. I’d never looked past sex with women because I thought I was broken and couldn’t be fixed. Turned out, I didn’t want someone to fix me. I wanted someone to want me exactly how I was.
Walking that edge between danger and living for most of my adult life, I’d learned a few things. Most important, I learned not to fall. I liked that about myself. I wasn’t nothing. It might have taken me twelve years to realize it but how bad could I be if I’d survived all that? Carly would tell you...
“You’re all done.” The tattoo artist turned off his gun.
She was the Hummingbird on my back, inked right between my shoulder blades.
* * * * *
About the Author
Sybil grew up in Northern California with her head in a book and her feet in the sand. She used to dream of becoming a painter but the heady scent of libraries with their shelves full of books drew her into the world of storytelling. Her true literary love is the New Adult genre but really, any story about a love so desperately wrong and impossibly beautiful makes her swoon.
Sybil now resides in Southern Florida and while she doesn’t get to read as much as she likes, she still buries her toes in the sand. If she’s not writing or fighting to contain the banana plantation in her back yard, you can find her spending time with her handsomely tattooed husband, her brilliantly practical son and a mischievous miniature boxer she refuses to claim ownership of.
To find out more about Sybil Bartel, be sure to follow her on Twitter (she loves to hear about your favorite book boyfriend!), visit her website, or like her on Facebook.
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ISBN-13: 9781426898532
NO APOLOGIES
Copyright © 2014 by Sybil Bartel
Edited by Deborah Nemeth
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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