Down to My Soul (Soul Series Book 2) (44 page)

“Hmmmm.” I catch and hold his eyes, licking my lips. “Breakfast of champions.”

I pull him into my mouth, the tart juice and the tanginess of his body mixing on my tongue like liquor, inebriating, slowing my motions as I bob my head over him languidly, taking my time.

“Dammit, Pep,” he growls above me, fingers tangling in my hair, urging me to take him so deep he fills my throat. “Baby, just like that.”

I keep going until I’m frantic, squeezing his butt, pushing him as deep as I can, determined to have him spilling down my throat, but he pulls out, bringing me up.

“No.” I try to push my way back down. “I want to, Rhyson.”

“But I want
you
,” he whispers against my neck. “Let me have you.”

I sit up over him, watching as he squeezes lime juice over my breasts, rivulets running over the muscles in my stomach, disappearing between my legs. He chases the juices with his tongue, taking his time gathering every drop, sucking my nipples into his mouth so tightly they prick with a hint of pain in the pleasure. He licks tenderly at the faint marks he left on me last night.

“Was I too rough with you?” He looks up from his task, lips never leaving my skin, knowing he wasn’t.

“No, it was perfect.” I gasp when he finds the juices between my legs.

He lays me back on the lounger, spreading me until my feet are on either side flat on the deck and I’m wide open for him. He squeezes another lime over the pulsing spot between my legs, watching as the juices trickle inside of me.

My eyes stretch and then clench shut when he spreads me, licking me clean of the citrus juice, his tongue dipping inside, his teeth nibbling at me like I’m a delicacy. Seeing his dark head working between my legs, the velvety tongue licking into my crevices, the sound of him drinking my juices with the lime like a delicious cocktail—it’s too much. A moan rips through me, and I’m shuddering with an orgasm so strong it’s like a wire pulling my back into an arch. And all the while he never leaves me, keeps licking and nipping and sucking at me.

I’m still trembling, my body still quaking when he lies back on the lounger and pulls me on top. I sink onto every inch of him, fitting our bodies like lock and key, my feet on the floor, both of us gasping into each other’s mouths at the perfect union. I ride him with the sun beating down on my shoulders and back, my fingers gliding into the sun-kissed hair at his neck. He controls the pace, keeping it slow and deep, one hand gripping my hip and the other clamping my neck.

“I love you, Pep,” he pants at my breasts, dusting kisses over my nipples and then taking one fully into his mouth, sucking hard and long until sensations ricochet through my body, the sweet, rough pull of his mouth toppling me over the edge again. This time he follows, the force of this storm throwing his head back as our hips collide, our bodies slamming into one another with a passion so violent there’s nothing to do but scream, our hoarse voices soaring into the air with no one to hear but us. Our bodies making a symphony for just us two. Making an opus of our love.

I push my fingers into his hair as our motions slow to nothing, as the storm subsides, tears gathering at the corners of my eyes. I bite my lip, dropping my head to his shoulder.

“I didn’t know there was love like this,” I say, barely able to catch my breath. “I don’t ever want to lose you. It would kill me to lose you, Rhys.”

Even with the tape settled and destroyed, even knowing it won’t ruin us, all the ways you can lose a person sometimes still haunt me. The way my mother lost my father. The way Pops lost Grams. The how wouldn’t matter. Losing Rhyson would leave a huge, unsealable hole in my heart forever.

“You won’t.” He pushes me up a little to suck my nipples, sliding his palm down my back, slipping a finger between the cheeks of my butt, indulging in the intimacies, the liberties of lovers. “You can’t ever lose me.”

“Promise.”

“Hey, there’s no losing, not really.” He pulls back to search my face. “Remember the words to the song at Grady’s wedding?”

He traces the prayer wrapping around my ribs, swallowing hard against the emotion that makes its way to his face.

“No matter what happens, my heart and my soul, I give them to you. They’re yours to keep.”

“Yours to keep,” I echo back to him, threading our fingers together.

“The only thing that’s true, that’s real, is this, Pep.” He pulls my other hand over his heart, pressing his hand over mine. “So you don’t have to worry about losing me. You
can’t
lose me. My soul is lodged that deeply in yours. I’m completely yours.”

I collapse against him, our hands over our hearts a holy press between us.

“You asked me what I was writing on the harmonica when you came out.” He pushes the hair over my shoulder.

I nod, pulling back to look at his face.

“I didn’t think you were ready to hear what I was writing, but I’m going to tell you anyway.” He glances down and then up, watching my face closely. “It was a song for our little girl. The one we’re going to have one day. The one I dream about.”

Shock and hope roll through me. Too much to even process.

“I told you before I don’t need rings or ceremonies to know you’re mine.” He draws a deep breath, his chest swelling against mine. “But I
want
them. With you I want it all. I want the spectacle of a day that’s all about us. I want you coming down an aisle and me feeling completely unworthy. I want you having my babies and me kissing your stretch marks.”

“Stretch marks?” I shake against him laughing. “Boo to stretch marks.”

“And I’ll give you silver chewing gum paper for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.” He laughs into my hair. “And Gold Bond medicated powder for our fiftieth.”

“You’re ridiculous.” I laugh even though tears roll over my cheeks and down my chin, christening the space where our bodies touch.

“And we’ll get so old that people forget about us. Forget we were ever famous. Forget our music. Hell, we’ll get so old together that I might even forget our anniversary date, but it’ll be okay. We’ll get so old that the only thing I remember from this life is you. And if there’s a next life—”

“There is.” I cling to that. Maybe I’ve discarded my faith somewhere along the way, and I’ll pick it back up when I’m ready, but I do know I’ll see Mama again. “There has to be another life, Rhyson.”

“Then in the next one,” he says, eyes filled with infinite promises. “I’ll find you again.”

“Find me,” I whisper back with a smile.

“Do you remember that scene from
Cold Mountain
?” He pushes all my hair back so that he sees my face clearly. “When Nicole Kidman says ‘Isn’t there some religion where you just have to say three times “I marry you,” and you’re man and wife?’”

I can’t hold on to my smile because this moment feels as sacred as what we’ll do in a church one day real soon.

“I marry you.” My voice quakes with the beauty of the declaration. “I marry you. I marry you.”

His eyes burn across my face with the sweetest heat, with assurances of his love, with the certainty of forever.

“I marry you.” He ordains my lips with a kiss, soft and tender. “I marry you. I marry you.”

Neither of us saw this kind of love growing up. Between his parents, he saw nothing more than a business arrangement, between mine I only saw a broken promise, but we made our own way, made our own love.

We’ve made our own vow, and this one we’ll keep.

THE END

I'M A WIFE, A MOM, A
writer, and an advocate for families living with autism.

That's me in a nutshell. Crack the nut, and you'll find a Southern girl gone Southern California who loves pizza and Diet Coke, and wishes she got to watch a lot more television. You can usually catch me up too late, on social media too much, or FINALLY putting a dent in my ever-growing To Be Read list!

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