A Love Like Ours

Chapter 9

I knew then he understood my aching heart. Understood it because he felt it, too.

My own hand crept up between us to cover the exact spot on his. The rapid thuds I felt hammering in his chest echoed in my own. Sending him a tentative smile, I leaned my head back down to place my ear over it. The sound of his beating heart was oddly endearing. I felt my lips twitch up in a ridiculous smile as I rubbed at the spot, doing my best to soothe his ache away just as his hand was soothing mine away.

His lips reached down to brush over my forehead.

"You never said," I murmured out breathlessly, feeling excited and overwhelmed all at once.

"I told you five years ago. It's not my fault you choose not to remember or to believe either," he muttered pointedly. I shivered. The disappointment in his tone was obvious, but I found myself caught up in the other timbre to it.

Warmth. Pure unadulterated love.

Justin Kay loved me.

"So are you going to say it?" demanded Justin with only the slightest note of impatience seeping into his tone.

I smiled at him and murmured a lazy, "Say what?"

His hand rubbed threateningly over my derrière. I bit my lip to hold back a chuckle.

"That you love me," said Justin pointedly through gritted teeth.

"But I said it already," I murmured petulantly before giving him a demure look from beneath my lashes. Then added tauntingly, "Five years ago." I grinned, throwing his own words back at him.

The growl of pure impatience that rumbled down my ear had a deliciously enticing effect that I was sure wasn't intended. I shivered.

"Don't make me throw you over my knee," he threatened warningly. That just raised my hackles.

"Oh, so you can fall back on a five-year-old drunken declaration, and I can't?" I all but hissed out at him. "I won't tolerate double standards. What's good for the goose is good for the gander ... or whatever. "

Did I just call myself a goose? I had wrenched myself out of his arms mid-torrent and now stood hands on waist and feet stomping in indignation.

His sigh was clearly audible.

"We have guests. We should go in. We can trash this out later tonight ... in bed."

I didn't miss his very obvious innuendos; they just riled me up further, so I opened my mouth to let loose another tirade, but his own open mouth crashed down on mine instead.

We tongue wrestled for domination a bit before our overwhelming warmer feelings got the better of us.

Heat flowed and ebbed as we basked in our feelings for each other. It was strange, knowing that the feelings had been there for five long years, and yet, it was only the acknowledgment of them that brought about this sudden change to our kisses. It was no longer just vapid devouring of one another but a sheer appreciation and gratitude even for the freely given and the freely accepted.

A loving kiss.

A kiss with our hearts open to each other. Bleeding for each other added a new dimension to what I thought had already been way too hot to handle before. I was positively being scorched whole now, inside out, by his lingering attentions.

The languid slide of his tongue against mine had a slippery effect on the wet heat between my thighs. I found myself shifting more than a little restlessly.