Page 102 of Fearlessly Us

“Always,” I promise, rising up on my knees, fisting his cock and giving him a firm stroke that has him trembling under me. I line him up and slowly—so, so slowly—I sink down, letting him fill me up, stretch me out, split me in half and make me whole again.

“You feel so fucking good,” he mutters, lips traveling a slow path over my jaw and down my neck, kissing the place where my pulse beats for him before gliding back up to hover over mine as his hands cup my face in a firm grasp. “Ride me, Catie. Take what you need from me and I’ll give you everything. Fucking everything.”

He doesn’t understand he already has, so I do my best to show him. With slow thrusts and deep grinds, hips rising and falling in time with his. With drugging kisses and searching tongues and hands that never stop moving. With soft groans and quiet sighs and whispered words of the deepest, most abiding love.

Drew wraps one arm tightly around my waist as we move together, the other hand moving over my body, touching everywhere he can reach and then coming to rest on my cheek, keeping my face close to his, our eyes locked and unspoken words between us that we hear loud and clear.

You’re mine.

I love you.

Stay with me.

Stay.

Stay.

Stay.

“Drew…” I gasp, heat unfurling in my belly, pleasure snaking up my spine and the rest of my words disappearing as I climb to the highest peak.

“I know, baby, me too,” is all he says, before covering my mouth with his and holding me tighter against him, hips thrusting and bodies rolling and hearts beating out the same rhythm. We tumble over the edge together, all trembling limbs and quiet gasps and bodies moving perfectly in sync, his pleasure mine and mine his as my heart aches with the rightness of it all.

When the pleasure ebbs, we stay exactly as we are, bodies locked together and hands roving and eyes never leaving each other. And then, like he does every time, Drew settles me down on the pillow and presses the softest kisses to my hair before getting up and going to the bathroom, coming back with a warm washcloth and cleaning me up. He swipes gently between my legs and has me sit up to drink the water he brought, cold from the pebble ice he always keeps on hand for me. He takes a second to fix my braid, knowing how much I hate sleeping with any of my hair hanging loose, then lays me back down and covers me up to my chin. Slipping into bed behind me, he wraps his arms around my body and slides a hand to rest right over my scars. When I relax back into him, I feel him relax too, like we’re each taking our comfort from each other.

And then, bathed in the dim light of the lamp and the soft glow of the oncoming dawn, we follow each other into the sweetest of dreams.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CAITLIN

“What’s the deal with you?” I ask, glancing over at Drew as he drives down my childhood block. “You’re all fidgety.”

“No, I’m not,” he says, one hand tightening on the steering wheel and the other reaching towards the dashboard, turning the heat off and then back on, adjusting the temperature three times, then turning the radio volume up, then down, then up again before he freezes, his eyes flicking to his hand and then back to the road. “Fuck,” he mutters, yanking his hand off the dashboard and settling it back on the wheel, leaving it there for less than a second before he moves it to my leg, gripping my thigh in his big hand. “I think I might be nervous.”

I grin at him because with his fidgety nerves and the aviator sunglasses tucked haphazardly into the neck of the green sweater that makes his eyes glow, he’s so fucking cute. “Well, they say the first step is admitting you have a problem.”

Drew lets out an exasperated sigh. “I do have a problem. The problem being I have no idea how to act around a real family because a dead mom, an asshole dad, and a years-long parade of my dad’s awful girlfriends means I barely even remember having one of my own, and now I have to go have dinner with your family which is, arguably, the most wholesome family on earth. I mean, your dad started a neighborhood bar that your brother now runs, and he’s, like, so in love with your mom you can practically see the hearts shooting out of his eyes when he looks at her. It’s Norman Rockwell shit, Catie, and you expect me—an outsider who essentially followed you home like a stray cat and forced you to keep me—to go in there and be part of all that without any preparation at all?”

I bite my cheek to keep from laughing at his little outburst and cover his hand with mine.

“Should I point out this isn’t the first time you’ve been around my family? You were with everyone at the lake and you spend a lot of time with Tyler’s family, which is my family too, so why are you freaking out now?”

“It’s not just now,” he mutters. “I never know how to act around so many people who love each other so fiercely and clearly have their shit together. And also, this time is different because now I’m yours, so that’s a whole thing too. What if they think I’m not good enough for you?”

Smiling, I squeeze his hand. “First of all, this isn’t 1950. No one has to approve of my relationship with you, but even if they did, there’s nothing not to approve of because you’re the best person I know and you love me, which means my family will love you. Second of all, literally nothing about my family is wholesome and none of us have our shit together. There are a zillion of us and our branches are so tangled together even I have a hard time keeping track of it all. At any major family gathering, it’s pretty much guaranteed that someone will talk about the sex they just had, my grandma will say something wildly inappropriate, and at least one couple will sneak away to have actual sex in a bathroom or a closet or on the nearest flat surface they can find. I’m pretty sure that’s not exactly the normal, everyday life Norman Rockwell was going for. And my family doesn’t do outsiders. If you love one of us, you belong to us, and the Parkers love themselves a stray. How do you think my family got so damn big in the first place? My grandma just kept adopting everyone’s friends and partners as our own until the population grew bigger than some small countries. And not for nothing, but if anyone should be nervous, it’s me. I’m about to tell my parents and my brother I’ve been keeping an extremely not minor secret from them for a pretty long time, and they’re going to be extremely not thrilled about that.”

Drew blows out a breath and gives me an appraising look. “That actually makes me feel a lot better.”

I huff out a laugh. “I’m so glad my decision to keep my painful chronic health condition from my family makes you feel better about sitting down with them at the dinner table.”

Eyes turning serious, Drew lifts his hand from my leg and slides it over my stomach. Instead of flinching away, I take a deep breath of my own, focusing on the way the warmth of his palm seeps through my shirt. “How are you feeling? And don’t bullshit me,” he says when I open my mouth to respond. “Be real with me, Princess. I want to know so I can help.”

Emotion punches through me at his words as I think about all the months and years where no one asked how I was feeling. Where I didn’t let anyone in enough to know to ask. The times I suffered in silence and pretended everything was fine when nothing about this has ever been the least bit fine. “I’m okay. Really,” I say when Drew raises a skeptical eyebrow. “The bleeding is what it always is, but whatever they did in the surgery made it so I’m not in excruciating pain this time. Just the normal amount.”

Drew dips his pinkie under my sweater to stroke along the waistband of my leggings, and it’s the strangest combination of sexy and soothing. “The normal amount for you is probably a level of pain that would send most people to the emergency room.”

I just shrug because he’s not wrong. “I’m made of sterner stuff.”