Page 85 of Fearlessly Us

Caitlin

I don’t know…what’s in it for me?

Me

An unconventional date with a moderately attractive professional football player and then a night on the cloud mattress of your dreams?

Caitlin

Well, with a hard sell like that, how could I possibly say no?

Me

Fuck yeah. Can’t wait to kiss your face, Princess.

CHAPTER THIRTY

DREW

“Fuck, I missed you,” I mumble, wrapping my arms around Caitlin right in the doorway to her office and bending to kiss her. Aware this is where she works, I mean for the kiss to be short and sweet, I swear I do. But the second my lips touch hers, every other thought in my head disappears and I lose myself a little. My need for her is a living, breathing thing.

In the month since her surgery, Caitlin has spent almost every night at my house. It took her almost two weeks to get back to herself, and the fact that she let me take care of her during that time is something I don’t take for granted. I think I did it well. At least, I hope I did. For most of the last month, aside from when I was traveling for games, I’ve gotten to kiss her good night and sleep with my body wrapped around hers and see her face as soon as I open my eyes. I’ve been able to lay down at night without the terror of what might come for me in the dark and actually sleep for real without any of the bad memories that have always visited me in my dreams.

I think maybe it’s been the best month of my life.

Caitlin’s doctor-ordered no sex rule has kept the physical stuff between us to a minimum. For the first couple weeks she was in recovery mode, and all I wanted to do was find ways to take her pain away and help her feel like herself again. But now that she’s recovered and pain free, our need for each other is fierce and wild, and once we can be together like that again, I think we’re going to level the damn building.

Snaking an arm around her waist and sliding a hand up to wrap around the back of her neck, I slant our mouths together, tongue sweeping in. And in this moment, with my body pressed to hers, everything inside me settles, all my jagged edges smoothing out, my missing pieces slotting together, rearranging, until I’m the most me I’ve ever been. I’m not the boy with the dead mom and the asshole dad. The football player afraid to leave the game that gave him a life. The man afraid to get too close for fear of being left all over again. I’m just me, standing with the girl I love, feeling like I could stay here like this for the rest of forever.

Caitlin tastes like heaven and sweetness and mine, and I tug her tighter against me, feeling the urge to get as close as possible. It occurs to me that feeling like I haven’t seen her in a century when it’s actually been less than two days is not rational behavior, but fuck rationality. Because Caitlin moans into my mouth and shifts her body closer like there is no close that would be close enough for her either. She fists her hands in my shirt and presses up on her tiptoes to plaster herself against me, and I never, ever want to stop kissing her.

“Now that’s a fucking kiss!”

The voice coming from right behind us yanks me back to earth, and Caitlin and I jump away from each other like teenagers getting caught making out behind the bleachers. We both whip around and look right into Molly’s grinning face.

“Molly,” Caitlin practically yelps, a pretty pink blush staining her cheeks. “We were…that was…hell,” she mutters, and a slightly disheveled, bewildered Caitlin is the cutest fucking Caitlin on earth.

“Oh, I know exactly what that was,” she says, voice full of humor. “It’s about time you kissed a boy in this office, Cait. Fuck knows everyone else has.”

“I definitely have.” Hallie appears next to Molly, matching grin on her face.

“Oh holy shit.” Caitlin groans, turning to Hallie. “No talking about kissing. It’s weird, Mom.”

Hallie shrugs, unbothered. “It’s only weird if you’re not doing it right.”

Molly elbows Hallie, and her grin turns to a smirk. “They were definitely doing it right.”

“Just kill me now,” Caitlin says, casting her eyes to the ceiling.

I laugh, enjoying the hell out of these women. Their obvious affection for each other. Snaking an arm around Caitlin’s waist, I press a kiss to her hair, and if I inhale, trying to catch the scent of her shampoo, that’s no one’s business but my own. “They’re not wrong, Princess. We definitely did it right.”

With a laugh, Hallie turns to me. “Happy to see you here, Drew.”

Caitlin’s mom infuses those six words with warmth. Like it’s not something she’s saying out of politeness or habit, but something she really means. And the way she looks between Caitlin and me with a secret sort of smile makes me think she’s not just happy to see me, but happy to see me here, with Caitlin. And that has an odd sort of emotion swirling into me because I’ve always thought I would never be good enough for anyone. That I couldn’t be.

But then I met a girl who saw me, scars and broken pieces and all, and she decided to stay and made me want to stay too. With her. With this family. When Caitlin slides her arm around my waist and squeezes, like she knows exactly where my mind went, it feels a little bit like a dream.

“So what are you doing here?” Molly asks, looking between Caitlin and me with an unholy gleam in her eye, and I can see exactly where Sophie gets her chaos from.