Revenge by Meli Raine Page A

against my sensitive skin, I arch my back and sigh. I t’s a sound of longing and contentment. Of need and want. Of relief and pleasure.
    He reaches for the nightstand drawer and I stop him.
    “I’m on the pill.”
    He gives me a look of such unfiltered joy that I laugh.
    “You didn’t say anything last night,” he asks in a voice filled with questions.
    “I’m saying it now,” I whisper, reaching between us and guiding him in.
    And as he enters me once again, his eyes intense and smoky as he looks at me, I welcome him in. I welcome him home. I welcome our future with the joining of our bodies.  
    We’re together.
    Finally, together.
    “I have missed you so much , Carrie,” he murmurs, eyes full of love and something more than passion. “You’re mine and I’m yours.”
    Tears of joy well in the folds of my eyes. My fingers seek out his chest, palms eager to know every inch of him. I thread my fingers through the hair at the back of his neck and pull him down for a kiss. He tastes like coffee and sweetness. Like reunion and resolution.
    I’m home, too. When he’s in me, I’m finally home.
    A deep, sultry sense of something bigger than us both begins to build inside me, growing with each stroke as he makes love with me. I can’t stop kissing him. I wrap myself tightly around him, as if I could turn us into one person. One soul. One heart.
    One spirit.
    The mingled flesh makes my pulse race as Mark kisses me with abandon. His thrusts feel like breaths, as if his very life depended on each stroke, each push, each slow beat. My blood rushes through me like it needs to be as close as possible to the surface of my flushed skin. It needs Mark as much as I do.  
    We c o me in a rush of throaty cries and moans, my own voice an echo as he call s out my name. I am drowning in love and connection. I am bathed in the pure essence of being with him. I am surrounded and cocooned, completely entangled in him.
    At one point I stop knowing where he end s and where I beg i n.
    I wish I could bottle th is moment and live it forever for a thousand years.
    He brushes my sweaty hair from my face. I see m irth and contentment etched into his features . This i s the Mark I remember. Playful and sexy, hot and protective. Worry lines that filled his face when I returned to town seem a thing of the past. The weight of the world had pressed hard against his chest all these years.
    Telling me everything ha s lifted that weight. He looks so young and carefree. Mark looks like he could do anything right now. Be anything.
    And he can.
    “You’re amazing,” he whispers to me, placing a kiss o n each cheek as I le t my legs unwind from around his hips. My toes take in the fine muscles of his ass as I let my knees drop. E very inch of skin between our torsos is touching. I’ve never been so close to another person before.
    This feels so good.
    “No. You are,” I murmur back, the smile in my eyes radiating up.
    He laughs. “I guess we just have to be amazing together, then.”
    “I think we just were.”
    Mark rolls off and reaches for his mug of coffee. He drinks some, then makes a face. “Tepid.”
    “What?” I tease. “You expect great sex and hot coffee? You can’t have it all, you selfish beast.”
    “Well,” he says, pretending to be put in his place. “If I have to pick just one...” He sets his cup of coffee on the end table and reaches for me.
    “I didn’t mean now ,” I stress. I pretend to be a prude.  
    His face falls. He looks so dejected that I can’t help but laugh.
    “Don’t you need some, uh...down time?” I arch one eyebrow and look pointedly at his not-so-throbbing member.
    “What, that ?” He points to his groin. “That needs ten minutes.”
    “Ten minutes?”
    He frowns. “I know. I’m getting old. When I was eighteen it was five minutes, tops.”
    I snort with laughter just as both our phones begin to buzz.  
    “Damn,” we say in unison. He climbs out of bed, giving me a fine view of his