Page 58 of Until You

chapter

fourteen

Oliver

My family, being the people they are, made a decision that has given Cora and me time alone. My parents brought Mimz and Pops back to their house for the night. Tonight, we’ll do whatever Cora wants to do, but I know what I want is to lay her out and explore every part of her glorious body.

“How ya doing, Mischief?” I ask.

“I’m good, Cowboy. How are you? I mean, I’ve known about our baby a little longer than you. I don’t even know if you wanted kids.”

“I want you, Cora. I want you and everything that comes with it. Of course, I want our baby.”

“You don’t have to marry me,” she says.

“It’s not about having to. And we don’t have to discuss it until you’re ready. But I meant what I said, I’m all-in.”

“What exactly does that mean? To you?” she asks.

“You and me. This baby. Maybe some more, if we’re blessed with that. But us. Together as a family.” I glance over at her face as I drive us back to my Mimz and Pops’s house. “I didn’t want to say this until I could look you in the eyes. But I love you, Cora. I think I have from the moment I watched you walk into Ace’s.”

“Oliver—”

“You don’t need to say anything in return. I’m not looking for reciprocation or to pressure you. I want to build a life with you. And building takes time. We can take it one brick at a time, darlin’, and go as slowly as you need to.”

“Okay,” she says.

We don’t speak the rest of the drive to the house. I help her out of the truck, and then we walk inside, our fingers entwined. We’ve barely closed the door behind us, and she’s on me. Pressing my back against the door as she kisses the hell out of me.

Our kiss this time is different than our first three months ago—all urgency and rain and the reckless momentum of two strangers who’d decided to stop being careful. This is different. This is slow and deliberate, my mouth finding hers in the quiet of the living room. The only light comes from the lamp Mimz keeps on the side table and the faint glow of the porch light through the front window.

She tastes like the hospital mint she’d unwrapped in the truck on the drive home.

I’m hard. Have been since she’d leaned into me in the hospital parking lot and whispered take me home, Cowboy, in a voice that undid every remaining thread of restraint I had left. But I don’t rush this. I won’t. Because the last time we did this, we were strangers operating under rules designed to keep things temporary, and nothing about what I want with this woman is temporary.

I deepen the kiss. My hand slides into her hair, and I tilt her head where I want it. My tongue sweeps against hers and things shift. From careful to hungry. From slow to inevitable.

I reach down and lift her under her plump ass and she wraps herself around me.

“Bed?” she murmurs against my mouth.

I don’t even answer, I just walk us in that direction. Opening, then closing her bedroom door with my boot. I sit on the bed, which puts her directly on my lap. Her knees press against my hips and she settles her weight against my erection. The sound I make is not dignified.

The green dress rides up her thighs, and I can feel the heat of her through my jeans and it takes genuine discipline—the kind I usually reserve for fourteen-hour days in August heat—not to open my fly and slide into her here.

“I’ve been hard all night,” I admit. “Since I first saw you in that green dress. I’ve wanted to peel it off your body and see everything I missed that night in my truck.”

Her pale green eyes, close enough now that I can see the darker ring around the iris, stare directly at me. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. That night at Ace’s—I thought it was just—” I shake my head. “It wasn’t just anything.”

I kiss down her throat to the place where her pulse flutters against her collarbone. “It was everything. You are everything.”

“I want this, Oliver.” She arches into me, her fingers curling into the collar of my shirt. Then she catches herself. Pulls back slightly. “I want you.”

“You sure?” I ask.

She cups my face in both hands. Those short, dark-painted nails against my jaw. “I’m sure. I’ve been sure since you washed your plate that first night and didn’t say a word about it.”

A low rumble growls up my throat. “Take off your clothes,” I tell her as I lift her to stand in front of me.