His mouth found mine and I found myself wrapping myself around him, limbs twining around his neck, his waist. Dale shifted his weight, rolling me into the floor, both of us rocking together, him on top of me. His mouth slanted across mine, drawing me into him, and I was completely lost in the sensation. I gasped when his tongue touched mine, teasing, probing, exploring.

I’d never been kissed like this man kissed me.

He took me places I didn’t even know existed in my own imagination.

Then his mouth moved down my neck, hands pushing at my sweater, seeking the skin of my belly, kissing my navel. He paused there to lick it, using my belly button and his tongue as mini-models, dipping in and fucking it a little, making me moan with anticipation.

I peeled my sweater off over my head and his gaze fell onto my black bra, moving over the tops of my breasts, pressing upwards like an invitation.

I reached for him, and we rolled again. This time, it was me pushing his shirt up, peeling it off, seeking skin. I wanted to feel him against me. He didn’t object, tossing his shirt over to join mine as we kissed and groped each other in the dimness.

His lips made their way over the tops of my breasts, feathering kisses there, making me wiggle and squirm beneath him. He fumbled with the hook on my bra, and I let him, my hands moving over the smooth skin of his back, tugging at his belt and the waistband of his jeans, trying to pull him in tighter.

The steady throb between my legs increased the moment he freed my breasts, his mouth covering one, hand cupping the other. His breath came fast and hard and his hips moved with mine. I felt him hard against my thigh and the way he pulsed made me weak with lust.

“Oh God,” I whispered as he licked at my nipples. They hardened for him immediately and when he sucked them, I ground my hips against his, moaning softly and grabbing his hair in my hands.

My skirt rode up to my waist and I wrapped my thighs around him, squeezing, hearing him groan as I wiggled myself into position, feeling his hardness pressing fully between my legs now through the denim of his jeans.

“Sara,” he murmured, his mouth wet against my breasts. He touched my hand, pressing it down between us, over the bulge in his jeans. I gasped and rubbed him. He groaned, moving against me. “Oh God, that’s good…like that…yeah…”

His breath came hot and fast against my face as he kissed me again, his hand moving up under my skirt, yanking my panties down, his palm pressing my thigh to one side. I opened for him, his hand exploring upwards, rubbing over the aching mound between my legs, making me moan into his mouth. He pressed his palm there, rocking it.

“Ohhhh.” I groaned softly when his fingers felt past the soft triangle of hair, parting it. He smiled to find me so moist, rubbing his fingers through the soft folds of flesh.

“Sara,” he whispered, reaching down and unbuckling the studded belt he always wore.

I slipped my hand down to help him, unzipping his jeans. “One day you’ll have to tell me the story behind this belt.”

He smiled. “Some day.”

He gasped when I slid his jeans down his hips, his cock springing free in my hand. Grasping it, I tugged gently, moving the loose skin along the shaft up over the thick head. He gave a sigh of pleasure, kissing me again, tongue pressing deep into my mouth this time. His fingers had found me, not entering me, but rubbing me instead, round and round in a perfect rhythm.

“Oh that’s good,” I whispered, pulling on his cock, pressing it between us and stroking it against my bare belly. He thrust into my hand, eyes half-closed, mouth hovering over mine.

His hips moved against my jerking hand as I squeezed and tugged at him, pre-cum seeping from the head and lubricating the shaft.

“Ohhh Dale, baby, please don’t stop…” I gasped, spreading my thighs for his fingers, rubbing that sweet, hooded bud of flesh again and again. “Please, oh please…”

“Yes.” His gaze never left my face, watching me like I was the most interesting thing he’d ever laid eyes on.

“Oh God.” I moaned, feeling his cock pulsing faster in my hand. “I’m… gonna…”

“Come for me,” he whispered in my ear, working my clit faster and faster. “Come on, Sara…”

“Yes!” I cried, hips bucking as my orgasm overtook me, the delicious waves rocking my body against his again and again. His whole hand covered my mound, cupping my wetness and holding it there, his tongue probing between my lips. It seemed to go on forever.

“Mine,” he whispered, rocking his hand, revving my engine again, making me purr.

“Yes,” I agreed, delirious with pleasure.

“Yours.” I kissed his lips, soft and wet and open.

“Yours.” His cheek, stubble, sweet sandpaper.

“Yours.” I squeezed his cock, swollen and throbbing in my hand.

“Mine,” he growled, rolling me on top of him, my panties gone in an instant. He opened my thighs wider with his palms, thumbs spreading my labia, looking at the soft, pink flesh inside. “Mine. Oh fuck, Sara, you’re so beautiful, I can’t stand it.”

The way he looked at me made me feel faint.

“Yours,” I whispered, reaching down to find him, thick and throbbing in my hand. “Take it, Dale. Take me.”

He grabbed my hips, guiding me, sliding my sex along the underside of his shaft. With just one shift of his hips, he impaled me. I cried out, hands flat on his bare chest to keep myself upright, to keep from collapsing on top of him at the overwhelming sensation. He took a deep, shuddering breath, gaze dipping between my legs, watching himself slide up into me.

“Yes.” I touched his cheek, drawing his attention back up to me, eyes locked with mine. “Yours. I promise. Yours.”

He moaned, reaching for me, folding me up into his arms as I rocked on top of him, rolling my hips, grinding my pelvis as we kissed, tongues plunging. I’d never felt so safe, so held, as when we were joined this way. There was nothing in the world like it, nothing I had ever experienced.

It wasn’t just sex—it was beyond that basic, animal drive. This man knew me. I didn’t have to tell him anything. He just knew. The way we rocked together, the way he kissed me, the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t watching, the way my world suddenly revolved around him like my body had found its core, the center of the universe—it was everything.

Coming together with him like this wasn’t some quick fizzle and pop, like I’d experienced with other guys. It was a long, sustained, glorious stretch of energy, as if together, we created our own plane of existence, far above the world we walked around in every day. It was like magic, like the joining of our bodies transcended everything, even our selves, until we were floating together as one out among the stars.

Dale cried out beneath me, his arms tightening around my back, pulling my breasts down, flattening them against his chest, hips thrusting up, doing all the work now. He was taking me, fucking me from underneath, moving toward that final moment, as if he could thrust up through me and burst me right open, like a sunburst exploding on the surface of the sun.

“Come for me,” I moaned for him, just like he had for me, grinding my hips into his, meeting him, wanting it too. I wanted to feel him blast off inside of me.

Dale stiffened suddenly, groaning and driving up hard, hips bucking under mine, and I felt the white-hot burst of him deep inside my belly. He shuddered with it, his mouth capturing mine, the moment one long sustained ride of pleasure so beautiful I cried, bursting into tears with the flood of emotion, unable to contain it.

He held me close, whispering my name over and over into my ear, kissing my tears. I wasn’t sad. I tried to tell him. I tried to open my mouth and say the words, but only more tears would come. I clung to him as he pulled a blanket from the sofa over us, my breath hitching as the heat in my chest and belly began to ebb.

“Are you okay?” he murmured as we snuggled under the Christmas tree and stared up through the branches at all of the lights and decorations.

I nodded, still not able to speak, my tears drying on my cheeks.

I was feeling something so big and so foreign to me, I couldn’t quite identify it at first. Like Dale, with Dale, it had come into my life out of nowhere and had taken over. When had it crept in? While I wasn’t looking or paying attention? It happened as quietly as the snow falling outside, blanketing everything.

I sobbed, letting him hold me and wipe away my tears, and knew, finally, what it was.

I was happy.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Do I look fat in this?” Aimee turned sideways in the bathroom mirror.

“You know better than to ask me that question.” I looked over at her from where I was leaning over the sink, touching up my mascara, moving aside when another girl came out of one of the stalls and wanted to wash her hands.

“I just…” Aimee smoothed her hands down over her dress and her practically concave stomach. “Matt’s mother said something at the wedding.”

I gaped at her. “About your weight?”

“No. About Leslie. You know, the bride.”

I snapped my mascara closed and tossed it back into my purse. “What does that have to do with you?”

“Nothing I guess.”

“What did she say?”

“That a woman should be at her thinnest and most beautiful on her wedding day.”

“Ridiculous.” I scoffed, coming over and putting my arms around her from behind and resting my chin on her shoulder. “Besides every bride is beautiful. It’s like newborn babies or puppies. They can’t help it.”

“I hope so.” She met my eyes in the mirror and smiled. “Because Matt asked me to marry him.”

“What?” I turned her around to face me, hands on her shoulders, my mouth hanging open. “You’re kidding me? Right? You’re…?”

She pulled off one of her white lace Madonna gloves, showing me her left hand. There was a ring on it. It wasn’t huge, but it was a diamond.

“How did he afford this?” I gasped, grabbing her hand and staring at it.

“He’s making pretty good money working for his dad,” Aimee explained. “Once he gets his CPA, he’ll be a full-fledged accountant. He’s the only one of the boys interested in the family business… Did you hear me? I’m getting married!”

We both looked at each other and screamed, squealing and hugging and laughing and jumping up and down like three-year-olds until two girls came in to use the bathroom and looked at us like we were crazy.

“That means you and Carrie are going to be sisters?” I blinked at her. “How weird is that?”

“I know.” She laughed. “Carrie said the same thing.”

“She knows?”

“Matt proposed at the rehearsal dinner.”

My jaw dropped again. “Wow.”

“I was embarrassed—I thought it was kind of mean, to steal Leslie’s day, but I guess he’d been planning it. They all knew about it and wanted him to.”

“His parents are okay with it? I mean… you’ve been dating, what, six months?”