Five years’ worth of it.
And then, she kissed him right there. Betraying all that sweet innocence as she did. Every tentative movement of her mouth over his shaft. It took her a while to get her tongue involved, and when she did, he saw stars.
If he was in any kind of pain from the accident, it was gone now. Because his entire world was now focused on her mouth. And when she took him inside, he thought he might go ahead and die. He leaned back against the bathroom wall, hands buried in her hair as she pleasured him. This was one fantasy he’d never let himself have. Because he was a filthy animal, wanting his friend’s sister the way that he did, but he had never let himself fantasize about her doing this.
So having it happen, having that mouth on him...
If he had died when that tractor rolled on him, that would have been a tragedy. If he died now, he could die pretty damned happy.
He could feel his control slipping. And he didn’t want it to be over. He tugged her hair, and she pulled away from him, her eyes looking glassy.
“Not like that,” he said gruffly.
He looked over the counter and saw a condom. God bless her. She had sneaked one out of his room. He grabbed hold of the towel, and let it drop to the floor. For a second, she blushed. And he thought it was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen.
He hauled her against him, and kissed her, then reversed their positions, pressing her body against the wall.
And then it was his turn to get down on his knees. He hooked her legs up over his shoulders, and he pressed his face right there, tasted her exactly where he knew she would want him most. He tasted her until she was shaking. Until she was shouting out his name. Until he thought he was going to explode from needing to be inside of her.
But he had to make sure. He had to make it good for her.
And when he felt her shatter beneath his mouth, that was when he reached for the condom. He sheathed himself, standing and positioning himself between her spread legs before lifting her against him again, pinning her to the wall and thrusting home.
She gasped, and he couldn’t hold back the roar building inside of him. It was frantic after that. Affirming or something. He didn’t know. All he knew was that he was reduced down to this thing between them. To where they joined. To what she made him feel.
To the earth-shattering intensity that existed between them. To the overwhelming reality of what it meant to be inside of her.
And then he kissed her. And there was nothing innocent in that kiss. It was carnal, and it mimicked their lovemaking. Deep and hard and long. Until he felt her break. Until she began to convulse around him, shuddering out her pleasure in a way that echoed through his body.
He could feel it. He could feel it the way he could always feel what she did.
And then, it was too much for him. He followed her over that edge into a shared oblivion that left him feeling rocked. Drained.
Too soon, he felt the ache return to his leg, the pains returning to his body.
He dispensed with the condom, then picked Rose up, in spite of all that pain. He could only credit lingering adrenaline—from his orgasm, not his accident—for his ability to do that. He deposited her in the tub, bringing her down on top of him as he sat in the water.
They didn’t speak. He just held her.
She turned slightly, curling into him, rubbing her cheek against his damp chest.
“I’m okay,” he said finally.
“Obviously,” she said.
“Sorry I scared you.” He pushed some damp hair away from her face.
“Don’t do it again,” she said. “I don’t like having emotions.”
“Yeah. So say we all.”
“I really don’t,” she said grumpily.
“You like me,” he said.
She elbowed him in the stomach. He caught her arm and flipped her over so that she was facing him, her full breasts crushed to his chest, all slick and sexy. He started to get hard again. “That was naughty,” he said.
“It must’ve been,” she said wiggling. “Because you’re getting...”
She blushed again.
“How can you blush about me getting hard when you’re lying naked on top of me?”
“Because I’m not used to your... I’m not used to that.”
“How messed up is it that I think that’s cute?”
“No more messed up than anything else in our lives.”
And that, he thought, was maybe the most salient point to be made about their situation. Who was to say what was right? Or messed up or normal.
“This is a little different than the time that I bandaged up your hand a while after our parents died.”
She said the words so softly, he barely heard them.
“What?” he asked.
“Do you remember that?”
She looked at him with such intensity, such sincerity, and part of him wanted to lie to her. “No.”
He couldn’t lie.
“But I don’t remember very much about those days,” he said. “It’s all kind of a blur.”
“That’s probably why you cut yourself. On the fence. I helped put a Band-Aid on your hand. I asked you when they were coming home.”
His chest tightened. And a memory scratched at the back of his mind. He knew then why he hadn’t remembered. He hadn’t remembered deliberately. It wasn’t something he wanted to recall.
He could see her all the same, even though it was difficult for him to picture the child that Rose had been when the woman loomed so large in his mind.
“What did I tell you?” he asked quietly.
“That dead is forever.”
It was amazing, how easily that old despair could fill his chest. How quickly he could be overtaken by that grief, as if it had all happened yesterday, and not seventeen years ago.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She wrapped her arms around him underneath the water. He tightened his hold
