If Forever Comes (Take This Regret #2)(14)
Author: A.L. Jackson

A wistful smile flitted the edges of my mouth as I thought of those days, the goals that had defined my life, because at the time, I’d believed them the most important aspect of who I’d become. But in the end, they weren’t. Not even close.

“Those dreams fit into that period of my life, Christian. And when I lost them, a piece inside me was crushed. But when I look back now, I can’t regret the way it turned out. I would never have been able to raise Lizzie the way I wanted to. Even working at the bank was challenging when she was little.” I tilted my chin up to study him, tracing the sharp lines and angles of his face with my eyes. God, this man was beautiful. Breathtaking.

Inside and out.

Blue eyes blinked back at me, acute in their concern. It was so clear there, the vivid desire Christian had to reconcile the past, to make it right.

“Do you want to know what I really want?” I asked.

He cupped my cheek. “Anything, Elizabeth…anything you want, I want to give it to you.”

A tremor of apprehension rolled through me. Not because of indecision. I wanted this. But some days it was still difficult to grasp that I didn’t have to do it by myself anymore. I was no longer alone.

“I want to stay home. I want to be here when Lizzie gets off of school each day, and I don’t want this baby to have to go to daycare. I know I told you before that I wanted to keep working, but now…” I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth and slowly shook my head. “I just want to be home to take care of my family, and if there’s a way for me to do that, then that’s truly what I want from my life.”

I stared up at him hovering over me. Something that looked like respect shined down, his eyes shimmering with it.

He took my face in his hands. “Elizabeth, I will support you in whatever you want. If you want to stay home or if you want to go back to school, I will be here for you, and we will work it out. Hell, even if you want to continue working at the bank, then I want you to do that. But I can’t think of anything better than knowing you are home with our kids.”

Emotion thickened in my throat, a well of gratitude for this man who understood me better than anyone. I wet my lips. “This really is what I want.”

He released a breath at my forehead. “Elizabeth, baby, we’re going to do this, and we’re going to do it right.”

He tipped my chin up with the hook of his finger, his gaze washing over my face, his hold soft. Just as soft as the kiss he pressed to my lips. He deepened it, and I opened to him, welcomed the heat of his tongue as he swept it across mine.

Instantly, fire scorched through me.

Without breaking the kiss, Christian shifted and nudged my knees apart with one of his own. Gently he settled himself between my thighs. He urgently clutched the side of my face, his fingers trailing along my jaw, dipping into my hair, and running down my neck as he kissed me. Suspended a mere breath above me, his strong body pitched and lowered and teased, the lightest brushes and whispers that promised me what was to come.

I sighed into his mouth and let my fingers work into the rigid muscles of his back as he drowned me in the upsurge of his passion. He was gentle, so gentle, as if I might break, my fragile body safe in the security of his arms.

He groaned as he pulled back, his mouth at my jaw, nipping at my chin. “God, it’s been too long since I’ve been inside you, Elizabeth.” Rough, ragged words dropped from his mouth, his muscles ticking, twitching, begging for my touch.

I’d been so sick that I didn’t think we’d made love but three or four times in the last few months.

And this…I wanted this. Needed this.

Christian grew hard and thick between us. The heavy weight of him rubbed against my belly. No question, the man needed this, too.

“Christian,” I mumbled, yanking at the shirt tucked into his slacks. My palms found the bare skin of his back, and I flattened them against the sinewy muscle that rippled and twisted, jerking beneath my exploration. My grip demanding, I drew him nearer.

Did he have any idea how desperate I was to have him? How badly I needed him to possess me?

Christian hissed as I raked my nails down the smooth skin of his back to his narrow waist.

It would seem impossible, but just touching him seared me, scorching me in places that only existed with Christian. I trembled in anticipation. He intensified his kiss, forcing my surrender. His tongue played against mine. Desire pierced me when he sank his teeth into my lower lip.

A deep moan echoed through the sanctuary of the room, a sound I almost didn’t recognize as it rolled from my tongue.

My head spun with his assault, and I found myself struggling to make sense of how much I loved this man. He was everything, beauty and light, my rock, the other piece of my soul.

And so incredibly beautiful. Sexy in every way. The fire in his blue eyes and strength of his body were something I would never get enough of. I would never get my fill, and the flame that he lit in the deepest places within me would never go dim.

He was my all.

“Shh…” he murmured, kissing me more as he lowered his onslaught, letting his hand flutter down my neck and glide to my breast.

His flicked his thumb over my nipple. Another shock of desire belted me and I moaned a little more. Christian inched back. Never breaking our kiss, his firm hands roamed down my sides, digging into my ribs before he grasped me by the hips. For one second, he severed our connection and glanced up toward the silence radiating from upstairs, then looked back on me with a cocky grin lifting just one side of his mouth.

“You need to be quiet because I’m going to take you right here, Elizabeth.” His voice came low as he uttered the command close to my lips. He reached between us and jerked the button on my jeans free.

With his words, chills pebbled along my arms, lifted as a flush that rushed up my chest.

“Please,” was all I could manage.

I was shaking as I blindly hurried through the buttons of his shirt. Christian edged back so I could get to the ones mashed between our chests, pressing both hands into the cushions on either side of my head.

He smirked against my mouth. “Are you anxious, Elizabeth?” he murmured, the question dripping from him as the slowest seduction. It vibrated through me.

“Yes,” flooded from me as I pushed his shirt back from his shoulders.

The man had no idea.

He twisted out of his shirt, shaking one sleeve free from his wrist. He threw it to the floor and dove back for me as if I were his Promised Land.

My entire being hummed, relishing in his urgency as he flattened himself on top of me.