I shatter.

I break.

I fall apart.

I come.

And Matt pushes me all the way through it. He takes me to the top of the cliff, and then he throws me over it. But he’s there to catch me when I fall. His fingers pull out of me while his gentle suckle on my cl*tturns to a solid, secure lick. He coaxes every tremor from me, every quake, every shake, and when I can’t take any more, I push his head back. He reaches back and pulls the rubber band from his ponytail. I messed his hair up, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He wipes his face on the sheet and then comes up to kiss me. I can smell me on his breath, but it’s beautiful. His hair hangs like a veil around us, but I can’t even lift my arms to push it back.

“You okay?” he asks.

I moan because words won’t even leave my throat. They’re stuck somewhere between my sated brain and limp body.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says, and he falls over, landing beside my na**d body. I can’t even turn my head to look at him. He kisses my cheek and rolls me over so that my bottom is nestled in his lap. “Go to sleep,” he says. His arm is beneath my head, and his other arm wraps around my waist.

I want to take care of him, too, but I can’t move. “I can’t sleep,” I murmur. “I have to pick up the girls.”

He presses a kiss against my hair. “I’ll wake you up in time,” he says softly. “Sleep.”

“You sure?” I murmur. It’s not like I could move if I wanted to.

“Let me hold you,” he says. He brushes my hair down between us and pulls the blanket over our bodies.

“Mmm,” I murmur. But darkness is already crowding the corners of my vision.

“I love you,” he says quietly, just as I let sleep overtake me. I let Matt overtake me. I let peace overtake me for the first time ever.

Matt

I wake up to the feel of a warm, feminine body draped over mine. I look down and see a blond head as it bends to kiss my chest. I reach down, gathering her hair as I say, “Sky?” and try to blink the sleep from my eyes.

She stills and looks up at me, her brows drawing together. “Who else would it be?” she asks. She’s straddling me, and she moves like she’s going to get off my hips, but I hitch my hands under her arms and lift her higher so I can kiss her. She resists. “Who else would it be?” she asks again.

She’s serious. Fuck. I messed that up.

“No one,” I say. I scrub a hand down my face. “I was asleep and you’re kind of kissing my chest and sitting on my dick at the same time, and I woke up and it seemed very strange. That’s all.”

“You knew who I was, right?”

I don’t even need to think about my answer. “Of course.” I did. Really, I did. “I was just confirming what a lucky son of a bitch I am by getting you to look at me while you kiss my chest and sit on my dick.”

She snorts and buries her face in my chest, putting all of her weight on me. “I’m not quite sitting on your dick,” she says quietly. I rock against her center, which is slippery wet against me.

“I know. Can you fix that, please?” I say. I make like I’m trying to adjust her hips, but I know I need to get a condom first. I might have been asleep, but I’m not stupid.

She lifts up a little and points down toward my dick. “I’m a little intimidated by that,” she whispers playfully.

I chuckle. “Why? I promise it won’t hurt you. I’ll make sure he behaves.” I hug her to me. My heart is almost full to bursting, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather do. Well, I’d kind of like to f**k her, too, but I do have priorities, even right now.

“I wasn’t talking about your…parts.” Her face gets all rosy.

A laugh bursts from my throat. “Parts? You talk about me like I’m a washing machine.”

“Washing machines are not pierced, Matt,” she says.

“Oh,” I breathe. “You mean that.” I run my fingers through her hair like a comb. “It won’t bite. I promise.”

“I was kind of looking while you were sleeping,” she admits.

“Looking at my face, I’m sure,” I tease. “Was I drooling?”

“Nope.” She shakes her head. “Down there. It looked at me first,” she says.

“I told him about that shit,” I gripe. “Dicks never listen. Just ask any man. He’ll tell you the same.”

She giggles against my chest. “You always wake up so ready?”

I lift my head and look down at her. “Usually, yeah,” I admit. “It’s a guy thing.”

“And I thought it was just for me.”

“Well, no one else is getting him,” I say. “So, that would apply.” I squeeze her na**d bottom in my hand, and she yelps.

“Apparently, I have a lot to learn about men,” she says.

“Thank God I’m willing to teach you.” I growl as I hook an arm around her waist and flip her over so that I’m above her. I look down into her face, and my heart skips a beat. I want inside her so bad I can taste it, but I’m afraid to rush it.

I know what it’s like to have meaningless sex, and I’m afraid she does, too. This isn’t meaningless. At least not for me. This is so much more, and I want to savor every second. I also want to be sure she’s feeling as strongly for me as I’m feeling for her. If there’s anyone who could break my f**king heart, it’s her. She’s everything I ever wanted.

“You’re sure you’re in love with me, right?” I ask as I dip my head to kiss her.

She murmurs against my lips. “As sure as I can be.”

I lift my head. “What does that mean?” I brace my elbows on either side of her head and use my thumbs to brush her hair from forehead, sweeping across the delicate arch of her brow.

“I’m still learning what all this is about,” she says. “I don’t fully understand it, and I wasn’t looking for it. I don’t know how to analyze it.”

“I don’t know how to take that,” I admit.

“I just… I know I haven’t ever felt this way about anybody, particularly not this fast. And I’m scared, Matt. I’m terrified. But I like this. I like these feelings, as much as I dislike them.” She bites her lower lip between her teeth. “Can I tell you something?”

“You can tell me anything.” I scoot down so that I can touch my lips to her neck. It’s there and it’s so pretty and soft against my lips. She smells like citrus and soap, and I love every inch of her. I am enamored with the wet parts, and I rock my h*ps so that I can slide against her heat. She gasps and arches her h*ps to meet me.

“You’re the only one I needed today after I left my mom. You’re the one who makes me feel safe. I think I can tell you anything and you won’t judge. You dropped everything at Reed’s just to come with me, you listened to me, and then you took care of me until I fell asleep on you.” She winces. “Sorry about that.”

I chuckle against her skin. “Are you kidding? I enjoyed that as much as you did.”

“But you didn’t even…” She blushes, and she’s so pretty that she makes my belly flip.

“I can get off anytime. Getting you off,” I tell her, “that was a dream come true.” I cup her breast in my hand and plump it gently. It’s barely a handful, but it’s mine and I am already in love with it. In fact, I plan to spend a lot more time with it. Along with other slippery parts of her. I take her nipple into my mouth and abrade it with the flat of my tongue. She squirms beneath me, and if she moves one more inch, I’ll be inside her.

“Matt,” she says, her voice quivering. Her legs come up to wrap around my hips, and I notch my dick at her cleft. It know it’s risky, but I want to bump the head of my dick against her cl*tand see if she’ll get even wetter for me.

Her eyes fall closed, and her head turns to the side. A shiver trembles up her spine, and I rock my hips. “I think you like that piercing you were so scared of a minute ago,” I say quietly beside her ear. Her eyes fly open.

“That’s what that is?” she whispers.

“Well, I take all the credit if you really like it,” I whisper, and I drag through her heat again. She trembles in my arms.

“Matt, please,” she says.

“Condom?” I ask. She points to her bedside table, and I reach for it. I really don’t want to leave her because she feels so f**king good I can barely stand it.

“We need one?” she asks. I sit up on my knees so I can roll it on, and she lies there in the light of day, all exposed and pink and so f**king perfect.

“It would take a miracle for me to get you pregnant,” I say. But I do need it because if there’s no barrier between me and her, I’m going to go off the second I get inside her. So I roll it down my shaft and hope I can last long enough for her.

She giggles. “Because I want all the children in the whole wide world. Every last one. My three are definitely not enough.”

My heart stalls. I fall down beside her instead of on top of her. She rolls toward me.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Don’t joke about that,” I say. “If you want more kids, you had better tell me now because I can’t give you any.” My heart’s beating like I just ran a mile, and I am afraid that it’s going to shatter like the glass vase I broke when I was six. There were pieces of it everywhere. I worry for her health if that happens. She’ll get stabbed. Oh fuck. I throw my arm over my eyes.

Sky climbs on top of me, kind of like she did earlier, her thighs bracketing my hips, her hands on my chest. She kisses through the dusting of hair on my chest. “I’m sorry I ruined it,” she says quietly. She lays her face on my chest and rests the weight of her slight little body on me fully. She’s warm and soft and…wet? I look down and see her wiping a tear from her eye.

Shit. I f**ked it all up. “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” I say quietly.

“I’m not crying for me, you dummy,” she says. She smacks my hands away when I try to wipe her tears.

“Then why the f**k are you crying?” I ask.

“I was crying for you,” she whispers.

Shit. She can undo me so easily. “Because I can’t have kids?”

She snorts. “Because you want kids.” She grins. “I just happen to have three, Matt. I can share them with you, if you’ll let me.”

Well, I’d planned to do that anyway. She wiggles on top of me, and she’s so wet and warm that I can’t keep from grinding up into her.

“You ever going to show me what that piercing can do? You said it’s magical, right?”

I take her h*ps in my hands and put her right where I want her. “Sit up a little bit so I can get to stuff,” I say.

“You calling my girly parts stuff?” she asks. But she’s not crying anymore. She’s laughing.

I reach down between us and lift my dick, pointing it toward the center of her. She’s wet against my fingertips when I test her to see if she’s ready for me. She’s ready. I push inside her and she stills, her breaths stopping.

“Okay?” I ask.

Her eyes close, and she puts her weight on her palms, which she lies flat on my chest. She spreads her legs a little wider and slides down the length of me so, so, so slowly.

“Little bit more,” I coax. My breath is choppy, and I can barely speak.

“There’s more?” she grits out.

I look between us. “Yep.” I laugh.

She bounces rather indelicately, and I lift my h*ps at the same time. I disappear inside her, and all I can see is where her na**d skin meets mine.

“God, I hope that’s all of it,” she says. But she’s smiling. She’s all silky and soft and hot and so f**king mine.

“Don’t move.”

“Why not?” she asks. Then she tilts her h*ps and lifts up, and I can see where we’re joined. I’m all wet and shiny with her, and then she falls, taking me back inside.

Sky balances on her hands so she can speed up and slow down as she rides me. Her perfect tits bounce as she finds a rhythm, so I sit up a little to taste them.

She gives me a second but then pushes me back down to lie flat. “Let me love you, Matt,” she says.

I lift my hands and lace them behind my neck. It’s been a really long time since I’ve done this, but I can see that she’s already close. Her thighs shake, and her rhythm grows shaky. “I want you to come,” I say.

Sky takes one hand from my chest and parts her lower lips with it, circling her clit. I push her hand to the side and replace it with mine, catching her cl*tbetween my thumb and forefinger. I squeeze gently as she rides me, and her breaths start to catch.

My balls are trying to climb up my throat, but she’s close. I know I won’t have to wait long when her back arches and her head falls, when her body is racked by trembles. She squeezes my dick inside her, her walls milking me. But I don’t stop. I push her through it until she collapses on my chest, spent.

I roll her over and pull her leg up to her chest, tilting her bottom a little higher. Her eyes fall closed as sensations sweep her body, and I lunge once, twice, three times. Then I’m coming inside her. I let her leg fall so I can put my arms under her shoulders and clutch her to me. She turns her head and presses her lips to my neck, and the trembles rack me, too. I groan as I come inside her, and she meets my thrusts until being inside her becomes painful. I have to stop. I pull out of her with a hiss, and when I roll to move off her, she stops me with a hand in mine. “Don’t go,” she says.