Ross’s hand stroked my hip as he steadied into that rhythm, and then faster and sweeter, and I thrust back at him trying to take him deeper, further, gasping with each hard stroke, shivering with the sweetness of it, the cycle, the circle, beginning and the end of us that was hopefully just another beginning.

I pressed my back and spine against Ross and his fingers laced within mine across my chest, and then he surged up into me and held very still and emptied out all the heat and hunger and heartache.

 Then, another couple of tight jerks, and he was slumping forward and taking me with him in a heavy boneless sprawl on the soft fur of the carpet.

We lay there panting for a long time, unmoving. Ross lifted my hand to his lips and kissed the palm.

When his cock finally slipped from my body, he rolled off me, and the loss felt too familiar -- like it could get to be a habit. But he put his arm around me, pulling me close, and we lay for a time on the rug. The rain beat on the roof in steady soothing rhythm, and the fire crackled in counterpoint, and our breathing slowed and steadied and evened out.

 After a time he said, “And you think love is enough?”

“Sex helps.” He didn’t laugh and I said, “I think love is the point. Because anything else is just a business contract.”

He said wearily, “I had my life all planned out.”

“I know.”

“You’re not a very good actor,” he said. “I’ve known from the first that you were in love with me.”

“You’re not a very good actor, either,” I said.

The firelight moved across the ceiling beams in lazy, flickering shadow.

He said, “There’s a justice of the peace in Greensboro.”

“Is there?”

He turned his head and pressed his face into my hair. I felt his lips move against my forehead as he said, “Do you have any idea of what I should do with an unused marriage license?”

“I do,” I said.

A Limited Engagement

Copyright © 2008 by Josh Lanyon

All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Torquere Press, Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680

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Torquere Press, Inc.: Sips electronic edition / September 2008

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