A sudden raw and relentless feeling tears through me, setting my nerves on fire. I can’t breathe. My thoughts fracture. For one dizzying moment, I feel him, Cole—his heartbeat, the ache of his longing, the years he’s carried this alone—and it’s unbearable.
The connection between us pulls and twists, two threads knotted together, smooth out to become one. Then, everything goes still. No magic. No chaos. Just his eyes on mine, bright and knowing.
Suddenly, he’s all I can think about. How much I need him. How much I want him. How it’s physically painful that we’re not touching. It’s sensory overload and way too freaking intense.
A slow smile rakes across Cole’s face. He knows how much this is killing me. He has to. “Fucking finally,” he exhales. Like he’s been holding his breath for years.
Before I can blink, he’s on me. His hands seize my waist and pull me flush against his chest. His mouth crashes onto mine with a hunger that borders on feral.
“Are you shaking?” He smiles against my mouth.
My breath hitches as his knee nudges between my legs, parting them just enough to tease me. “No.” I lie.
“You are.” His lips brush my ear. His breath falls hot against my neck. “You’re trembling. It’s intense, isn’t it?” He trails his lips along my jaw.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He grips my chin and tilts my head back to expose my neck.
“Do you know how many nights I imagined this?” he murmurs against my skin. “You on this counter like this?”
Magic hums beneath my skin like the gentle glow of twinkling Christmas lights, drawn to his every movement. Histouch. His lips. It doesn’t matter. Wherever our bodies meet, shivers, want, and need follow.
“Cole…” My voice breaks on his name.
He chuckles. The sound vibrates through his chest into mine. His lips continue teasing me, never giving me the pressure I want. “God, you sound perfect when you say my name like that.”
“It’s not funny.” I whine “Where’s the sweet boy I fell in love with?”
“He’s here.” He finally kisses my lips with a brutal sweep of his tongue that steals my breath. “He just really likes hearing that sound and knowing he was right.”
“About what?” I ask against his lips.
I can feel the smile that spreads wide across his face. “That you’d be mine by the end of this.”
“I am okay with losing this one. Don’t make me regret it, though.”
I promise, you’ll win every day with me. Bonus points if you wear this.”
With every kiss, I grow less and less content with the fraction of air between us. I need my body pressed against his. I need to feel if the heart in his chest is matching the erratic beat of mine.
With a desperate urgency, I pull him tighter into me, putting my hand on the towel wrapped around his waist, but he pushes away. The sudden loss of contact leaves me breathless and wanting more.
I whimper. He laughs into my mouth before touching his forehead with mine. “We can’t, not yet. Trust me, I want to.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind I vaguely remember that I’m having my period. “I could take care of you though,” I say, but it comes out like a pout.
“Like hell you will when I can’t do the same back.” He cups my face and kisses me again.
Each pass of his mouth over mine has me handing the last bits of myself, the ugly parts I’ve always kept to myself, the loud parts, the anxious parts, the annoying joke parts, over to him, knowing he gave me every ounce of him so long ago. We’re finally just evening the score.
His. I am his. And he is mine. It feels so right, so natural now. Flashes of that first day, the one where he walked me to the shower in his towel, play in the projector in my mind.
Silly girl, didn’t you know that’s the way it’s always been?
TWENTY-SEVEN
EPILOGUE
