“Alec. Oh.” Tears burn behind my eyes. “You feel?—”
He hits that spot again.
All my muscles lock up.
The flames inside me erupt into a supernova of sensation.
My vision turns to a wall of bright light, nearly blinding in its intensity.
My heart stutters. My lungs seize.
Alec keeps moving, harder and faster.
I force my eyes open so I can watch him, needing to see the moment when he flies off the edge with me.
And with one last desperate thrust, he lets out aguttural cry. The tendons in his neck go tight. His features turn to stone. Spots of pink color his cheekbones. His eyes flare with heat.
“Haze,” he moans. “Ah, sweetheart.”
He goes impossibly hard inside me, stretching me in the most delicious of ways. His heat juts into me, connecting us in a way I’ve never shared with anyone else.
In a way I never want to share with anyone else. Ever.
Even as Alec is still pulsing inside me, he rolls us over and cuddles me against his chest. His arms come around me, holding me close. His lips press to the top of my head. Warm puffs of air brush my hair as he catches his breath.
We fall silent as the aftershocks work their way through us, gradually subsiding into a dull buzz of static electricity.
Alec embraces me with one arm while he pulls the covers over us with the other. Then he starts to stroke my hair, his hand moving down the length of it and gently combing through the strands. Finally, he says quietly, “I love touching your hair, too. It’s like the softest silk. Back… when I didn’t think I could… I thought about holding you like this. Touching your hair. I wondered what it would really be like.”
My heart flutters.
Melts.
“You did?”
“Yeah.” Alec kisses my head. “I did. I told myself it would never happen. That it couldn’t. But still. I wondered. And sometimes I wished.”
“Alec.”
“I wish,” he starts, “that I hadn’t been so cautious. So reluctant. If I’d just asked you out…” His arms tighten around me. “Maybe things would have been different.”
I know what he means because I’ve thought the same thing myself.
What if I’d given Alec my number months ago? Years, even?Wouldthings have turned out differently?
Would I have kept playingTenebris Veilif I’d been dating Alec? If things worked out between us, would his presence have been enough to scare off any potential attackers? Or would it have all happened the same way, regardless?
Or.
Maybe it was all meant to happen the way it did.
Because despite all the hard stuff, the scary stuff, there were good things in all of it, too.
I met Jess. I made a true friend who wouldn’t turn her back on me the second things got tough, like my so-called friends in Boston did.
I discovered how strong I am, even though it’s taken me a long time to believe it.
I forged a bond with Alec that I’m not sure wouldbe here if not for everything we’ve been through together.
