She presses her forehead to mine. “Why does it hurt?”
“It’s not pain,” I murmur. “It’s wanting too much and not knowing where to put it.”
Her breath shudders, warm against my lips. “Then where do I?”
“Here.” My thumb strokes her jaw, patient, steady. “Give it to me.”
She tilts forward, so small, so sure, and the first brush of her mouth against mine steals every last reason I’ve ever had for waiting. It’s tentative only for a blink. Then it’s her hands on my shoulders, my thumb angling her jaw, our mouths slanting together perfectly.
The fire cracks sharply behind us, but all I hear is the sound she makes when I catch her lower lip, when I finally take what’s been living in my chest since the day she walked back into the parlor.
Her hands trace the lines of my torso, like she’s proving I’m real. I press her back onto the quilt and follow, bracing above her, kissing her again. Slower this time, longer, too. I think Icould spend all night kissing her, and it still wouldn’t be enough to satisfy me.
“Wells,” she whispers into my mouth.
I drag my lips down her cheek, to her ear. “I want you. God, Els, I want you everywhere, all at once.”
She arches beneath me, and I feel theyesin her body before she speaks it. Her fingers push under my shirt, skim my ribs, tentative and hungry both. The contrast makes me groan.
“I shouldn’t,” she says, a last-second protest, weak as paper.
“You should,” I counter, catching her gaze again. “Because I’m here. Because I want you. Because this doesn’t have to be forever to be true for us tonight.”
Her eyes shine in the firelight, uncertain and wanting, and I kiss her again. She answers with a sound that sets me on fire. My hands find her waist, her hips. She’s all warmth and curve and hesitation, giving way to need.
When she pulls me closer, I can’t stop the words that break free.
“Do you know how many nights I’ve wanted this? Wanted you?” My lips trail down her throat, teeth grazing the edge of her pulse. “How many times I’ve told myself no, only to picture this anyway? You take me apart, Elsie.”
The storm howls outside, but inside it’s only heat and hands and mouths finding their way. She clings, done holding herself back. I kiss her like it’s the last chance I’ll ever get.
The quilt slides. Her legs shift, opening, pulling me down where I’ve wanted to be since the first night she stood in the doorway and ruined my quiet life.
“You feel this?” I whisper against her skin, my hand spanning her ribs, her waist, her thigh. “This is what happens when I stop holding back.”
“Yes,” she breathes. “Yes.”
I kiss her again, hard and deep, and when she gasps into me, when her nails press my back through my shirt, I know there’s no going back. We are inevitable.
“Are you sure you don’t want this just because I’m here?” she asks. “Because I’m a woman who’s close and willing? Because it’s cold, and sharing blankets and body heat will help us get through this storm?”
She’s testing me. Testing us.
I press my forehead to hers. “If this were about convenience, I wouldn’t be doing it with you. Besides, I don’t touch what I don’t want.”
She shakes her head. “We disagree on everything. What you want. What I want. How can you ignore that?”
“I’m not ignoring it,” I say, rough. “I’m choosing this anyway. I have never—” I swallow hard, thumb brushing her cheekbone. “I have never wanted anything like I want you.”
She kisses me again. This one is different, and certain. We’ve crossed the line together.
Andwow. Just fucking wow.
I brace one hand beside her head, the other sliding under her spine to pull her closer. The storm can raze the whole town tonight for all I care. Nothing has ever felt like this before—like stepping into fire and finding out it doesn’t burn.
I lift her gently, shifting the blanket beneath us. Her sweater bunches at her ribs. My hand coasts underneath, palm grazing soft, heated skin. She arches into me. I think I might die from the feeling of her breath hitching right there in my mouth.
“Let me,” I say, voice low.
