He stilled when he realized I wasn’t wearing anything at all under there, then laughed, pressed his face into my throat, and groaned.
“Fuck, Reese, you did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Did what?”
My voice was pathetically breathy and I didn’t care one fucking bit. Having Dakota on top of me like this, touching me and being so undeniably himself was the only thing I wanted. Ever.
“Went bare-ass naked for me.” He started to slide his hand around my hip, and I grabbed onto his wrist and squeezed.
“Hey! No, I didn’t. I took a shower and—ah, fuck!”
I jerked when he sank his teeth into my shoulder, then lifted my hips to rub myself against him.
“I’ll just pretend you did it on purpose to tease me. I like that. It’s less perfunctory.”
“…perfunctory?”
“Yeah. I just learned that word from Val. I like it. Did I not use it right?”
“No, I think you did, I just…” I slid my hands beneath his shirt, the skin of his back so fucking hot. He shuddered on top of me, then wrapped his arms around me and crushed me to him so hard that I couldn’t breathe.
“Fuck, please don’t stop touching me. I missed your hands so much,” he whispered, and I wrapped my legs around him to squeeze him as hard as he was squeezing me.
“Just my hands?”
“Maybe other parts.”
“What other parts?”
He started to slowly grind on top of me, and when the fabric of his sweats brushed against my bare cock, I gasped.
“All of them,” he moaned, biting down on my pulse point. I scraped my nails down his back and arched into him as he sucked, the sensation of his tongue rolling over my skin sparking a fire in my blood.
Dakota drew back until that dark gaze found mine. His eyes lowered to my lips and he murmured, “Especially this mean little lying mouth. That’s my favorite part.” He rubbed his thumb across my bottom lip. “Go on, darling. Lie to me. Tell me you didn’t miss me.”
I had missed him so much it hurt. The kind of pain I hated, that riotous, uncertain ache that only knew how to grow, how to multiply, until it had spread through every inch of me. So destructive and volatile that once it started moving, there was no stopping it.
The kind of pain that meant he’d carved himself a place in my soul, and no matter how I tried to cut him out, it was impossible.
He’d spread his roots, was fully embedded in my psyche, and that meant…
It meant I was doomed.
“I didn’t miss you,” I whispered, threading my fingers through his hair. “Not for a single second.”
His lips quirked up. “I knew it.”
He lowered his mouth to mine, and I had never been so glad to be doomed if it meant I got to keep this.
I’d endure a lifetime of pain and heartache for just a few more moments with him.
When he pulled back abruptly, I made a frustrated noise in the back of my throat, staring up at him in confusion.
He brushed his hand over my longer strip of hair, looking down at me with such an earnest expression that it flayed me open. My heart raced as I searched his eyes, and then he grabbed one of my hands and pressed it against his cheek, rubbing it over his skin. “I never told you how I felt.”
“What?”
He turned his head and pressed a kiss into the palm of my hand. “You asked me how I feel.”
