We stared at each other, both of us searching the other’s gaze for the truth. “You have no idea how much I love you, do you?”
Did he say love? Oh, my gosh, this was death. It had to be. It had to be actual death. Who could survive this? Not me. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I love you, Eliza. I’ve loved you... for a long time.”
“Since when? I need to know.”
Far from being offended, he kept that sweet, soft look that made me tingly inside. His voice was all rumbly laughter, “Since the day you kissed me and I knew that I was going to fuck this up entirely.”
“You did,” I told him. “I’ve been over here fighting feelings for you for a decade, and you’re just like... I love you. Like it’s no big deal.”
Now his expression turned smug. “You’ve been fighting feelings for me? For a decade?”
I rolled my eyes. “Longer than that.”
“You’re just going to leave me hanging, aren’t you? No, I love you back? No, soul confessions you want to get off your chest?”
My teeth ground together as I decided what to do. It wasn’t a long thought process, but I did need to take a second to get my life in order. Finally, I puffed out a deep breath and sprang on top of him.
Straddling his waist, I looked down at him with deep disappointment. “I’m trying to figure out why you’ve been torturing me for ten fucking years and thought it was okay.”
His smile was different from this angle... sexier and full of anticipation. His hands landed on my waist and moved up and down in a slow caress. “I didn’t mean to torture you. I thought I was the only one suffering.”
“Well, you were wrong.” I slid down an inch and settled into a more intimate position. “I was also suffering. I love you too, Jonah. I think I always have.”
One of his hands moved to my jaw, cradling my face. “Then let me put you out of your misery.” He pulled me down to kiss him, and it was like nothing I’d experienced yet. He was all fire and passion and delicious intent.
His hips bucked gently against mine, and I moaned in his mouth. He tasted like dreams and promises and whiskey. And I was already addicted. He fit against me in the best way. Even through his pants and my skirt, which were just in the way at this point, I could feel his solid manhood, and I shivered in anticipation.
He reached up to unhook the push-up bra I’d dug out from the back of my drawer just for him. The clasp snicked free, and the straps immediately fell from my shoulders. It disappeared somewhere—neither of us noticed because his mouth was already on my nipple, and I was gasping for breath and sanity.
His hips pushed against the apex of my legs, and with his tongue moving over my breast, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. The pleasure was too intense, too consuming.
He rolled me to my back, clearly better at thinking than I was. Or maybe he was better driven by his desire. I was all mindless need and trembling anticipation. He at least was pushing us in the right direction.
I reached for the buttons of his trousers. We worked together to rip them off. Then my skirt, which was one hundred percent in our way.
And then it was underwear. His first. He knelt over me, his torso tall, and my mouth went dry at the simple outline of him. He was all man, from his longish hair that was wild and tousled from rolling around on the bed with me to his broad shoulders and tapered torso down to the part of him that still made me breathless. His most intimate place.
He didn’t let me linger though. His fingers dipped inside my panties, tugging them down and then off. We were both in awe that this was really happening. He reached for a condom in his bedside drawer, and then we were grasping and clawing and desperate.
He stretched out on top of me, kissing his way over my breasts, across my collarbone, up my neck, and to my mouth while my hands buried themselves in his thick hair. His fingers dipped inside me, taking me to the edge as he pumped them in and out, adding a second finger, driving me absolutely wild.
And then he was at my entrance. He pushed inside me slowly, savoringly. Both of us arched and gasped and held on to each other.
Stars danced behind my closed eyelids as I accepted the fullness of him. He wasn’t just inside me physically. He was inside me metaphysically too. In my heart. In my soul. In my very bones.
He stayed like that for a minute, letting my body acclimate to his size and shape. My legs wrapped around his waist, my arms around his back, and we just held each other.
“I love you more than anything on this earth, Eliza,” he whispered against the shell of my ear.
“I love you, Jonah,” I murmured against his cheek. “I always have.”
And then he moved. Our bodies came together like they were meant for this—as if I was designed for him and he was created for me. His hips worked against mine until we were sweaty and gasping and racing toward that cliff.
I held on to him like I would die without him, like I couldn’t live without him. He murmured sweet nothings in my ear, telling me how sexy I was, how irresistible, and I clung to him as he pushed me closer and closer to that cliff’s edge.
All at once, we were freefalling together.
