My heart pounds harder and faster. “Jace.”
“I’m not done,” he says, biting back his grin. “I think it started happening years ago. That first little seed was planted the night at Danny Potter's house. The years apart—I told myself not to reach out to you. I convinced myself I would never be enough for you and that your brother would never approve, but I know none of that is true now.”
“You talked to him?”
He cocks his head. “Of course I did.” His lips stretch across his mouth in a smile. “I love you, Willow, and I want you. This would never work if things weren’t good between Noah and me.” He pauses, his throat bobbing as he swallows roughly. “I’m sorry that I hesitated. I’m sorry that I let my fear keep me from being honest with myself, and with you.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper, and lift my arms to circle them around his lower back. “You’re not the only one who was afraid.”
“But you didn’t let your fears stop you,” he says quietly, his eyes searching mine. “You may have pretended your feelings weren’t what they were at first, but when the time came, you weren’t afraid to tell me the truth. You weren’t afraid to tell me what you weren’t willing to accept.”
A soft laugh escapes me as I shake my head at him. “You have it all wrong,” I admit, fisting the back of his jacket in my hands. “I let you go because I was afraid of my feelings for you. The intensity of them, the way they consumed me—it scared me.”
The realization washes over his expression. “I did exactly what you expected me to do.”
A pained smile tugs on my lips. “You aren’t the only one who messed up.” My chest expands as I inhale deeply, sucking in a breath before releasing it. “It took everything in me to walk away from you, but I knew I had to. Emotions were high in the moment and I needed you to come to me not out of desperation but out of truly wanting me. I needed to know that you combed through every thought and chose me.”
He stares down at me with emotion washing over his eyes. The pads of his thumbs are rough, yet gentle as he sweeps them along the sides of my face. “You are every thought,” he rasps, his voice catching in his throat. “You are everything that I want.”
My heart swells inside my chest as he stares back at me with love brimming in his eyes. “Jace,” I say in a breath, his name falling from my lips in a rush. “I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember.”
“Willow,” he breathes my name, his face dipping down to mine as he breathes me in. His mouth collides with mine, his lips soft like silk as he draws the oxygen from my lungs. He pours himself into me, the warmth of his love wrapping around me like a cloak as he melts into me.
His tongue sweeps along the seam of my lips, tender and slow as I part them for him, granting him access. He slips inside my mouth, kissing me deeper. There’s no urgency and he kisses me like we have all the time in the world.
And maybe—just maybe we do.
He’s like a drug running rampant through my veins. He penetrates the walls, dipping into my soul, tangling himself within the fibers of my being. It’s exactly where he’s supposed to be. It’s where he was always meant to me.
My heart has always belonged to him and if there’s one thing I’ve always been sure of, it’s this—whatever he decides to do with it, I don’t want it back. It’s his.
His lips linger on mine, drawing the last bit of oxygen from my lungs before we break apart. He presses his forehead to mine, letting out a choppy breath. “Willow,” he murmurs again, as if my name is the solution to every problem he could ever have.
“I love you.”
He lifts his forehead from mine, his eyelids snapping open as he stares down at me with an intensity that rocks me to my core. “Say it again.”
The corners of my mouth twitch. “I love you.”
“Be with me, Willow.”
Pressing up onto my toes, my mouth meets his. “I thought you’d never ask,” I murmur against his lips after pressing a soft kiss to them.
“I don’t want to go another day of my life without hearing you say those three words.”
Lowering myself back onto my flat feet, I stare up at him. At the man who’s always held my heart, even when he didn’t realize it. “You’ll never have to go another day.”
His hands fall away from my face and he wraps them around me, anchoring himself to me as if I am where he’s always belonged.
Pulling my body flush against his, he lifts a hand and brushes the hair from my face. “You know, my heart has always been yours, even when I was too blind to realize it,” he murmurs, tucking the strands behind my ear. “You’ve always been mine too, haven’t you?”
“I have,” I murmur, tilting my head back as a smile pulls across my lips. “And I always will be.”
“I never planned on being anyone but yours,” he says softly, his eyes resting on mine. “I don’t ever want it back, just so you know.”
“What?” I ask, my eyebrows tugging together.
“My heart.”
