“I know.” He dipped his head, his temple touching hers. “I know you want to be…separate.” He said that word like it pained him. Like it took too much energy just to get it out into the world. “But I’ve never felt separate from you, and I never will. Even when I was away, you were a part of me, even if you didn’t know it.”
She closed her eyes, heavy emotion clogging her throat. She should step away. The fear of getting hurt was still there in herchest. It was alive and clawing at her. Nothing had changed, and their past together could never change. But when he touched her, putting space between them felt like the hardest thing in the world. Like it was the equivalent of lifting a million pounds.
He cupped her cheek, the heat of his palm seeping into her skin, and suddenly she was turning her head, leaning into him. Because this was all she’d ever wanted. No matter how much it scared her. No matter how much she’d fought it. His touch was everything.
He lowered his head, his breath brushing her cheek. “I’ve tried to stay away. I can’t. Not with you being so close.”
The fine hairs on her arms stood on end, and she turned her head to look into his ocean-blue eyes. So beautiful. Always so beautiful. And his lips… God, they were so close to hers, all she had to do was shift that bit closer.
Like her body had a mind of its own, she leaned forward, and then her lips touched his.
The kiss was everything their first was—an explosion of sensations. A deep dive into the unknown.
His lips moved over hers as his hand shifted into her hair, slipping through her locks. She wrapped her fingers around his neck, tugging him closer, as an almost desperate need to have him took hold of her.
Suddenly, she was lifted off her feet. She gasped, wrapping her legs around him as he pressed her to the wall, her core pushing hard against his stomach. Then his tongue was in her mouth.
She groaned at the taste of him. At the rough texture of his palm as it slipped beneath her shirt and up her side. Her heart beat hard as he neared her chest, an almost light-headed ecstasy taking over.
He cupped her breast, palming her and making her whimper deep in her throat.
“Fuck, I love those sounds,” Jace growled.
He found her nipple and rolled it with his thumb. Her breaths were short, the beats of her heart stumbling over one another—
Her phone rang.
At first, she barely heard it, but as it continued, it began to prick at the bubble surrounding her and Jace, allowing reality to slip back in.
What was she doing? She’d just given him this big speech last night about needing to be separate from him, and now she was allowing him to kiss her? To press her to the wall and touch her?
Jesus. She pushed at his shoulder. “Jace, put me down.”
His hand paused on her chest, his head rising. “What’s wrong?”
“I…we can’t do this.”
Pain skittered across his face, pain that he didn’t even try to hide. He straightened her top slowly before letting her slide down his body. But he didn’t step back. Instead, his intense blue gaze bored into her. “I just need to say one thing.”
A part of her was almost scared of what she might hear. “Okay.”
“What if I didn’t miss my chance? What if…I was just waiting for it?”
She swallowed. “Why would you do that?”
“Because you were… Fuck, Elle. You wereeverything. Beautiful and kind and resilient, and I was none of those things. In my head, I was nowhere near good enough for you. I had to prove that I could be enough for you, before I made my move. I needed to be everything you deserved.”
Blood roared between her ears, almost deafening the world around her. “Jace…”
“I chose them over you, not becauseIwanted more, but because I wantedyouto have more. Because even at that young age, I knew that people close to me just got hurt.”
Pain for this beautiful man rippled in her chest. “You honestly believe that?”
“Yes, I believe it. Iliveit. And I’d die if I ever truly hurt you. But I’m weak…too weak to stay away from you.”
She cupped his cheek. “Jace, you are the strongest man I know.”
He kissed her palm. “Don’t push me away, Tink. Please. I need you.”
