Her stomach flipped. “You?—”
“Loved it,” he finished roughly. He pressed another kiss to her swollen lips. When he finally pulled back, his eyes were pure heat. “And I plan on making you do it again.”
“Oh,” she breathed, eyes wide.
Rush laughed knowingly. “Oh,” he repeated. He gave her ass a firm, proprietary squeeze that made her heart race all over again. “We’re just getting started, angel.”
A slow smile spread over her face. She would’ve said yes to anything if it meant feeling like that again.
Yes to whatever this was.
Yes to the way he made her feel—untethered. Reckless.Alive.
But then his hands softened, and his eyes shifted as he studied her, his fingers coasting along the curve of her jaw with rough fingertips.
“I need you to know something before this goes any further,” he said, his voice low.
She blinked up at him, her pulse stuttering as reality intruded. “What?”
He radiated pent-up sexual frustration, but he pulled himself tightly back under control and sat back. “I’m not stayingin Northfield. I’ve got a job lined up in Boston in February, and I’m going to take it.”
She stilled.
Oh. The words hit her harder than she expected. His eyes were still full of heat and promise, and she knew her own reflected that need back at him. But he was giving her the truth.
He held her gaze. “You deserve to know that. I don’t want to give you the wrong idea.”
This wasn’t about forever. It wasn’t even about tomorrow. They had right now, and for once in her life, she wanted to take what she needed.
Two days ago, she’d stood at the altar, about to marry a man who never really saw her. Who didn’t know how to touch her or ask her what she wanted. She’d spent years burying her desires and shrinking herself to fit inside a relationship that left her hollow.
But now she was here, stripped of all expectations and standing in the middle of something she didn’t quite understand but couldn’t turn away from.
The snow would melt. The roads would clear. Rush would leave for Boston, while she’d return to Northfield and figure out how to rebuild her life. But tonight, in the hush of this cabin, with her hands exploring the hard planes of his body and his heat sinking into her skin, reality felt a thousand miles away.
She didn’t have to be good or play it safe anymore. She could want something simply because it felt good.
Becauseshewanted it.
Don’t let this chance slip through your fingers.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Thank you for telling me, but I still want this... you. Please,” she added politely, as if he’d asked her if she wanted cream in her coffee, then she flushed bright red. Sophisticated she was not.
Rush exhaled, smiling. “Are you this nice in bed, LilyHart?” He slid his hand up her neck, cupped her chin, and tilted her face to his. His thumb brushed along her jaw.
“I think so,” she whispered.
“I don’t have condoms here. Are you on something?” he asked quietly.
He didn’t look away or fumble with words. Just met her gaze, unwaveringly, giving her the same straightforwardness he gave everything else. Rush Callahan didn’t play games. Even when the answer might not be the one he wanted to hear, he asked anyway. Any lingering nerves she had settled with that knowledge.
This wasn’t a promise. It wasn’t a beginning. It was heat and hunger and making up for everything she’d never let herself ask for.
They had these few stolen days at the cabin, and then they would go on their separate ways. Lily would go back to Northfield to face Tucker and her family, and Rush would go on running from his ghosts.
A swell of something bittersweet pressed at the edges of her heart, but she shoved it away.
They had tonight, and she meant to find out what else she’d been missing all these years.
