But he wants tohearit.
I exhale, voice barely above a whisper. “I want this.”
“You’re all I think about, you know,” he admits. He sounds almost ...broken. “I-I don’t know what to do with that.”
My chest tightens.I’m all he thinks about?
I take a slow, steady breath, reaching out to touch his face, tracing my fingers along the rough stubble on his strong jaw. As long as we’re doing confessions, I might as well admit my own. “I have no idea what to do about it either.”
His throat bobs with a hard swallow, his hands flexing at his sides like he’s fighting some internal battle. “I don’t want to leave on Monday,” he reveals. “I don’t want to go to Arizona.”
“Then don’t,” I whisper. The words slip out before I can think better of them. “I don’t know why I said that—I know you can’t stay.”
My hands play with his waistband, and he leans forward, nuzzling my neck with the tip of his nose. He exhales against my skin, the warmth of his breath sending a shiver down my spine.
“You make this so damn hard,” he says, lips brushing beneath my ear.
“Then don’t go,” I say softly, like maybe if I say it gently, it’ll become possible.
His hands find my hips. “We both know that’s not possible. I’ll be back at work next week.”
Work.
As in: football.
As in: the professional kind.
A big-boy job.
I tilt my head back, meeting his eyes, and the ache in them nearly undoes me. “Then what are we doing?” I whisper.
His thumb brushes the bare skin beneath my shirt, slow and reverent. “Making it impossible for me to leave.”
I don’t know if that’s a promise—or a warning.
His mouth crashes onto mine.
The earthshatters.
Heat floods through me, a slow, burning ache curling in my stomach as his hands roam my body. One holds my waist, the other slides up my back, pressing me into him so I’m as close as possible.
And I?
I melt.
Completely, entirely.
I clutch at his shoulders, seeking the warmth of his chest, tilting my head as his lips part, deepening the kiss, tongue teasing against mine in a way that makes my whole body tighten, makes me grip him even harder, makes me pull himcloserstill.
He is not gentle.
It’s acollision.
A hot, heated collision . . .
Every moment leading up to this—every tease, every push and pull, every unspoken thing between us—pours into this kiss, into the way he moves against me, into the way his hands stake his claim.
He drags his lips from mine, trailing along my jaw, down the curve of my throat, open mouthed and unrelenting. I tilt my head, giving him more, shivering when his teeth scrape against sensitive skin.
