I can’t speak. My throat is closed up, my hands shaking around paper that’s ten years old and worn soft from being read over and over.
She kept it. She kept my letter. She wrote back and never sent it and shekept it.
“Nate.” Just my name. Barely a whisper.
Something in me snaps.
I’m across the room before I know I’m moving. My hands find her face, her jaw, and I’m kissing her—hard, desperate, ten years of silence breaking open all at once.
She gasps against my mouth and then she’s kissing me back, her fingers fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer. She tastes like salt and coffee andhome, and a sound tears out of me—low, rough, something between a growl and a groan.
Her back hits the wall. I crowd into her, one hand sliding into her hair, the other gripping her hip hard enough to bruise. I can’t get close enough. Can’t stop touching her. Every wall I’ve built is crumbling and I don’t care, I don’tcare, because she never stopped loving me and I never stopped loving her and we wasted ten goddamn years being afraid.
“Nate—” She pulls back just enough to breathe, her eyes wet, her lips swollen. “The letters, I should have sent them, I should have?—”
“Don’t.” I press my forehead to hers. “Don’t apologize. Just... don’t.”
Her scent is everywhere. Sweeter than before. Thicker. Want and relief andyes. And underneath it—slick. She’s getting wet for me and my whole body responds, every instinct I’ve been suppressing for weeks roaring to life.
Mine. She’s mine. She was always mine.
“I never stopped.” The words scrape out of me, raw and wrecked. “Not for one day. Not for one fucking second.”
She makes a sound—half sob, half laugh—and pulls me back down to her.
This kiss is different. Slower. Deeper. Her hands slide under my shirt, palms flat against my stomach, and I shudder at the contact. Skin on skin. Finally.Finally.
I want to devour her. Want to drop to my knees and bury my face between her thighs until she screams. Want to knot her so deep she feels me for days.
But more than that—more than the want burning through my veins—I want to do this right.
“Cara.” I pull back, breathing hard. Her eyes are glazed, her chest heaving, and it takes everything I have not to just take. “Tell me to stop.”
“What?”
“Tell me to stop and I will.” My voice is barely human. “But if we keep going, I’m not—” I swallow hard. “I don’t know if I can be gentle. Not right now. Not after?—”
She cuts me off by grabbing my shirt and hauling me back to her mouth.
“I don’t want gentle,” she breathes against my lips. “I wantyou. All of you. The way you used to?—”
I growl—actually growl—and lift her off her feet. Her legs wrap around my waist like they belong there. Like the last ten years never happened.
“Bedroom,” I manage, already moving.
I carry her there with my mouth on her neck, her pulse pounding against my lips. She’s making soft, desperate sounds, her fingers digging into my shoulders, her scent so thick and sweet I can barely think.
I kick the door open. Mr. Darcy yowls in protest and bolts off the bed.
I don’t care. I can’t care about anything except the woman in my arms and the way she’s looking at me—like I’m everything, like I’ve always been everything, like ten years of distance couldn’t touch what we have.
I lower her onto the bed and she pulls me down with her, and I go willingly, helplessly, because where else would I go? Where else have I ever wanted to be?
“Nate.” She frames my face with her hands, thumbs brushing away tears I didn’t realize were still falling. “I love you. I never stopped. I need you to know that.”
I turn my head, press a kiss to her palm. The words are stuck in my throat, too big to get out.
So I show her instead.
