"Jackson, I… I can't…"
"Yes, baby. Yes, you can. Let go. Come for me," he growls, speeding up even more, pressing me toward the edge.
I come,hard,trembling, my body contracting tightly around him as the climax rips through me. He follows immediately, letting out a deep, guttural groan as he fills me.
We collapse together, both breathing hard, hearts hammering a frantic, dual beat, our bodies slick and trembling with the aftermath.
"Wait," I murmur finally, pushing the haze of orgasm and heat away. My brain is starting to work again. "What?"
"What?" he asks, his voice low, still heavy with spent lust.
"You said—" I push up on my elbow, bracing myself to lookat him, needing to see his eyes. "You said you've been obsessed with me for years."
He meets my eyes, open and earnest. "I have been."
"But you, at my party, you rejected me. You told me we couldn't."
"I know."
"So I don't understand," I press, feeling the confusion and hurt from a year ago flare up. "If you've wanted me for years, why would you?—"
"We need to talk," he interrupts gently, sensing the edge in my voice.
"About what?"
"Everything. The kiss. The rejection. Why I had your photo for over a year, Maya," he runs a shaky hand through his hair. "But not like this. Not when we just… we need to talk when we're both thinking clearly. Properly."
He's absolutely right. My head is still spinning, my body still buzzing from the orgasms, the confession, and the overwhelming intensity of everything that's just happened. We need to have this conversation properly, need to understand what this massive, terrifying truth truly means.
"Okay," I say, nodding slowly. "We'll talk. But Jackson?—"
"Yeah?"
"You can't just say you've been obsessed with me for years and then not explain why you rejected me."
"I won't. I promise," he says, pulling me back against his chest, wrapping his arms around me. "Tomorrow. We'll talk tomorrow."
I know I should go back to my room. I should follow the rules about not sleeping in the same bed, especially after an encounter like this.
But fuck the rules. They've already been thoroughly broken tonight.
I settle against his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow, as his warm arms hold me.
He kept my photo. For years. The same man who rejected me at my birthday party can't let me go.
None of it makes sense.
But tomorrow, maybe it will. Maybe then everything will finally make sense.
And tonight… Tonight, I let myself forget everything else, letting his warmth, his obsession, his need wrap around me until the world narrows to just him.
19
JACKSON
Maya wakes up in my arms, and for a second, she's disoriented, eyes fluttering open, taking in my room and me lying beside her. Then her memory floods back, and her expression shifts from confusion to something harder to read.
"We fell asleep," she says.
