“So now you know,” I finish.
He wipes his face and sits down next to me on the bed. “What can I do, Aurora? Please tell me. I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”
Defeated and mentally exhausted, I rest my head on my folded arms on top of my knees.
“Don’t you see, JD? You can’t. You can’t go back in time and erase the past. You even told me that you wouldn’t change your decision if you could do it all over again. I can’t blame you for that because you’re right about Connor deserving a chance at life. How could I wish for something that would be the cause that he isn’t with us today? And I can’t go back and not drink that night. So what’s the point?”
He leans in and gathers me into his lap. “I need to hold you for a second. Please don’t push me away again. You can slap me all you need to, just don’t push me away.”
I give in. I don’t deny myself this, his comfort and his touch. Being able to tell him what happened lifts a burden from my chest and I feel lighter, freer. I know we have so much still to discuss, but for once, I’m not going to second guess my feelings, allowing my anger to cloud my vision. I’m going to be a Montgomery and take what I want. And I want JD. Damn the consequences.
“I love you, Aurora. I never stopped loving you.”
He shifts our positions so he’s sitting on the edge of the bed with me straddling his lap. I press my nose to his neck and inhale his scent. God, how I’ve missed his smell. I’ve missed him. He keeps saying that he came back for me. I’m finally going to accept it and give him what he wants, because it’s what I want too.
“I love you too,” I whisper into his skin.
I may regret letting him in again, but I can’t deny my feelings any longer. I love him. So much. I need him in my life. I’m only half a person without him. I could be opening myself up to more pain and disappointment. He hasn’t told me everything that happened and why he stayed away for so long. But just like that night when he reached his hand out to me and asked me to trust him, I take that leap. I really don’t have a choice. I need this man more than I need my next breath. I want him and I want Connor. I want it all.
“What did you say?” He cradles my face in strong, callused hands. Our eyes lock, both of them blue but so different from each other’s. Our eyes hold our truths.
“I love you, Jackson. I always have and I always will.”
I feel soft lips crash down onto mine. JD’s lips. JD is kissing me. No, JD is possessing me. I kiss him back. Five years of longing and want go into our kiss. The glide of his tongue across the seam of my mouth beckons entry. I open for him, and his taste explodes across my tongue when his meets mine. I hunger for him in a way no other man will ever quench. Spearing my hands into his soft, brown hair, his hand comes around my neck and pulls me closer. JD kisses the hell out of me, and if he weren’t holding me right now, I would be a pile of jelly on the floor.
“You still love me?” he asks, whisper-soft.
I smile and the fullness of the smile he gives me in return shatters me with its intensity.
“You love me,” he states, and he tugs at the hair at the base of my neck before ravishing my mouth once again. JD kisses like he plays football. He takes control and maneuvers me where he wants. I happily acquiesce.
He breaks the kiss and pulls back, leaving me panting and breathless. “I love you so goddamn much, sunshine.”
I feel his hand go to my back and feel my body being lowered on the bed. He settles on top of me and brushes my hair away from my face with gentle fingers.
I pull down his kiss-swollen bottom lip and he hums. Then my fingertips explore the face of the man I love, reacquainting themselves with the coarseness of his five o’clock shadow, the shape of his eyes, the deep chocolate brown of his eyebrows.
“Knox and I decided that we were better off as friends. That’s the conversation you overheard in the library.”
He leans in to nibble at the juncture of my ear and neck and tiny explosions rock my body. Sex with JD was always explosive. My body remembers everything he and I did in our brief time together, and it lights up at the feel of his teeth nipping my earlobe. I moan helplessly when his hand caresses over the swell of my T-shirt-covered breast. I whimper when he plucks my nipple through the fabric, making it ache in a delicious way.
“As much as I want to shred off our clothes and make love to you until the sun comes up, Connor is outside.”
He’s right. It doesn’t stop me from lifting my head and biting his lip with a gentle suck.
“Baby, I am so hard right now, I may change my mind and fuck you into this bed until we’re screaming each other’s names.”
My eyes twinkle at the thought and he smashes his mouth down on mine for a hard, quick kiss.
“No can do, sunshine. I have too many things planned for this body. I’ve dreamed about this body for years and I’m going to make damn sure to make all of those thoughts I see swirling around in your head right now a reality,” he promises, gliding his hands down my chest, my stomach, over the heat at the apex of my thighs, and down my legs. “Come over tonight?” He kisses me again, this time slow and languorous.
JD isn’t just asking me to come over for sex. He’s asking me to stay the night. To sleep in his bed and wake up to him the next morning. He’s asking for an ‘us.’ Am I ready for that next step? Am I ready to be vulnerable to him again? Like everything else we’ve done together, once JD and I decide on something, we move fast. There is no slow for us. Yes, I may have just officially ended things with Knox less than an hour ago, but I can’t stop how I feel about JD. I can’t stop loving him. I’m not fighting it anymore.
“Yes,” I tell him.
Chapter 57
I’m not used to feeling this nervous. Not even on a game night in a stadium packed with tens of thousands of screaming fans. Checking the baked chicken in the oven for the hundredth time, I pour some sparkling water into a chilled glass and drop lemon and lime slices in to add a bit of flavor. I want tonight to be all about Aurora—well, all about me, her, and Connor. I want her to see what I see. Us as a family. Happy. Together.
