My body’s still rippling with aftershocks when he flops down on me, and holy shit but I could live forever in the warmth of his heavy body, drinking in the cinnamon-y citrus and faintly sweaty scent of him.
“Jesus fuck, Tris.”
Jesse’s breathless laugh vibrates through me as he presses up on an elbow propped by the side of my head to grin down atme. It’s a sloppy, totally wrecked grin, with his always-mussed-up-hair even more mussed than ever, a few strands sticking to his damp forehead, and his face still all sunset and scorching pink.
My heart skips, and out of nowhere, my stomach’s full of those damn butterflies again.
Holy fuck, he’s beautiful.
“That was,” he shakes his head, huffing out another laugh. “You’re amazing.”
A fresh aftershock buzzes through me, making my spent cock twitch between us.
Fucking hell, what it does to me when he says that kind of shit.
And then I don’t know what to do with myself because his hand is in my hair, fingers threading through it, gently pushing it back from my own sweat-damp forehead before he lowers his lips to mine. He kisses me like I’m the air he needs to live, all sweet and tender and soft, but every last bit as desperate and greedy as just before he’d come.
Why this should throw me so totally off balance, I don’t have a fucking clue, only it does. So completely that, for a moment, I think that that big, terrifyingthingthat’s apparently set up a permanent spot in my chest might just drown me.
So what that we’ve cuddled and kissed, and that in every last one of his touches, I canfeelhis too-perfect-to-be-real Jesse-goodness radiating out from him. This, right now, the way he’s kissing me and touching me like hestillcan’t get enough? And,fuck, like hewantsme to know it? It’s like instead of pushing me away and being done with me now that he’s gotten what he wanted, even if it’s just for now, he’s somehow found a way to pull me closer.
Well, he’s just gone and made my heart get all fluttery-skippy, and ‘cause I really just have to, and ‘cause his warm, soft body feels too damn good not to, I let myself snuggle closer in his arms, tucking my head onto the comfy spot where his shoulder meets his chest.
My hand splays out on his soft pec that isn’t taken up with my cheek, and without really meaning to, my fingers start running through the golden-brown curls that dust over his skin, just sorta stroking and feeling their silky-course texture. With my face and ear cuddled against him, I can hear his heart beating away, and maybe I’m totally imagining shit, but it sounds just as skippy and excited as the thumping rhythm in my own chest.
It’s all too mushy. I know this, only fuck me, ‘cause I can’t do a damn thing to stop myself from eating up every sweet, cozy moment of it.
It would be so easy to pull back instead of giving in. To protect myself and run as far the hell away as I can from the warm glow of happiness spreading through me as he snuggles into me, not really kissing anymore, just holding me, brushing those soft, sweet lips of his against my skin and over my hair as our breathing slows.
Because how the hell could I deserve this?
The thing is, even though maybe I don’t, oh my fucking god do Iwant to. I want it so bad that that alone should send me running.
I want his scorching sunset blushes and ugly-ass sweaters. I want his brilliant, sexy AF mind and all the random things he knows about his honestly borderline-disturbing witch hunt shit and everything else in history that no one else bothers to remember. I want the way he talks to me, all wound up andexcited and not dumbed down for the benefit of pretty, dumb me.
Fuck, I want the way he doesn’t think I’m dumb.
I want his plunked out, sorta robotic sounding piano playing and the way he shuffles and stares down at those freakishly mismatched socks of his when he gets extra shy. That look he gets when I play my music for him, like he doesn’t think it’s a waste of time, but something worth stopping and noticing. The legitimately amazing dinners he cooks.
Shit, I’ll even share his boring-ass oats with him. If Ihaveto…
Because I want his quiet laugh and the way he never lets me get cold. The sweet, patient kindness you can straight upfeelhovering around him. That hidden confidence that had him taking charge and having his way with me just now.
And,fuck, I want this.Him. His warm, big, kinda squishy-strong body wrapped tight around me. The way he looks into my eyes and somehow makes me feel like heknowsme, like heseesme, even though there’s so much I’ve never told him.
Fuck. I just wanthim.
Except I’m scared to fucking death thatwantmight not be the word I actually mean.
31
Jesse
Everything from when I pulled Tristan in for that kiss at my doorway was nothing but a blur. An incredible, lust-filled, frantic blur.
Jesus, I’d known I’d missed him, but until that moment when I’d opened the door to find him standing there with his carelessly beautiful black swoop of hair falling down over his coppery green and gold flecked eyes and that dimple set deep in his cheek, somehow even more gorgeous than the images of him that had played over and over in my head over the last few days, I hadn’t realized just how much every cell in my body had yearned for his presence.
And then I let myself kiss him. Touch him. Drink him in. And I’d felt myself come alive with that indefinable something I’d never realized I’d been missing until that dizzying first moment I’d laid eyes on him in the coffee shop.
