“I know,” I breathed, even though he hadn’t said anything else.
I knew what he meant.
I felt it too.
And I wasn’t ready to let go.
The moment built slowly.
No rush. No clumsy urgency. Just heat and reverence—like we were memorizing each other with our hands, our mouths, our breath.
His fingers skimmed the back of my neck, down my spine, over the swell of my hips like he was asking a silent question.
We kissed again, and it was different now—deeper, fuller. Not wild. Not chaotic. Just… full of everything we hadn’t said and everything we couldn’t stop feeling. It tasted like things we shouldn’t want but craved, anyway.
His hands were on my skin, warm and possessive, but gentle. Like I was something he wanted to hold, not just have. And mine were just as eager, tracing every scar, every muscle, every place he tensed beneath my palms.
“You sure?” he murmured against my shoulder, voice low and rasped and barely holding it together.
I tilted my head, letting him press his mouth there, right where my pulse was hammering.
“Last chance,” he said again, his breath hot against my skin.
I smiled, even as my heart thudded against my ribs. “You’re not scaring me.”
His lips stilled.
“That’s what scares me,” he whispered.
That cracked something open in me.
Because I understood.
The way this wasn’t just a hookup or a moment of weakness.
The way it mattered.
The way touching him meant stepping into something real, something neither of us could take back. And maybe we weren’t ready for what that meant. But we were already too far in to pretend it didn’t exist.
I cupped his jaw and guided his gaze back to mine.
“I want this,” I told him softly. “I want you.”
The look in his eyes wrecked me—like no one had ever said that to him and meant it.
He kissed me again—slowly, reverently—before laying me back against the sheets like I was something to be cherished, not conquered.
Every touch after that was deliberate. His hands roamed like he had all the time in the world, like he wanted to learn me by heart. No words. Just sighs and soft gasps, the kind that told the truth better than any sentence could.
He hovered above me, eyes stormy and vulnerable. Waiting.
I reached for him.
And he came undone like he’d been waiting his whole life to be wanted without condition.
We moved together, slow and devastating, wrapped in heat and ache and something dangerously close to hope.
And when I looked up and saw my reflection in his eyes—I didn’t see someone pretending anymore.
