Christ, she tastes like tears and coffee and something unbearably soft.
My other hand skims up her thigh, finding bare skin where there should’ve been shorts. She shivers violently, but she doesn’t pull back. She makes a small sound—one that hits me straight in the spine—and straddles me like instinct brought her there.
Her shirt slides up my arms. Her thighs are warm against my hips. Her heartbeat is a frantic, stuttering rhythm against my chest.
I hold her tighter, one hand flattening at the small of her back, urging her closer until there’s no space left at all.
She kisses me like she’s trying to carve her apology into me. I kiss her like I’m trying to undo every terrible thing she’s ever believed about herself.
Her hands slide up my neck, fingers threading into my hair, pulling me deeper into the kiss—not giving me a second to breathe, not wanting one.
I break just enough to drag my mouth down her jaw, to her throat. She arches—soft, helpless—her nails digging into my shoulders.
“Ethan…” Her voice cracks on my name.
That does something to me.
Something primal.
Possessive.
Unavoidable.
I grip her waist and pull her tighter against me, my voice unsteady when I manage words at all.
“I’ve got you,” I breathe against her skin. “I’ve bloody got you.”
She shudders like that sentence alone is enough to unravel her.
Her forehead drops to mine again, breath trembling, lips brushing mine between panting little kisses.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean any of it. Those nasty things I said back at mine. I just— I was scared and stupid, and I pushed and—”
I silence her with another kiss—slow this time, deep enough to anchor both of us.
She sighs into it, her whole body softening against me, trusting me with all that helpless emotion spilling out of her.
Her fingers trace my jaw.
My chest.
My collar.
Every touch is a confession.
And I take all of it.
Because right now, with her straddling me in nothing but a T-shirt, shaking and crying and kissing me like I’m the only solid thing in her world.
I don’t have the discipline to stop.
Not now.
Not with her clinging to me like this.
I grip her waist and pull her tighter against me, my voice unsteady when I manage words at all.
"Lucky," I murmur against her skin, the name rough in my throat. She's trembling, her body soft and yielding under my hands, but I can sense the fragility in every hitch of her breath. I won't rush this. Not with her like this.
