My chest cracked open.
“He didn’t make my heart race.” The words came out soft, almost desperate. “Jack—I was thinking about you.”
Jack went still. Completely, utterly.
“He didn’t make my hands forget how to work when he walked in.” I unfolded from the couch. My bare feet found the cold floor. “He didn’t make me lose my breath just because he said my name in a certain way. He was kind and he was good and I sat across from him eating incredible pasta and feeling like the worst person alive because I wanted to want him.” My voice broke.
“I wanted it to be easy. I wanted to feel something—anything—that didn’t hurt. And all I could feel was wrong. All I could think about was you standing in that parking lot looking at me like I’d destroyed you, and how much I wanted to take it back, and how terrified I was that I’d already burned it all down.”
I was standing now, the robe loose around me, the city blazing behind him. My throat was so tight I could barely force the words through.
“The only person in my head—the only person who has ever been in my head—was you.”
I was in front of him. I watched his pupils dilate. I could feel the heat radiating off his skin.
“It has always been you,” I said. “Even when I was running. Even when I was refusing to acknowledge the chemistry between us. Even when I convinced myself I hated you—it was still you.”
He looked up at me, and I watched him fight it—the hope. He was terrified of it. I could see the terror right there on his face, plain as daylight.
“Don’t.” His voice was rough. Uneven. “Don’t say that unless you mean it, because I cannot—” He exhaled, hard. “I can’t survive losing you again.”
I stared at him, my heart beating too rapidly. “All this time you refused to let me go, and now I’m standing right in front of you telling you I’m done running—and you’re the one who’s scared?”
I took his face in my hands. His stubble scraped my palms. His skin was warm, alive, real.
“You didn’t answer me in that building. In the dark, you said those words. Did you mean them?”
His hands came up and covered mine.
“I meant them,” he said, and his voice was nothing I’d ever heard from him before—quiet and fierce and completely defenceless. “I have always meant them.”
“Then have me,” I whispered.
He pulled me down and kissed me.
His mouth met mine like a wave hitting a wall—forceful, hungry, overwhelming. His hands gripped my waist and dragged me into his lap and I went, knees on either side of him, fingers sliding into his hair and holding on.
He groaned into my mouth, deep in his chest, the vibration traveling through me and settling in my blood like a lit fuse. The sound he made—God, that sound—went straight through me, igniting something that had been smoldering for weeks.
I kissed him back with everything I’d been hoarding. Every restless night. Every time I’d watched that elevator and prayed. Every lie I’d told about not caring. His tongue swept against mine and my hips rolled forward without permission and he made a sound—God, that sound—his fingers digging into my thighs through the silk.
He pulled back, forehead resting against mine, breathing like he’d been running.
“We need to stop.”
“We really don’t.”
“You were scared tonight.” His eyes were dark, blown wide, his voice strained in a way that told me stopping was costing him everything he had. “An hour ago you were shaking. I won’t—if you wake up tomorrow and think I?—”
“Jack.” I traced his bottom lip with my thumb. Felt him shudder. “I have been wanting this for weeks. I have lain in my bed replaying that kiss on the street until I thought I’d go insane. I have been so stubborn and so afraid and I’m done.” I held his gaze. “This isn’t fear talking. This is the first honest thing I’ve let myself feel in seven years.”
He searched my face. Whatever he found there broke the last of his restraint.
He stood—arms sliding under me, lifting me like it was nothing, and my legs wrapped around him on instinct and a laugh escaped me, bright and breathless against his mouth.
“Showing off,” I murmured.
“Absolutely.” He was already walking, carrying me out of the living room, his lips finding the spot beneath my ear, and my laugh dissolved into something else entirely. He kicked the bedroom door wide and the room beyond was darkness and glass and the whole city burning on the other side of it.
