“I want tonight to be slow,” he murmurs. “I want to feel everything.”
My knees turn to jelly.
“I want that too.”
He smiles, small, tender, devastating.
“Good.”
He takes my hand and leads me toward the bedroom.
My heart sprints the whole way.
But when he turns and pulls me into his arms again, all the fear melts away.
JAXON
She’s here.
She’s really here.
And she’s choosing me.
Not the lust. Not the thrill. Not the adrenaline of something forbidden.
Me.
It hits me like a punch I don’t want to recover from.
I kiss her slowly, so slowly my own breath gets unsteady. Her hands slide up my chest, fingers curling into my shirt. Her lips part just slightly, and I’m gone.
But I keep control. Because this isn’t about hunger anymore.
It’s about her.
I lift her chin and kiss along her jaw, her throat, the hollow beneath her ear: soft, lingering kisses that make her whisper my name in a way that just about destroys me.
“Ruby,” I murmur, “if I go too fast..."
“You won’t,” she breathes.
God.
I pull her closer, hands sliding down her back, tracing the curve of her spine until she shivers.
She’s warm, soft, open; everything I’ve wanted since the first moment I saw her.
Tonight is different.
Tonight is careful, intentional, it’s also sSomething I don’t have a word for yet.
But I know it’s real.
And I know it’s mine.
I cup her face and kiss her again: slower, deeper, until she melts against me.
“Let me take care of you,” I whisper.
