“And I still want you,” I interrupted softly.
Silence.
His jaw flexed.
“This changes things,” he muttered.
“Everything already changed.”
I stepped closer, pressing my body lightly against his. Warmth meeting warmth.
His breath caught.
“I don’t want to think right now,” I admitted. “I don’t want mystery or fear or death or responsibility.”
My hands slid up his chest, feeling the steady strength beneath his shirt. The dangerous man everyone else saw.
The man who had quietly become my safe place.
“I want you,” I whispered. “Just you.”
His eyes closed briefly.
Like he was losing a fight.
When they opened again, something had shifted.
Control was still there—but thinner. Frayed at the edges.
“Ella,” he said, voice low. Warning. Promise. “If we do this, I’m not doing it halfway.”
A tremor slid through me.
“Good.”
His free hand came up, fingers sliding into my hair, gripping gently but firmly at the back of my head.
Possessive.
And the kiss, when it came, erased the last of my doubts.
Not tentative this time.
Not careful.
His mouth claimed mine with a hunger that stole the breath from my lungs, like he’d been holding this back for too long and didn’t know how to do restraint anymore.
I gasped, and he took advantage instantly, deepening the kiss, pulling me against him so there was no space left between us.
His body was heat and strength and barely controlled force.
Everything he kept contained finally slipping.
My hands fisted in his shirt as sensation overwhelmed thought. Need. Relief. Want.
God.
So, this was what he’d been holding back.
