I look down at her, at the way she’s looking up at me with so much trust, affection and love, and something breaks open in my chest.
“I love you,” I say, the words coming out rough and raw, scraped from somewhere deep inside me. “I fucking love you, Bells.”
It feels wrong and right at the same time, vulnerable in a way I’ve never let myself be. But once the words are out, once they’re hanging in the air between us, I feel lighter. Freer.
Tears spring to her eyes immediately, and she cups my face with both hands, her thumbs brushing over my cheekbones.
“I love you too,” she whispers.
That does it. Something in me snaps, and I kiss her hard, pouring everything I can’t say into it. My tongue slides against hers, claiming her mouth the same way I’m claiming her body, and my orgasm is building at the base of my spine, hot and insistent.
“Fuck, Bells, I’m gonna come,” I groan against her lips.
I bury myself as deep as I can go, grinding against her, and my orgasm slams into me. I groan into her mouth, the sound muffled by our kiss, as pleasure explodes through every nerve ending in my body. My cock pulses inside her, jerking with each wave, and I empty into the condom. My whole body shudders—my muscles locking up, my toes curling. I can’t remember ever coming this hard in my life. Every other orgasm pales incomparison to this—to Bells, to being inside her while telling her I love her.
Once the last aftershock has faded and it’s over, I collapse onto her, both of us trembling and exhausted. Her heart pounds against my chest, matching the frantic rhythm of my own. Our breathing is ragged, our bodies covered in sweat, and I’ve never felt more complete.
After a moment, when I can move again, I remove and throw away the condom in the trash beside the bed. Then I pull her into my arms, holding her close to my chest. She immediately curls into me, her head resting over my heart, one leg draped over mine, and I kiss her hair.
“I love you,” I say again, because now that I’ve said it, the words keep wanting to come out, over and over. “In case that wasn’t fucking obvious.”
She laughs, the sound soft and content, the vibration of it hits against my chest. “It was pretty obvious.”
I tilt her chin up with one finger, forcing her to look at me. I need her to see my face when I say this. For her to understand that I’m fucking serious.
“I mean it, Lola. You’re it for me. I know I’ve been with other chicks, and I know my reputation, but that’s over now. All of it. You’re the only one I fucking want. The only one I’m ever going to want.”
Her eyes search mine for a long moment, and she smiles. It’s so full of love that it makes my heart flutter.
“Good,” she whispers. “Because you’re it for me too.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Lola
Yesterday changed everything.
I told Jace I loved him. He said it back. And we had the kind of sex that rewrites your entire understanding of what your body is capable of feeling. Afterward, he held me in his arms and kissed me until I couldn’t breathe. I told him the good news. That my dad and I want him to live with us. That he doesn’t have to live in this awful trailer or return to a life like this, ever again.
He kissed me before we started packing up the few things he needed to take to his new life. There wasn’t much—a life squeezed into what could fit in a couple of trash bags. It hurt to see how little he had, how little he’d been given.
He showed me a photo of his mother. It was old, creased at the edges, and the color had faded. He held it carefully, as if it were fragile, and might disintegrate if squeezed too hard.
I stared at that photo, at the woman who gave him away as if he were nothing, and it took everything in me not to rip it in two. How could you hand him off to someone else and walk away?
But I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I squeezed his hand and helped him pack.
He never told his aunt he was leaving. Not that she’d have cared anyway. We loaded those trash bags filled with his whole world into my car and drove away, leaving that chapter of his life behind as if it had never existed.
Now, we’re sitting in my car in the school parking lot, and I’m realizing that yesterday was the easy part. Today is the day everyone else finds out.
My hands are gripping the steering wheel so tight my knuckles have gone white. I’m staring at the front entrance of the school, watching students filter in, laughing and talking, living their normal lives, completely unaware that mine has been turned upside down.
Jace is in the passenger seat, looking infuriatingly calm. He’s scrolling through his phone, one ankle crossed over his knee, completely relaxed. Meanwhile, I think I’m about to have a full-blown panic attack.
The moment Aubrey and Sam see me walk in with Jace, it’s over. They’re going to freak out. They’re going to judge me. They’ll ask a thousand questions I don’t have the answers to, or worse, answers I’m not ready to give.
Because Jace has made it very clear that he’s not hiding. That I’m his, and he’s mine, and he doesn’t care who knows about it. He wants to walk into that school with his arm around me, wants everyone to see that we’re together, and wants to stake his claim in that possessive, protective, alpha way that should probably annoy me but instead makes my stomach flip.
