She tangled her legs around his waist, meeting each thrust with her own, lost to the crash and pull.
"That's it, baby, come for me," he urged, breath hot and desperate.
She shattered for him, everything clenching impossibly tight as pleasure took over—no dignity, no sass, just raw, broken cries as she came apart.
He followed with a curse and a groan, holding her tight.
"Thank you," she mumbled against his lips.
He laughed, breathless, tugging her closer. "That's my line."
He grinned into her hair, then stood up and handled the condom.
The deeply inappropriate but highly attractive idea of doing that all over again bubbled up in her mind.
Inappropriate. This was inappropriate.
Of course, he sensed that moment of hesitation from her. Of course he did.
"You're allowed to want this thing happening between us. It's not a curse. It's just us," he said, like this—her, them—was a gift. Not a ticking clock on some inevitable heartbreak she hadn't scheduled but definitely expected.
"Just us," she echoed, wishing it could be true.
Later, after he carried her to the bedroom, they lay tangled up beneath crisp sheets that still smelled like detergent and danger.
He traced lazy patterns across her back. They didn't talk. They just breathed.
At some point—time went fuzzy when a girl kept coming—when they snuggled tight in his bed, her head tucked beneath his chin, her hand parked firmly over the steady beat of his heart like it belonged there.
He kissed her hair. Tightened his arms around her like she was something that mattered, not something temporary.
No declarations. Just safety soft as sunrise and every bit as dangerous.
When she woke with sunlight slicing through the windows and his arms wrapped around her like a human exclamation point, she just…lay there. Cocooned. Warm. One broad hand still resting at her waist like he chose her even in sleep, like his subconscious was all in.
Her brain, being the unhelpful little gremlin it was, immediately began counting the ways this could fall apart.
Don't fall.
Don't believe this is real.
Not for you.
But beneath the usual buzzing panic, something new stirred. Something quieter. A tug forward, a thread glinting in the dark.
But what if it is real?
CHAPTER 15
40 DAYS UNTIL ANNA & DRAKE'S WEDDING
PIPER
Zach's sheets smelled like linen, cedar, and a lapse in judgment so epic it deserved its own apology fruit basket. The cotton currently wrapped around her bare legs was a whispered reminder of something dangerously close to intimacy.
Not that she was panicking.
Okay. Maybe a little.
