Johanna finally looked up at him. Her eyes looked glossy beneath the moonlight, her lips kiss-swollen and slightly parted while cool ocean wind tangled through the curls framing her face. Beautiful didn’t feel like a strong enough word anymore. That woman standing in his arms could ruin a man’s judgment with one look.
And God help him… Blaze wanted another kiss.
He wanted to pull her closer and taste her again until she forgot every reason she’d spent years resisting him.
But he also understood one thing with complete certainty. Ifhe pushed too hard tonight, Johanna would run.
Not because she didn’t want him.
Blaze could feel how much she wanted him. He saw it every time she leaned toward him without realizing it and heard it in the soft catch of her breath whenever he touched her.
No.
Johanna’s issue had never been a lack of love. Fear was the real problem. Fear that loving him again would hurt just as badly the second time around.
Blaze brushed his thumb gently across her jaw again, keeping the touch gentle and deliberate.
Johanna’s lashes fluttered briefly closed before she gazed at him again.
And damn if that didn’t hit him somewhere primitive.
“You keep looking at me like that,” he said quietly, his voice roughened from kissing her, “and I’m gonna forget how to behave.”
A soft breath escaped her lips.
“What makes you think you’re behaving now?”
Blaze laughed low in his throat.
There she was. That quick smart sass he missed more than he’d ever admitted out loud.
Then Johanna started laughing.
Not nervous laughter. A real laugh. Warm and bright. Completely unguarded.
And suddenly she was looking at him the way she used to before life complicated everything between them.
Something inside Blaze’s chest tightened painfully hard.
Mine.
The thought arrived without permission, fierce with possessiveness and protectiveness. It stopped him cold because beneath all of it was a truth he could no longer ignore.
He loved this woman.
He always had.
Blaze studied her quietly beneath the moonlight while the ocean rolled beside them.
“You know what I missed most?” he asked softly.
Suspicion flickered across Johanna’s face. “That sounds dangerous.”
“It probably is.”
Music drifted faintly from the bonfire farther down the beach while waves crashed steadily against the shoreline. Even with people nearby, the darkness surrounding them felt strangely private.
Blaze stepped closer until barely any space remained between them.
