Page 132 of Resist

“Me?” I sputter. “Great. Thanks for the warning.”

“It’s true.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Why?” he asks as he angles his head to the side and just stares at me with a look that conveys so much that my chest constricts. “Because it’s obvious to them.”

“What is?”

His smile is soft when he reaches out and tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. “That I’ve fallen for you, Vaughn.”

The spoon stops halfway to my mouth, the cookie dough forgotten as my heart all but skips a beat. Or maybe it skips like ten beats, because I can’t focus on what he just said.

“What?” I ask out of reflex when I know exactly what he said.

He moves the empty bowl of cookie dough from in between us and pulls on my feet so that I slide across the counter until we’re knee to knee, no distance between us.

“It’s true, Vaughn.” He laughs in a way that tells me it’s hard for him to believe, too, and thank God for that because I’m still stunned. Still sagging in relief. Still fumbling to believe it.

“What about—I thought—you said we weren’t defining—”

“We’re not.”

“But I don’t underst—”

“Neither do I,” he murmurs as he presses his lips to mine to stop my protests when I don’t want to be protesting. “I thought how I felt was because you were a challenge, but then I caught you. Then I thought it was because I needed to help fix you, but you fixed your broken parts yourself. I was wrong—I just needed you.”

That heart that stopped beating? It just sped up.

“You’ve had me, Ryker. For longer than you know.”

“Thank fuck for that,” he murmurs and leans forward.

His kiss is slow and seductive. He smells like chocolate and wine and everything I want. Everything I need.

“No defining,” he says against my lips. “Just us. Just this.”

“Just now.”

The tub of dough is moved. The glasses of wine are forgotten.

It’s only him I think of. It’s only him who can sate this need he’s created.

The cool granite of the island is on my back while every other part of me burns bright.

And this time when he lays me down, when he pushes into me moaning how good I feel, when he watches me the entire time we have sex until I fall under the hypnotic wash of pleasure he coaxes out of me, something is different between us.

There’s something different every time, actually—something new I learn, something new I feel—but this time it’s unmistakable.

This time he shows me how he feels.

This time, I know I’m not alone anymore.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Ryker

“Good riddance,” I mutter as I shut the door behind me and Vaughn laughs at me.