Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,87

be isolated with you during a global pandemic to get it through my head that I want to be with you, but I definitely get it now. When this is all over, I want you to stay because I love you.”

Tristan’s breath hitched. He stared at me in mute disbelief, and my heart pounded. There was nothing more I could say. I’d found the words and laid it all out there. Whatever happened next depended on him, and holy shit, I was nervous. There was so much riding on what those creases in his forehead and that look in his eyes meant.

Dropping his gaze, he exhaled, and I held my breath.

Then, oblivious to my heart pounding so hard it was almost deafening, Tristan came closer. The distance between us narrowed, and I was sure that should tell me that meant he was taking me back—otherwise he’d leave the room, right?—but I was still so damn nervous and afraid that there was no going back that I refused to take anything for granted. Not until he told me. Not until he said it out loud.

He didn’t say a word.

He just touched my face, and he leaned in, and he kissed me, and everything went still.

The first time we’d kissed, we’d gone from zero to sixty in no time flat. This time, it was like the room and the world and my head had all been spinning, but one touch of Tristan’s lips, and it all came to a gentle stop. Wrapping my arms around him, I sighed and held him closer, and he slid his hand up into my hair, and we let this soft, perfect kiss linger like it might put out all the fires still going on outside.

When his lips eventually left mine, he whispered, “I love you.”

My heart went wild, and my hand shook a little as I smoothed his hair. “I love you too.”

“This has got to be the most backasswards way to meet someone and fall for them, but… I mean, it worked.”

I laughed, cupping his face. “Yeah. It did.”

Touching his forehead to mine, he whispered, “I’m really glad it did. And that you didn’t give up on us.”

“I’m way too stubborn for that.” I grinned. “You know that.”

With a soft laugh, he said, “Isn’t that the truth?”

Then he kissed me again, and I just held on and let the whole world feel right again.

Chapter 24

Tristan

I didn’t think I’d ever felt so simultaneously lost in a kiss and absolutely certain that I was right where I needed to be. I’d thought Casey was just in it for sex, but then he’d poured his heart out and told me everything I’d assumed I’d never hear from him. For all I’d been convinced there was no way he could feel anything for me except lust and convenience…this.

And oh God, the lust was still alive and well. As I pulled him closer, our cocks rubbed through our pants, and mine was absolutely not having the problem it had last time.

Breaking the kiss, I murmured breathlessly, “Any chance you want to make up for the way things went last time we were in bed?”

His eyes gleamed with need, and he grinned. “Do you?”

I flattened my palm against the small of his back and pulled him against me, making sure he felt every inch of how much I wanted him. “You better believe it.”

“Then what are we still doing in the kitchen?”

We fixed that problem in a hurry. What seemed like seconds later, Casey shoved me down onto his mattress and met my lips in a crushing kiss. We were still dressed, but whatever. The clothes would come off when they came off—I didn’t want to wait another second to have my arms around him and my mouth against his. Apparently we were on the same page.

I still couldn’t believe we’d made it back to this. One minute I was mentally calculating how much I’d have to borrow from my parents to pay for a divorce, not to mention the cross-country move, and the next…

The next, I was holding Casey close, kissing him like I’d never thought for a second that we were better off apart. Because we weren’t. I belonged with him. It had taken a global goddamned pandemic to shove us close enough to see the chemistry between us, but I saw it, and I felt it, and I was not letting it go a second time.

Casey broke the kiss and panted, “Oh my God, I missed this.”

“Me too.”

I