begged as he continued to work me like a fiddle, hitting every string as though he had hand-crafted me himself.
He slid his free hand into hair and pulled down, causing my chin to snap up. “Say it,” he begged, his lips pushing mine apart again as he claimed my mouth in a possessive kiss. “Tell me you love me.”
Every protective wall around my heart shattered, leaving nothing but the truth in its wake. The feelings I’d tried to keep buried were pouring out of me like falling rain. I knew in that moment that running away from him had been futile from minute one. I was never intended to be without him—to deny what both of us could so wholly and fully feel every time we were together. He was made for me, and I for him.
“I love you,” I murmured as the toe-curling sensation continued to build, making my limbs tingle and my blood sizzle. I was right there. So. Damn. Close.
He growled beside my ear, the sound so low and deep and appreciative that I felt it rumble against my chest. “Say it again,” he groaned as he worked my core with expert precision, his eyes drowning in quantifiable emotion. The way he was kissing me, crashing his hips against mine, commanding me, pulling my hair, it was driving me mad in the most delicious way possible. “I need to hear you say it again.”
“Fuck,” I hissed as my body tightened around him. Every nerve ending in my body sprung to life, awakened to him as though I had been in a waking sleep until this very moment. My orgasm ripped out of me with the violence of a hurricane, ricocheting through my body like a rolling storm as I screamed out ‘I love you’ to him, over and over again.
Trace’s lips crashed against mine, branding me with his taste as I rode out the aftershock of waves, and then he buried his face into my hair and came, calling out my name in a husky growl that made my toes curl.
Pressing his hand against the wall beside my head, he slumped his body against mine and panted, his chest rising and falling in haste as he slowly regained his bearings.
I ran my fingers through his silky hair as his body kept me pinned against the wall, my legs dangling weightlessly around his hips. There was something so simple and real about the quiet moment that I wished it could go on forever.
He pulled back and met my eyes as a playful smirk teased the corner of his lips. “So, you love me, huh?”
“Shut it,” I said as I smacked his chest and tried to drop to my feet, but Trace was having no part of it.
He tightened his hold and smiled, dimples blazing. “Say it again.”
“Haven’t you heard it enough for one night?” I asked, blushing as I recalled the numerous times I’d screamed it out.
“It’ll never be enough,” he murmured, his gaze holding me hostage. “Say it again, Jemma.”
I stared back at him for a moment, internally debating whether I wanted to make him suffer a little longer just for shits and giggles, and then put him out of his misery. “I love you, Trace,” I admitted openly and without abandon, unable to stifle it any longer. “I loved you then and I love you now, and I’ll probably love you for the rest of my life.”
His eyes slid shut as though my words had touched his very soul and then he pressed his lips against mine in a searing kiss that went on forever, and as much as I wanted to bask in the closeness, in the love that was freely flowing between us, I couldn’t help but feel that little voice at the back of my mind.
The one that was silently praying I would not go to my grave regretting those words.
34. LAST CHANCE
The rain was tapping gently against the windows when I woke up in Trace’s arms the next morning, my body humming serenely as though it had just spent the night cradled in the arms of its other half. Though, I supposed if Trace was right about that whole soulmates deal, that was precisely what my body had just done.
Doing my best imitation of a cat-burglar, I attempted to carefully slid his arm off my waist and creep out of bed, though immediately froze as he stirred awake beside me.
Tightening his hold on me, he scooped me in closer. “What time is