mutual.”
“Good talk?” Her smile transformed her entire face. Damn it, she was perfection.
“Yeah, Gabs.” I reached for her again, grasping her wrist, waiting for her to come back into my atmosphere so I could breathe her in. “Good talk.”
Nodding, she took one step, then two in my direction. She rested her hands against my chest, sending shock waves of heat through my system, then slid them up around my neck.
We were hugging.
Embracing.
All the tension left my body in that instant.
The rightness of the entire situation left me speechless about how a simple hug was exposing every vulnerability, breaking down every defense I’d ever laid in place when it came to Gabs. She might as well grab a knife, cut me open, and peer inside.
Because my weakness had always been her, it would always be her.
And now? It felt like she knew it.
I held her tighter against me, my hands slowly dancing up and down her back while I took a deep breath; the air was saturated with her.
“Your choice,” I whispered hoarsely. “You still want this?”
Still want this. Please, God, make her still want this.
No answer.
Rejection washed over me as I frantically searched for every damn pebble from the wall she’d destroyed. I needed to rebuild, to fix the armor around myself.
I swallowed a giant lump in my throat as she stepped around me.
Leaving. Only this time, it was her leaving, not me, and I knew I deserved every moment of the rejection she was showing me as she moved past me, then tugged my body completely into the room and shut the door.
The sound of my door locking might as well have been a meteor hitting the earth.
I was afraid to turn around.
Small hands touched my sides from behind and then wrapped around my middle as Gabs planted her face against my back. “I still want this.”
I hung my head. “Thank God.”
Without giving her another chance to say no, I scooped her into my arms and carried her to the bed. “You know this changes nothing, right?”
Gabi didn’t miss a beat. She smiled—still naked, mind you—and reached up to yank my head down to hers. “You’re still a bastard.”
“And you’re still a pain in my ass.”
“Okay.”
I licked her lips.
She returned the favor.
“Okay.”
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Gabi
The entire situation felt unreal, as if I was hovering over my own body, watching things happen, gasping, holding my breath, rubbing my eyes, and wondering if I was in a dream.
I’d always wanted him.
There was a tug-of-war between my head and my heart.
My head would remind me of all the situations when he’d been a completely horrible human being, while my heart kept the good memories sacred.
Like when we were younger and he beat up the kids who used to make fun of me because I wore hand-me-downs.
Or the time when he taught me how to dance so I wouldn’t look stupid at my first junior high dance. Then he’d moved away from our school district, and we’d lost touch.
He and Ian had still hung out, but he had disappeared from my world.
Until my senior year of high school, when I came to that Christmas party on campus.
It was our game changer.
The trick play.
Be the Cinderella at the ball and the prince takes you home, right? Isn’t that how life worked? Instead, the prince kissed me, then insulted me, rejected me, and so started the war.
I think I liked making love better.
“Lex,” I panted as he invaded my mouth over and over again, as if he couldn’t get enough of the way our lips slid across one another. The raw sensation of his rough hands rubbing down my ribs had me bucking off the bed every single time.
“I love that even now, when you say my name, I’m still a little terrified you’re going to attack me.” Lex chuckled darkly against my neck.
My laugh turned into a moan. “You . . . are . . .”
His lips found my ear, and then he was doing something with his tongue while his fingertips skimmed across my pelvis. “What was that?”
“No idea.” I’d heard rumors that Lex was so good in bed he’d managed to give a girl three orgasms while studying for a poli-sci test at the same time. Something about the note cards being in the pillowcase.
The point?
The rumors.
Were true.
So . . . “Holy crap, Lex, that feels too much.”
“Not a sentence, Sunshine.” Lex hauled me up into a sitting position.
Confused, I looked around. He still had clothes on. I was