the tears stop. “I love you. You have to let me in. This won’t work if you don’t let me in.”
He pressed his lips to my forehead. “I know. I know. I know.” The words came between kisses as he moved down to my temple. My cheekbone. The corner of my mouth.
Then he took my mouth like it was…his. And the little alarm of logic flared in my brain. Deflecting.
But I didn’t care. I’d told him I loved him, and he hadn’t run. Hadn’t laughed. Hadn’t made a quick joke and rolled his eyes. Hadn’t declared this all some sick joke he’d been playing since August. He was kissing me like I was the most precious thing in the world to him. Like I was more necessary than air.
He kissed me like he might love me, too, and I let him.
He lifted me to the counter and stepped between my thighs, kissing me over and over, tangling his hands in my hair, then sweeping them down my body. My breasts, my waist, my thighs—I felt him everywhere, as though he couldn’t touch me enough.
He untied the satin belt at my waist and parted the fabric but didn’t slide it from my shoulders. My head rolled back as he pressed openmouthed kisses to my neck, lingering on every spot he knew would make me gasp as his hand slid up my thigh.
My body melted under his.
His fingers swept between my thighs, and we both groaned.
“You want me.” His voice was a step above a growl in my ear.
“I always want you.” There was no use denying it. Whether it had been an hour or a day, it didn’t matter. My body responded to his the second he touched me.
“I don’t deserve you,” he said against my mouth.
“Yes you—” He stopped my words with another kiss, this one deeper and hotter as his fingers set me on fire, ceaselessly building that tight coil of need within me until I was ready to snap, ready to scream, clawing at him for more because it was right there.
He slid a finger inside me, then two, and I whimpered. It wasn’t enough.
“I need you.” I shoved at his waistband.
“I’m here.” He dropped his shorts, and a second later, I felt the head of him against me.
I grasped greedily at his back as he drove home, sliding to the hilt and filling me with one smooth thrust and ripping a cry from my lips.
He stilled, tensing unnaturally.
“What’s wrong?” My hips rolled, and he moaned but held tight, pinning me to the counter.
“I’m bare.” He rested his forehead against mine, clearly fighting for control. The condoms were upstairs.
“I’m on the pill,” I reminded him. “It’s okay.” It was a hard line for him, but in that moment, I didn’t care. I’d just given him my soul. He could break his rule for me.
“Zoe.” His eyes squeezed shut. “Fuck, you feel too good.”
“Either you trust me, or you don’t.” I would never trap him with a baby or set my career back by starting a family before I was ready with a man who clearly didn’t want one.
His eyes snapped open. “I trust you.”
“I love you.” Then I was the one kissing him to keep from answering, because the statements weren’t equal and I knew it. There was no equal footing here.
He tangled his fingers in my hair and moved, taking me hard and slow, both of us straining for the other as we came together over and over, each thrust better than the last. The kiss broke, both of us breathing heavily, sweat beading on our skin as the pleasure wound tighter and tighter.
I fought it, holding his gaze as I held his body, knowing that, in this moment, our need for the other was equal. Then his hand glided across my thigh, then between them, and he used his thumb to tease me to the edge.
My body trembled, my muscles locking tight around him.
“Yes. God, yes. You’re right there. So beautiful.” It was the look in his eyes as he said it that shoved me into bliss.
I unraveled, coming so hard I lost my grip on him, but he held me tight, finding his own release just a few thrusts later.
After we were cleaned up, he carried me to bed, then stripped my robe off and curled his body around mine, fading quickly to the deep even breaths of sleep.
The clock changed number after number before I realized we hadn’t even drunk the tea that had