When Stars Collide (Light in the Dark #2) - Micalea Smeltzer Page 0,42

about what we’re doing, I still think it’s the most erotic moment of my life. There’s something about the waiting and the knowing that this person is special.

It’s not like I have the most colorful sexual history in the world—only a few random fumblings here and there—but somehow I know that this is different.

The bond we have is unique, and while I might try to play it off, I honestly can’t deny its potency.

When we’re both clean he turns off the water and neither of us move, locked in a silent stare down. I think he’s still waiting for me to get scared and blurt an excuse to keep this from happening. But I can’t. I’m tired of running. For years I’ve been running from this and in the last two weeks I’ve been flat out sprinting—and yet somehow, no matter how far or fast I run, I always end up back here with him. That has to tell me something.

He reaches for my cheek, his touch light and tentative, and I relax into him. “I’m scared I’m going to push you away,” he whispers.

“You won’t,” I whisper back.

He brushes a wet piece of hair from my forehead and searches my eyes to see if my words are true.

“I don’t know why my heart’s beating so fast,” he murmurs, and grabs my hand placing it over his heart. I can feel it thumping madly and I know mine echoes the same beat in my chest.

“Because,” I whisper, “this is different than Vegas. This is … This is …”

He places a finger over my lips. “I know.”

We climb out of the shower and he reaches for a towel and hands it to me. I quickly dry my body and he does the same.

We’re not rushed, even though we both know what’s coming. I think we both purposely want to take our time unlike the night in Vegas. I want to remember every second of this, and I never want to forget the way I feel.

I watch the steady rise and fall of his chest as he stares back at me.

I reach for him first and he picks me up, carrying me swiftly into his room. A moment later the soft feel of the cotton of his sheets presses against my back.

He releases me and looks down reverently. “We don’t have to—”

I sit up and place my hands on his hips. “Just shut up already.”

He chuckles huskily and lowers his head to kiss me. It starts out slow, just a gentle sweep of his lips, but it quickly grows in intensity. We’re both desperate and aching for the touch of one another. I hold onto his broad shoulders and he angles his large body over mine like a protective shield.

He pulls his lips from mine with a gasp and presses his nose to my cheek, his lips a breath away from my neck, and whispers, “You have no fucking clue what you do to me.”

I want to tell him that I think I do because he has the same effect on me, but I can’t find the words.

I lie back on his soft sheets and he rubs his hands along my hips and down the sides of my thighs. My legs fall open and his eyes flash. His face is bathed mostly in shadow, but there’s enough light in the room that I can’t mistake the look on his face and it rocks me to my core. It’s the kind of look you see a man give a woman in the movies—you know, the look where he’s desperate for her and she’s oblivious to the way he sees her, but I’m not oblivious, at least, not now. But in the back of my mind, I recall flashes of this same look he’s given me over the years—a look I’ve ignored or chalked up to something else—but there’s no denying it now.

I want to yell at myself, and him, for being so stupid for so long—for delaying the inevitable.

Xander and I are like two stars colliding—I always thought we’d turn into a black hole, but right now, in this moment, I see that’s not it at all. No, we’ve simply merged into one, making a larger, more magnificent star.

We’ve both listened to the voices of others for far too long—denying what we wanted, what we needed to not rock the boat.

Xander came to his senses sooner than I did, because if it was up to me, I would’ve gotten a divorce the morning