I yearn to taste her. I ache to feel her inviting curves. I want to fuck her soft and tender and then rough like a savage. More than anything, I need to hold her safe in my arms.
“What’s wrong?” she says, sensing my frustration. Her breathtaking brown eyes slay my soul.
I can’t tell her what’s wrong but I can tell her my deepest truth. I lick my lips, delaying the inevitable like a wretched coward.
“Say it,” she commands, climbing off my lap. I have to wonder if she can read my mind.
“I never got over you,” I begin, for better or worse. “I fell in love the way a ten-year-old falls in love. It was pure. Joy and breathlessness. I didn’t know the implications of that feeling, how it would survive when everything else in the world and in me changed.”
I pause. Her eyes are fixated on me, her breathing slowing. “My mother took us to London after my father was killed,” I say. “We started over. Things were good for a couple of years. I grew taller and stronger, I became more confident. Everything was changing for the better until my mother died suddenly of a lung infection. It happened so fast I didn’t know what hit me.”
Her hand squeezes mine. “Sweet boy,” she says.
“Uncle Lucius, my mom’s brother, took me in. He brought me back to the States. He sent me to private schools and made sure I had everything. I was miserable. Lucius is the most demanding motherfucker on Earth. He never allowed me the slightest weakness. He demanded I excel at sports. He insisted I eat lean protein and vegetables. He said I need a pair of brass balls. I started thinking about you again. With my mother gone, you were the one person left who hadn’t tried to judge or change me. In my memory you were the most adorable, yet determined creature that had ever been created.”
“In the mind we can be so much more,” she says.
“No,” I say, kissing her lips. “You are so much more here in my arms.”
She brings my hands to her face, kissing them one by one, leaving tiny wet spots on my fingers. My words come out faster now, crushing against both our defenses. “I loved you then and I love you now, Ella.”
Her eyes look stunned as her lips part slightly and then shut again. She can’t say the words back. It’s okay. It’s too soon for her. I’m probably freaking her out with my passionate confessions. I wish I could tell her where the urgency comes from, what makes me rush.
I glance at my big hands, still nestled with her small hands, and a grin pops up on my lips. “I wish you could believe me. I know it’s too soon.”
Her eyes sparkle in the gloom of the room. “I believe you, Jaxson,” she says, searching for my lips.
I bite her softly and then slip my tongue inside her mouth, my blood pounding in my ears. This is real. She’s still here. She’s not freaking out, she’s not running. The world spins in an ecstasy and an agony all at once. She wants this as much as I do, but it’s all at a terrible risk.
The thought of being absolved exhilarates me. I get greedy and rough, getting as much out of her as I can, sucking on her lips, bruising them, as my hand tugs at her hair forcefully.
We break off kissing finally and I pull back to gaze at her lovely face.
“Jax, you’ll eat me alive,” she says with a raspy, breathless voice.
I move my lips to her soft neck, leaving a hot, wet kiss there. “I’ve lived in denial, thinking I was over my childhood crush and then you showed up at the fucking agency of all places like a vision from heaven and having absolutely no clue who I was. The way you looked at me when I first took your hand, fuck. Hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Really?” she says, laughing. “Because I felt like a complete idiot, ogling you like you were filet mignon and I was a hungry kitten.”
“Ah, you mean your little pussy wanted,” I begin to say and she slaps me so gently it feels like a butterfly wing brushing against my cheek.
“Behave,” she says, “or the little pussy won’t come out to play.”
“Fuck, you’re so bad. I love it.”
“No one is as bad as you, Jaxson Cole. You make a girl a hot mess.”
“You give me a run for my money,” I whisper as I go straight for her earlobe, nibbling on it. “Did you really like me the first moment?”
“I can answer for every woman that breathes,” she says, squeezing my butt cheeks. “Hell, yes.”
“I don’t care about any woman but you.”
“That doesn’t count,” she whispers. “You just got out of jail. You must be terribly horny.”
“You dork,” I say. “I was in jail not prison and for a couple of days.”