He didn’t know who started it. Later, when he looked back on it, he’d eventually decide that it didn’t matter. All he knew was that Fiona’s hand was on his thigh and his own hand found its way into her hair, and the rest was history.
Their mouths collided, almost painfully hard. Acting on its own, without help from his brain, Gage’s hand wrapped around the side of Fiona’s neck to tug her in closer, deepening the kiss until their tongues rubbed up against each other, each of them invading the other’s mouth, exploring the familiar territory.
God, yes. God, yes, Gage thought, clawing at Fiona’s back, trying to get her as close to him as possible, trying to join their bodies together after they’d spent so long apart. She felt just like he remembered, just as soft and hard in all the right places. But there was a little nagging thought at the back of his mind, persistently repeating itself until it cut through the fog of lust and love that clouded his brain. She doesn’t want you. She ran away from you. She wants her fiancé now. She just misses him. You’re taking advantage of her.
Gage pulled away from Fiona, ending their kiss without warning, leaving her with her eyes closed and her mouth open, awaiting more of his touch. It was so fucking tempting to just lean in and smash their faces back together, melt with her for as long as he was able to do so. But he fought it, even as Fiona opened her eyes and seemed to nonverbally plead with him to resume kissing her. He held strong, fighting with the lump in his throat before he spoke.
“Do you really want this?” he asked, trying as hard as he could to keep his voice steady and calm. It would be so easy to beg, so easy to plead with her until she gave him the answer he wanted to hear. But he pulled back a little more, abandoning the sweet, seductive heat of Fiona’s body for the chill of physical solitude.
Fiona visibly swallowed, her throat working up and down while her eyes darted from his face to his hands to the space between his legs. “I…I…” Fiona stuttered, shaking her head at herself.
Gage waited for her answer, his heart pounding in his ears. Please, Fiona, he thought, feeling more desperate for this than he’d felt for anything else in his life up to that point. Please.
Chapter Twelve
Gage’s question hung suspended in Fiona’s mind, and she didn’t have a single fucking clue how to answer him. Did she really want this? Her body sure as hell did, that much was certain, at the very least. Her fingers ached to touch Gage’s skin, to feel the familiar bumps and scars and hair against her flesh. Her mouth, abandoned by his, felt freezing cold, practically trembling like she was about to cry again. She felt like she was starving for him, like she’d fasted a thousand and one days and here he was, her reward for all the self-punishment. And he looked delicious, just sitting there with a worried expression on his face. He was worried for her. Somehow, that only caused her to want him even more.
“I need this,” Fiona murmured, the words coming out so soft that she was worried for a second that Gage couldn’t even hear them. Please don’t make me repeat myself, she thought. Please, I don’t have the strength.
“What does that mean?” Gage whispered, and Fiona saw that he was digging his nails into the sides of his jeans. She wondered if he used pain as an anchor the way that she always did. And then she wondered if he’d learned that trick from her. That thought soured her stomach even worse than it already was. She didn’t want to corrupt him with her brokenness. She didn’t want to be diseased.
Fiona let her head fall forward into her hands, feeling her pulse pound within her temples, right next to her eyes. “I need…you,” she forced out, her own hands muffling the sound of her voice so that she was barely audible even to her own ears. She’d have to repeat herself in case Gage couldn’t hear her, and the words left her itchy, dry throat like razors, tearing her apart even as she softly whispered. “I need you, Gage. I really fucking need you. I don’t know what that means. I’m sorry.”
There was silence for a moment, hanging heavily in the room like a shroud over both of their bodies. But then Gage came in and saved her, like he always did back when they were together, rescuing her from her own mind. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m sorry for pushing you.” He paused, reaching forward to grab her face again, this time holding it only by the tips of his fingers. She could have moved at any time if she wanted to. But she didn’t. “I need you, too,” he whispered, right before his lips pressed against hers again, softer this time, gentle, the way fallen leaves brush up against each other during the autumn.