I can barely swallow, my mouth is so dry. “Tell me what?”
She stares at me with wide eyes, like I’ve somehow struck fear in her.
“Tell me what?” I repeat desperately.
She gives me a half-smile. “That I’m still in love with you.”
I cock my head. I couldn’t have heard her right.
She goes, on, licking her lips. “And I know I might have left it too late but…I couldn’t ignore it. I tried, you know. I did. I even went on a date with someone else. I thought that maybe it would help. It lasted a minute, then I got up and left. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even look at him. Lachlan, you have literally ruined all other men for me. None of them compared to you before. None of them will compare to you after. There’s just you and only you.”
My heart is beating like a frightened bird but I do what I can to keep as much control as possible. “I don’t understand,” I tell her. “You knew how I felt all this time. I kept telling you I loved you…until you stopped saying it back.” I blink hard, remembering the burn. “Why? Don’t you know how that felt, to not hear that from you?”
She looks away, nodding with a wounded expression. “I did. I don’t know. I was so fucked up Lachlan and I still am. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about my mother and how much I miss her, how much I would give to have her back, even for one single second, just enough to smile at her.” She stares up, her eyes watering. “I tried to move past the grief but I couldn’t. But it didn’t mean I stopped loving you. I just didn’t want to love you anymore. I didn’t want for you to have my heart, all the way over here. How ever would I get it back? It was already so fragile. It was easier to just…shut it all away. But I was wrong. Because it hurt me more to pretend I didn’t care. And in return, you did the same.”
“But it was just pretending,” I tell her, clearing my throat. “I never stopped loving you.”
She stares at me, pained. “Then why are we standing here like this?”
“Because,” I start to say.
But the words die on my lips. She’s on me in a flash. She grabs my face in her hands and pulls my head down toward hers, until my mouth is pressed against her mouth.
I drop the groceries again.
I drop the leashes.
I don’t care. I’m sure the dog’s heads are in the bags, eating the food, and I don’t care.
I give myself to her, to feeling the warmth, the ferocity of her kiss. It brings me back to a beautiful world, one I never thought I’d live in again. I bury my hands in her hair, holding her head, feeling her as our mouths move sweetly against each other in a slow, intoxicating hunger. I can’t believe I’m kissing her again, touching her again, feeling her again.
I can’t believe she still loves me.
I have to pause, have to breathe, have to know.
I pull back, staring deep into those soulful brown eyes of hers.
“You love me?” I whisper.
“I love you,” she whispers back, running her hands down my arms. “My beautiful beast.”
I grin so wide, I think my face might stay that way forever. “You love me.”
She laughs, so happy. “Yes, yes, I love you. I don’t want to be anywhere but right here. This is the only place I’m supposed to be.”
I put my arms around her, holding her tight against me in a bear hug, her own arms slipping around my waist. I press my lips into the top of her head and pinch my eyes shut. A feel like a whole new dawn is rising in my chest.
Another new beginning.
Another road to go down.
“Let’s go inside,” I say to her after a moment, the December chill settling around us. “Get warm.”
Her eyes twinkle deviously at that. It’s been so long since I’ve seen that look. The reaction is pure chemistry inside my blood. I grab her hand, unlock the door and hustle her and the dogs inside.
I feel like there is no time left.
That all the time that has passed before has never happened.
The need to be inside her again, to be with her, from the inside out, is so addicting, so intoxicatingly urgent, that the moment we’re back in my flat – our flat – and the door is locked behind us, I’m hauling her to the bedroom.
I kick the door shut, throwing off my jacket, sweater, pants, undressing as if my clothes are on fire and I’m on her in seconds, my fingers fumbling along her every inch, frantically trying to get as close as possible. I want the heat of her hips pressed against mine, that silken feel of her skin, the way she perfectly holds me when I’m deep inside her, as if we were made purely to fuck each other, to love each other.
She’s shucking off her clothes too and grabbing me with frenzied hands, our mouths meeting hot and wet and so fucking desperate. I am wild to touch and she is burning under my hands, and I’m lighting her fires like an arsonist.
“Kayla, Kayla, Kayla,” I moan into her neck, tasting her. I sound so damn hungry for her it both scares me and thrills me to the bone.
We fall onto the bed and I’m climbing on top of her, pinning her between my thighs, wishing I could go slow and absorb every single carnal second, but there is no time. There will be – tomorrow. In a few hours from now, even. But right now, in this moment, where I have my love back, time is a precious thing and if I can’t have her now, I fear I never will.
She wraps her legs around me, one hand ghosting over my neck and into my hair, the other skimming down my back and we kiss again, deep and savage, our tongues sliding over each other in a wild war.
“I can’t wait,” she whispers to me and I pull back, lost in her eyes, knowing she feels just as delirious as I do. “Please, come inside me.”
I close my eyes, resting my forehead against hers and position myself between her legs, my cock thick and throbbing and hard as concrete. I push into her, slipping slick and rough until all the air leaves my lungs and it’s almost too much.
I am purified, sanctified, inside her.
“Fuck,” I growl, nipping at her neck now as I thrust in again, this time my arms are starting to shake, my body overloaded. I’m the greedy one, craving every part of her, and it’s my soul that’s just as hungry as the rest of me.
“Harder,” she pleads, her nails digging into the back of my head as I’m biting along her breasts, flicking her nipple with a stiff and merciless tongue. I roughly grab her hips and shift her up, my cock sinking in hard and deep and I’m grunting with exertion as I drive myself in again and again.
“Harder,” she cries out again, meeting my eyes, telling me she needs to feel everything.
I give her all of me.
A savage growl rips from my throat and I’m fucking, fucking, fucking her like I might die if I don’t. I’m a relentless machine, pounding her over and over and over again, then I’m leaning back down over her, my chest pressed against hers, slick with sweat, our hearts beating against each other in a rabid race, wanting so much I don’t know what to do with myself.
I bite at her collarbone, her shoulders, her chest, her nipples and she’s crying out softly, wanting more, wanting all of me. My fingers are clamped onto to her hips, a vice, and I fear I might just break her right in two.
Then it all starts to swirl together. I slip my hand along her clit, rubbing in frenzied circles that make her eyes roll back and the sounds out of her delicate throat are among the most erotic, primal ones I have ever heard.
She undoes me.
She always will.
Bloody hell.
So I go and go and until I can’t, until my savagery snaps and with one rough, final push I’m pouring into her, my hoarse shouts filling the room. We succumb to our pleasure at the same time, riding the current together, our bodies and hearts hopelessly intertwined. I empty into her and yet I’ve never felt so full.
I collapse on her with nearly my full weight, breathing so hard that the bed is still shaking and she’s gripping my back with all her might, like I’m a raft and she’ll drown if she lets go.