Page 49 of Until We Meet Again

He spins me around and pins me against the kitchen island, caging me in as he grips the edge of the countertop. His lips glide along my jawline, leaving a trail of tender kisses in their wake before he seizes my lips and plunges his tongue into my mouth. As he dominates the kiss, I surrender myself to his complete control.

My fingertips stroke his chest, and I trace delicate patterns on his skin before I lower toward the waistband of his shorts, toying with the drawstrings.

"Zane?"

"Yeah?" he replies, as he drops kisses on my collarbone.

"I don't want to wait any longer. I need to know how it feels."

"Believe me when I say that fucking you into oblivion is all I can think about, Tessa. I'm literally aching for you." He grinds his clothed cock against my stomach to emphasize his point. "However, you've been waiting for a long time for a reason, and I won't disrespect it by taking you as I please. I want to make it special for you, sweetheart."

"I don't need it to be special—I never have. I just needed to feel this. Nobody has ever made me want this besides you."

"Good because nobody else gets to touch you like this, only me." When he says things like that, I can't help but wonder what keeps him from opening up and showing memore of himself. Although I might never get an answer for it, I hope I do because, as much as I want to treat this as something that only affects me physically, I'm not in denial. There's more to us than that.

"Until the day comes when you give me what I want, you can't touch me like you want to."

"You're fucking with me." He pulls back and grips the base of my neck to make sure I keep my eyes on him.

"If you want to keep me the sweet little virgin, then that's exactly what I'll be."

"Sweet little virgins, don't suck cock like you do." My stomach tightens as his words hit me, and my thirst for him sweeps through my entire body. "Fine. You want me to fuck you?" I give him a nod, trying to hold back my excitement as I bite my lip. "Tomorrow."

"Why tomorrow?"

"Because you need to meet me halfway here and let me treat you how I want to before this happens." I give him a pout, and he laughs. "Can your impatient ass wait another night?"

"Can yours?"

"Are you planning to make tonight difficult for me, Tessa?"

"What do you think, Professor?"

"I think you're a fucking brat who likes to drive me out of my goddamn mind."

"I do like the idea of you losing control."

"Let's see if you still feel that way when I repeatedly edge you and don't let you come." He lowers his lips to mine, but he doesn't make contact. He knows I need his mouth, but he also knows our kisses will never be just kisses. They make us feral.

"After we eat, I'm going home."

"You need to because if you take one step in my bedroom, I'll end up fucking you anyway," he says as he lightly kisses my nose and wraps his arms around my waist. "Can you come here in the morning? I want to make you breakfast."

A smile graces my lips, and, in that moment, I find myself reiterating a silent mantra:Do not get attached.

Chapter 22

Zane

"We've both lived without an epic love story to pass down to any future Calloway's, Zane, and I'm not okay with that."

"It's overrated, Kim," I say, without looking up from the book I'm reading.

"That's bullshit. I swear to you, I'm sending you your soulmate as soon as I get up there, and then I'm jamming with Whitney Houston and Tina Turner. Maybe they can introduce me to River Phoenix. He was hot—maybe we could fall in love."

Most mornings, I wake up from dreams filled with vivid memories of Kimberley. Those memories, the ones before we lost her, continue to haunt me as if they're determined to drag me back into the depths of the darkest period of my life. On those days, I try to focus on the time before her diagnosis. However, sometimes the happiest memories are the ones that hurt the most because they're a reminder of what we had andwon't ever have again—a time when I thought we had our entire lives ahead of us.

But the morning I woke up with Tessa, I was provided relief from the echoes of grief that lingered within me. There were no dreams, no nightmares, and no tears.

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