Page 103 of The Triple Play

She retreated just enough to look at me, reading the confusion etched into my features, before she let out another full laugh. “Oh, no, you didn’t know, did you?”

“Didn’t know what?”

She gasped in a breath between giggles. “Xav, you’re the last one.”

My eyes went wide. “You’re lying. Tell me you’re lying.”

She shook her head, the tears overflowing but herlaughjust radiating through the room. “I’m not,” she grinned. “Cole said it the night he came to my apartment.Weeksago. And Colton said it that night at Smokey’s, like a week later.”

I stared at her in utter shock for a second, trying to process, then let my head fall forward onto her shoulder, her laughter bleeding into me and making my own come out. “I’m gonna fight them. Both of them, on sight. Howdarethey not tell me and leave me for last. I thought I was being fast!”

She cackled, her hand pushing up into my hair, stroking gently against the back of my skull. “Cole literally saidwe love youearlier. Did you think he meant it in a friend way or…?”

“I don’t know!” I laughed against her neck. “God, no wonder you looked at me like that when I tried to start my stupid, romantic speech. You were probably like,finally, my patience has paid off.”

She snorted and pulled back a little, forcing my head out from the crook of her neck, her hands shifting and cupping my face. “Maybe a little, yeah,” she grinned. “But I can at least give you the honor of being the first one to hear it back.”

My heart skipped a beat as she brought herself back into me, her lips pressing against mine in a way that sucked the air from my lungs. Her fingers twitched against my cheeks, her smaller body tucked fully against mine, her legs tightening around my hips?—

She parted for just a terrifying, baited second, the silence oppressive, the weight of it hanging in the air. Just long enough to test my patience. Just long enough to almost beg for it.

“I love you, too,” she murmured, her breath hot against my lips, and I nearly lost my goddamn mind. For the first time, it genuinely felt like someonemeant it.

A strangled little sob of relief leaked from me as I gripped her around her back, my hand fisting the fabric ofmyshirt around her body. My other came up around the back of her neck, cradling it like she was made of glass, before I kissed her like she was anything but.

My eyes burned even with them closed, the sting only worsening with every move of my lips. I gently coaxed her head to tilt, deepening the kiss as quickly as I could. I didn’t care about breakfast anymore, didn’t care about anything except herI love you, tooplaying on repeat in my mind. I wanted to absorb it into my goddamn bloodstream and never let it go.

“You can’t leave again, now,” I rasped against her lips, my grip on the back of her neck tightening. “You can’t run away after saying that.”

She moved her hands down the sides of my throat, her fingers tightening on the collar of my t-shirt. “I know,” she breathed.

I kissed the side of her lips, her cheek, moving down her jaw and to her neck, my hand pulling at the shirt around her until it slid out from under her ass and moved freely in my grasp. I tugged it up, her bare lower body against the cool countertop. “I almost lost my mind,” I admitted, my teeth nipping gently at her throat. “I can’t do it again, baby. I can’t. You cracked my chest open and made yourself a home inside me. I don’t think I know how to function without you anymore.”

Her breathing stuttered as I pushed her shirt up more, up over one of her breasts, the fabric tangling in my hand. “You can’t just say things like that.”

“Why not?” I murmured. I let my hand fall from the back of her neck, dragging it up and down her side instead, my touch light enough to tease and make her gasp. “It’s the truth. You want me to lie to you?”

She swallowed, her throat working beneath my mouth. “No. No, I don’t.”

I pulled back just enough to get her—my—shirt up and off her, tossing it onto the floor, and pulled mine off as well, muttering another, “I love you.” I wanted her skin against mine, wanted to feel the heat of her body, wanted to memorize the way this feltright now, watched to burn it into my brain so I couldn’t forget it.

She loved me. She was pregnant with our kid, no matter whose it was, it didn’t matter. She was mine,ours, and somehow, that was more than enough, more than I could ever want.

But I needed more.

I crashed my mouth into hers again, needier,greedier. It wasn’t gentle, wasn’t clean. It was teeth and tongues and grunts and sighs, and from the way her thighs tried to coax my joggers down, I could tell she was just as desperate for touch as I was.

Blood pooled in my cock just from the way her body molded to mine, and I was already aching for her, already hard as steel by the time the waistband slipped down enough to set me free. “Need you,” I said into her mouth. “Need you right fucking now.”

My hand moved down her body to her leg, my fingers digging into her flesh. I wasn’t being soft right now, I didn’t know if I had it in me to be — not when she’d said it back. Not when everything I wanted was right in front of me.

She nodded into the kiss as I positioned myself at her entrance, the tip of my cock dampening instantly from just how wet she was, and a second later I was burying myself in her, letting her tight warmth envelop me, head spinning from the feel of her alone. She’d ruined me. She’d ruined me the first night, when she’d looked at me like I could fix something, and just kept ruining me over and over again.

I couldn’t focus on the kiss as I bottomed out. It was too much. She was too much.

Her little moan only made it so much worse.

“Say it again,” I rasped, keeping my hips perfectly still, letting her just feel me inside of her. Her walls clenched around me, rippling like I’d said something sinful, but all I was doing was begging.

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