Page 223 of Make the Play

The cold, relentless rain beats down around us, but I don’t feel any of it. Not with Chase’s body pressed to mine and his hands threading through my hair. Not with the way his mouth moves hungrily against mine, making up for every second we wasted denying this.

He tastes like rain and promises, and groans into the kiss, the sound going straight to my chest. My fingers fist in the wet fabric, pulling him closer, desperate to feel him.

Chase tilts his head, lips parting to let me in, to let me have him however I want. Our tongues slide together, and his grip on my hips tightens, memorizing the shape of me.

I gasp against his mouth, and he swallows it, turning us and pressing me against a rain-soaked wall in the middle of the street. Water drips from his jaw, and I have no idea if it’s the rain or his tears or maybe both, but I barely register it, too lost in the way his hands roam over my wet clothes, mapping out the places he’s already claimed as his.

When I finally break away, we’re both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together.

His thumbs brush my jaw, gaze searching mine.

“Tell me you don’t regret any of it.”

I shake my head, fingers still tangled in the collar of his hoodie, refusing to let go while my stomach drops at the reminder of what I said to him weeks ago.

“I don’t.”

“Good.”

I gulp and lean back in, my lips ghosting against his. “So, what do we do now?”

Chase laughs, a little broken, a lot in love.

“We make the play, Zo.”

I inhale slowly and close my eyes. Exhale. Let go.Make the play.

“I love you.”

The words spill out of me breathlessly, the rain swallowing them as soon as they leave my lips, but I know he hears them, because his whole body stills.

His hands tighten at my hips, and when he speaks, his voice is nothing but gravel and rain and a lifetime of wanting.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, barely audible over the storm. “Say it again.”

II reach up and bracket his face with my trembling hands. “I love you.”

Chase’s eyes slam shut like he’s trying to memorize the moment, engrave it into his soul as a core memory. When they open again, they burn with something wild and unrestrained.

His mouth crashes against mine again, messy and desperate to claim me.

“I love you, too, Zoe,” he rasps, the words fierce and sure. “I love you so fucking much.”

I let out a shaky breath as my tears fall, and then I’m kissing him again because I have no other way to show him just how much I mean it.

He hauls me up to him, laughing into the kiss, broken and hoarse and the happiest fucking sound I’ve ever heard.

“You’re all mine, Zo Face,” he murmurs against my lips.

A smile curls my mouth as I keep kissing him, my heart a flood of light in the middle of the rain.

And I realize, that’s all I’ve ever needed—someone who sees the storm and chooses me anyway.

Chapter forty-five

One more time, in case you forgot

Zoe

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