Page 64 of Falling Into Forever
My shoulders tense. Am I feeling guilty over a suitcase? Ugh. I probably am. I should have at least given him a drawer or something. Stupid, messy emotions. I liked it better when no one bothered me enough to force them out of me.
You know that’s not true.Geez! What the hell is wrong with my conscience these days?
He slides a pair of boxer briefs up his legs and under the towel, but because I can’t stop ogling him, I catch a sliver of his muscular ass cheek as he covers it.
How the heck do you get muscles like that in your ass?
Dante drops the towel and waits for me to meet his gaze. “I really love how you’re looking at me right now, but we won’t make it to Grady’s if you don’t stop.”
I puff out my cheeks and hold my breath before spinning on one foot and staring at the wall.
I don’t have to hear him to know he’s closing in. The heat of his body is the force field that has always drawn me to him.
He runs one long finger up the outside of my arm, and I watch goosebumps rise in his wake. Every inch of me wants to curl into his touch like a cat. Even his fingers are sexy. There’s something fundamentally unfair about that.
“I liked the game we played today.” His voice is whisper-soft, but it causes a riot of sensations across my skin.
“Okay.” I breathe the word like a prayer.
“Every time your lips touched mine, it was an exercise in self-control not to say ‘fuck the game’ and drag you home.”
He inhales deeply, and I shiver. I’m not cold. Not even close. But he makes me want. He makes me need. My body is a traitorous sun-drenched landscape, and his touch is the first drop of rain.
“Do you know that I’ve ached for you? Ached, Saylor, for years.”
My breathing becomes shallow as I hang on to his every word. It makes me wobble on my feet, and I reach out to steady myself against the wall.
“Every day, when I’d sit at my desk, I’d get lost in your picture. Lost in memories and fantasies and dreams. It was so much easier to stare at your face and imagine what life could be like than suffering in the loss life was.”
My head spins, and I’m swimming with questions when I turn to face him. He’s so close that I can smell my shampoo on him, honeysuckle and juniper. My scent mixed with his natural one is a mind-numbing aphrodisiac.
I lick my sticky, parched lips, and his gaze sharpens as he follows the movement. Why is it so stinking hot in here? I can’t breathe, and my skin is kindling, ready to catch fire from his flame.
“You have a picture of me at work?” It’s the only question my mind can grasp because I know where all my pictures went. They were too painful to see, so they’re all in a box at the back of my closet now. I can’t believe he was still holding on to one of them after all this time.
Sadness falls over his expression. “Saylor, I have pictures of you everywhere. I couldn’t let you go. There’s one from graduation on my desk. One of us together at a concert on my mantel. A collage of our life together in the hallway. You’ve always been here.” He points to his heart. “And you were never far from here,” he says and taps his temple. “You and Ainsley were my family. I couldn’t just let that go.”
“Didn’t your dates find that…” A sharp edge of jealousy slices my heart into tiny pieces.
Strong fingers grasp my chin and tilt my head toward the ceiling. “You cannot believe everything you read online or in magazines. Have I dated? Yes. Has anyone even come close to easing the ache of missing you? Not a chance. I’ve been living in a hell of my own making for years, Saylor. Years. You’re the balm to that ache. You’re the only one who can pull me from purgatory. It’s only ever been you, sweetheart. Don’t you see that?”
The sound of my heartbeat whooshes in my ears, and salty emotion settles in the back of my throat.
“What about you, Saylor? Has anyone been able to erase me from your heart?” His voice trembles as if he’s in pain.
I could lie and tell him that he doesn’t still live rent-free in every part of me. It would probably convince him to walk away after this is all said and done. But the pain in his expression stops me. He may not understand what he’s in store for, being with me, but even a hit of him now is better than seeing him and not having him as mine.
So, I shatter my walls and give myself to him, knowing there will be nothing left of me the next time he leaves. But his presence weakens me. Too weak to have him here and not long for who I used to be—too weak not to have him.
I only hope the time we have together, this temporary reprieve, will be worth the eventual fall.
Words stick to the roof of my mouth, so I do the only thing I can think of. I show him. Surprise flashes across his face as I throw myself at him, but he catches me without hesitation.
He’s always caught me.
His words, his honesty, and his devotion have snapped the tether holding me back, and I can’t get close enough. My hands claw at his bare chest, trying to reach his mouth, and when he slowly, painfully slowly, lowers his mouth to mine, my heart explodes as wildly as our kiss.
It’s a teeth-smashing, lip-crushing, soul-rendering kiss that leaves me breathless. One of his hands wraps around my neck and holds me tightly while his other hand grips my ass possessively, lifting me to him, waking up every dormant cell until my entire body is alive and throbbing.
