Page 72 of Falling Into Forever
The pendant around my neck makes a zip, zip, zip sound as I drag it back and forth—it’s a comfort to me. It’s so loud in my head that it blocks the rapid thoughts swarming rampant in my mind, and I can’t stop myself from doing it tonight.
“Did you dream of me?” he asks. More steps. My heart sprints like it’s in the running for a gold medal. “Does your body remember what your mind tried to forget?”
Holy hell.
“Tell me, Saylor. Did you miss riling me up and trying to set me off by simply breathing?”
He presses his body into mine, and the hard ridge of his erection sets my already simmering pulse on fire.
Dante places his palms on my hips, but I barely register them moving because his words glide over me like melting wax, stealing my concentration. “I want all your sounds, Sayls. The moans, the cries, your groans and screams.”
He slides his hand into my hair, and I fight a whimper, but the second he tugs on my ponytail with enough force to shock a gasp from my lungs, the mewling sound he was chasing slips free.
“Yes, Saylor.” His answering groan vibrates through my skull and has a direct line to my clit. “Tell me you remember.”
“I remember.” For the love of all things holy, I remember. Even when I tried to forget, he infiltrated my dreams and chased away my nightmares.
His teeth gently nip at the tender skin of my neck, and I groan, but it’s his words that resonate through my soul. “Are you ready to make new memories with me?”
I shiver as his warm, wet tongue licks a line down the tendon stretched taut in my neck. He continues to walk me toward the wall until I fall into the frame, rattling the window.
Standing on my tiptoes, I try to reach for his lips, but he pulls back a fraction of an inch. My brain is hazy, and I don’t want words. I want to feel—us. My harsh, panting breaths echo in my mind and sound like an explosion in the darkness of night.
“Are you going to let me touch you?” His throaty voice scratches against my skin. “Make you come?”
The only light in the room filters in from the moon that’s high in the sky, but I miss nothing. I nod eagerly, and his blue eyes, framed in white, turn dark as night.
“I need you to think about this, Saylor.” He sounds tortured. “Because if you let me touch you, I won’t ever be able to let you go. Do you understand me?”
Logically, yes. At this moment? I couldn’t even spell my own name.
“I mean it.” His voice has a rough edge, but if it’s anger or desire, I couldn’t say.
I lift my face to his. The determination is there in the steely set of his jaw. His hands flex like he’s fighting for control, but still, words elude me.
“If you let me touch you again, Saylor, that means you are mine. And I’m yours. I won’t share. I won’t debate. And I sure as fuck won’t walk away ever again. So, before you let me touch you, think about what that means, and what I’m saying. Are you ready for forever?” His words dip low, and if he were anyone else, I’d be frightened by the sheer magnitude of what he’s saying. But with him, all I hear is a promise. “I’ll never let you go.”
The intensity of his stare makes moisture pool between my legs. My heart is trying to escape my chest, but it’s not panic or fear causing it to take flight. No, my body is reacting to the sincerity of his words—to the honesty of his statement—the knowledge that after all this time, I’m still the one. And even though my response is as visceral as a panic attack, this is something much more dangerous.
This is love, and despite my traitorous mind screaming at me, telling me that I’ll only hurt him again, my body caves and ignores all the warnings.
“Touch me.”
He pauses for the briefest of moments while searching my face for the deeper meaning.Take me. Hold me. Love me. Never let me go.
He reads it all in the blink of an eye, and then I’m airborne, resting in his arms, as he carries me to my bedroom.
Sounds fade into nothing until all I hear are our hearts beating in tandem as we fall back into us.
CHAPTER20
DANTE
“Touch me,” she says.
My heart does a painful jump stop in the center of my chest as I set her down on her bed.
I study her face for signs that she heard what I said because I meant it all. I won’t be able to walk away again. Doing so would not only break me, it wouldruinme. It would be the equivalent of setting myself on fire and putting it out, only to do it again.
