Page 37 of Touchdown
She took a shaky inhale, then pulled back just far enough to look at me again. Her eyes were huge and filled with guilt.
“The woman in the picture is our new PR rep.” I kept my tone flat because emotion wasn’t needed for truth. “Not only do I barely know her but what you don’t see in that photo—because of the angle—is that she’s wearing a massive rock on her finger. She’s also very pregnant with twins.”
Ivy blinked, then her mouth fell open a little.
“You’re kidding,” she whispered.
“No. That picture is bullshit piled on bullshit.” I shook my head once. “Those vultures will twist anything into a payday.”
She groaned and dropped her forehead to my shoulder. “I feel like an idiot.”
I slid my palm up to cup her jaw again—gently this time—and made her lift her head. Her brown eyes were glassy but swimming with hope.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.
“I don’t want you to be sorry, Ivy. I just want you to believe me when I say that I’m not going anywhere.”
Her lips trembled, and she nodded, resolve written on her beautiful face.
I leaned in, kissed her softly—just a slow brush of mouths that felt like an oath—and pressed my forehead to hers.
“You’re it for me, Sunshine.”
She let out a soft, unsteady breath, the kind that felt like surrender. Her shoulders eased, her fingers loosened their grip on my hoodie, and her expression softened into something new. Something wide open.
The fear was gone. So was the hesitation.
She looked at me like she saw the truth now, as though it finally landed in her chest where it belonged, solid and real and unshakable.
“You’re it for me too, Saxon.”
The words weren’t fragile or uncertain. They were threaded with the kind of conviction that didn’t leave room for doubt. She meant every single syllable. And the words landed like a punch to the ribs, knocking the wind out of me in the best damn way.
I didn’t answer with words.
I leaned in and kissed her.
Mouth to mouth, heat to heat, with steady pressure. Her hands curled into my chest, and she melted against me like she’d been waiting for this exact moment to set herself free. I felt it in the way her breath caught. In the way her lips parted, soft and eager, moving with mine as I deepened the kiss. Not to rush. Not to take. Just to feel. To anchor us right here, in the quiet aftermath of almost losing something neither of us wanted to live without.
She tasted like hope. Like every second of doubt being stripped away, one breath at a time, until all that was left was the truth between us—raw and simple. Irreversible.
And I took it.
Because she was mine.
17
SAXON
The kiss didn’t stay gentle for long.
I didn’t ease her into it. Didn’t hold back or pretend I wasn’t starving for more. My hands dropped to her hips, my fingers flexing through the soft knit of her sweater as I shifted beneath her, moving so she went from sitting sideways on my lap to straddling me. Her breath hitched as I guided her forward.
She slid into place like her body knew what we needed better than her mind did. Her knees bracketed my thighs, her legs spreading slowly until her center was pressed right over the thick line of my cock. The stretch of denim between us added friction. The tease of heat where I wanted her bare.
I didn’t move at first. Just let her feel my length. How hard I was already. How fucking desperate I was to bury myself inside her and never come up for air again.
Her fingers gripped the front of my hoodie, and when her hips shifted just a fraction, her breath broke on a gasp that sounded like it came from somewhere deep inside her.
