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I clench my jaw. “No. You’ve given me your reason, not your honesty. You’re using Sarah to keep yourself safe. But you look at me like you’re thinking about me just as much as I’m thinking about you. I want you to admit you’re lying to yourself.”
Her eyes flare wide, and she steps back. “If you’re going to come here and?—”
My hand’s around her waist and I’m backing her up against the wall before she can finish that sentence. My other hand slides along her jaw. “I’m not giving you an easy out. Not anymore. Tell me you want me. Just say the words. That’s all I need.”
I’ve bewildered her, which wasn’t my intention when I came here, but fuck if it doesn’t get her talking.
She grips my shirt, her entire being so fucking beautifully alive, her eyes blazing with heat like never before. “Yes, I want you! I’ve never wanted a man so fucking much. I think about you all day, every day. I can’t get you out of my head. When you text me, I can’t read it fast enough. When I see you, I can’t take my eyes off you. When I talk to you, I hang off every word. Even when I want to tear a smirk from your face, I want so many more of them from you.”
Fuck.
My mouth crashes down onto hers, my hands tighten their hold on her, and I kiss her so fucking thoroughly, losing my mind, my good sense, my fucking everything. Amelia has me caught in her web and no idea of just what I’d do to make her mine.
I tear my mouth from hers. “The next time you get scared, you come to me. You give me that. Your honesty. Give me anything but your absence.Anything. Tell me emojis make no fucking sense to you. Tell me you need another year to think about having dinner with me. Tell me about your goddamn laundry piling up. Just don’t ever not show up again.”
She lets me get all of that out, listening to every word I say. Then she’s got her hands up around my neck, and she’s pulling my mouth back to hers. She grips my face with both hands while she kisses me again, and I realize I may not survive this woman.
I want to be the man who gets past all her defenses. Who knows what makes her laugh when no one’s around. Who gets the unfiltered version of her no one else gets.
And fuck me, I want her to kiss me like this forever.
Her hands come to my coat, shoving it off my shoulders. Then she’s tugging at my sweater, desperate to get it over my head.
When she starts on my belt, I break the kiss, my breath ragged, and lock eyes with her. “We’re only doing this if you’re going to give me more.”
There’s not one ounce of hesitation from her when she says, “Yes.” Then, she slows herself down and gives me what I need. That realness I’ve known from no other woman. “I’m terrified, Gage. Terrified of you hurting me. Of us screwing this up and harming our kids’ friendship. Of so many things I’ve lost track. But I’m tired of living in that fear. I want more than just getting through the day. I want to live.Reallylive. I want to let things get messy.” She bites her lip, and it hits my veins like a goddamn drug. “And I want to do that with you.”
“Fuck,” I growl, lifting her into my arms. “Where’s your bedroom?”
She directs me down the hall, and the second I step into her room, I feel it. Her. Everywhere. It’s elegant and feminine, but not pristine like I expected. There’s a sweater tossed over a chair, heels kicked half under the bed, books piled in uneven stacks beside it like she was halfway through five of them at once.
I’m immediately back in her hotel suite in Nashville, remembering the mess of it. This is the same woman. The one who keeps everything together until it all spills out.
I set her down, and in the short walk here, something’s shifted. Amelia’s still with me. All in. But there’s a flicker of hesitation in her eyes now. Not shyness. Just that first-time pause. Like it’s hit her this is really happening.
I move in, gently smoothing her hair back from her face. My other hand finds her neck, and I bend to kiss her, slow at first, then deeper as I feel her body curve into mine.
When I pull back, I murmur, “We can go slower.”
“I don’t want to,” she says, softly. “I just haven’t had sex in over a year.”
I nod, brushing my thumb across her skin. “Then we take our time.”
She loops her arms around my neck and moves in with the kind of hungry certainty that sets my blood on fire. “I don’t think that’s possible with you,” she says, her mouth ghosting over mine. “I want you too much.”
“Jesus,” I rasp. “You have no idea what you do to me.” I kiss her neck just below her ear. When I catch the scent of her perfume, I graze my nose along her skin, scenting her, and it fucks with my restraint. “I’m trying to go slow, Amelia, but you’re gonna have to help me do that.”
She’s already back at my belt. “I don’t want you to go slow.” She pops the button of my pants, lowers the zipper. “I want you to absolutelyruinme.”
And that’s it.
I finally lose my mind completely.
Every bit of restraint I was clinging to. Gone.
I’ve got her in my arms and then on the bed, and I’m prowling over her, my eyes on her body. That pink tank she’s wearing that clings to every curve and dips low at the neckline has been testing my patience since the second I saw it. I reach for the hem and slide it up, revealing bare skin. No bra. And fuck, her breasts are full, soft, and I’m going to need a long fucking time with them.
Once I’ve got her top off, I suck one of her nipples into my mouth, groaning against her skin as my hands finally close over her tits.