Page 68 of Rulebreaker

The perfection.

The glorious way we both climb the peak and fall apart, pleasure exploding through us, sending our strokes skittering, our rhythm as our bodies come together hitching, our voices echoing through the shower.

“Fuck,” I mutter when I can actually speak again, smoothing back the damp strands of her hair, “how does every moment with you just get better?”

She jerks in my arms, eyes coming to mine, surprise in the beautiful azure depths.

And I feel it.

I know it.

Love.

Not lust or infatuation–and who am I kidding? It’s never just been that with Lily, never just been liking her or being attracted to her. I’ve been half in love with her from the first moment I laid eyes on her. Since then?

It’s just been…inevitable falling.

And I want her to know what I’m feeling, to take it with her when she leaves me again, to understand that we’re new and still building something, that busy lives and jobs and distance might make things complicated…

But ultimately, none of that really matters.

Because I fuckingloveher.

And I will move mountains for this woman, won’teverlet her go.

But when I go to tell her that, the words bubbling up in the back of my throat, I notice something that has them stoppering up.

Frowning, I smooth my thumb beneath one of those beautiful eyes then the other, wiping away the tears that may have gotten lost in the stream of the shower, if I weren’t paying attention.

But Iampaying attention.

I always do with this woman.

So, I table the words and ask, “What’s wrong, baby?”

She looks away, chest rising and falling on a breath. “Atlas, I?—”

But she doesn’t get any further than that.

Because her cell rings from the other room. And mine follows suit.

And they don’t stop–her PR team needing her to put out some fire, Briar needing me to consult on a contract issue that can’t be put off.

Shower time is over.

We towel off, get dressed, deal with those busy, demanding jobs.

Hours later, when we fall back into bed, exhausted but together—so even that fatigue feels good—and I ask her about the tears from earlier, I don’t have any reason to doubt her explanation of “You’re so sweet, honey. So sweet sometimes that you move me to tears.”

Not with her following that up by leaning close, her lips coming to my ear, whispering, “And I feel the exact same way.”

I don’t have any reason to doubt it.

To doubt her words.

To doubther.

Not until…I do.