“I don’t want you to. Don’t ever let me go. I need you, Jace. I need you to stay.”
My hands slid down the perfect curves of her body, landing on her waist and cinching tight. “Tell me again,” I demanded.
She lifted her chin toward my face, her voice so devastatingly soft, and still, the loudest thing I’d ever heard. “I’m in love with you. I love you so much it hurts.”
I was going to erase the sting.
Eradicate the hurt.
Touch her and please her until there was nothing but pleasure.
Protect her in a way that she would always know she was safe.
Softly, I brushed my fingers through her hair. “And you’re the only one who’s ever taken my pain away.”
“I guess maybe we’ve always just been better together,” she whispered in that soft accent that she wore so well. Goodness on her tongue and trust in her eyes.
“Together,” was my only answer, and then I was sweeping her off her feet and pulling her into my arms, cradling her like a treasure against my chest.
I carried her through the dancing shadows of the room to the massive four-poster bed.
The carved wood was dark and gleaming, lush in the light of the moon, the plush, satiny, cream-colored bedding screaming luxury in what had once been the master suite.
Luxury was fucking right.
There was no greater extravagance or indulgence than being inside Faith. No greater riches than holding this girl in my hands.
And I was about to get greedy.
Those slender arms clung to my neck as I leaned down and peeled the covers back.
I laid her in the middle.
Chocolate hair spilled out all around her, and that tight body arched.
I hadn’t even touched her, and she was already quivering with need.
Her breaths panted into the dense, dense air, stirring up the memories that were ready to stand and fight for a future.
I’d let her go, thinking it was what was the best for her. It had been the most foolish thing I had ever done.
No more.
I stepped back and stared down at her where she was laid out like a vision on that bed.
A fucking fantasy.
The girl I’d been dreaming of for all these years. A tease in my mind and a scar on my body.
My body that raced, muscles clenched tight, my dick begging at the seam of my jeans.
Mine.
Her hand fluttered up.
A whisper.
A plea.
“I don’t wanna be alone. Not anymore, Jace. Take it from me . . . that place that’s been achin’ for you for all these years. It’s always belonged to you, anyway.”
Lust roared through my veins. Pumped steadily with the devotion.
I set a knee on the bed and climbed up over her, hands planted on either side of her head.
I dipped down.
Kissed her.
Slow and tender and profound.
Gentle sweeps of my tongue and soft bites of my teeth.
Fuck. She tasted so good. Felt so right.
A glimmer of a warning glowed deep inside my soul.
She doesn’t know.
She doesn’t know.
I shoved it down where it belonged. Refusing it. Because it didn’t matter anymore.
My purpose had shifted.
My reason was her.
I set my palm on the side of her neck. Her pulse a needy drum, drum, drum.
Hard and fast and desperate.
It was enough to set me off. Make me dizzy. This girl filling my lungs.
Vanilla and roses.
My palm slipped down, gliding over the frantic beat of her heart, her body trembling under my touch. My fingers fumbled with the first button it met on her blouse, then the next, and the next, until the material was splayed open.
Her chest heaved, her tits covered in pink lace, her belly soft and flat and trembling. “No woman could ever compare to you. You are the sexiest, sweetest, most tempting thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Jace,” she whimpered.
“It’s the truth. You are my perfection. Everything I’ve ever wanted. Everything I’ve ever needed. Everything I’ve been missing. My Beauty.”
The last word came out on a harsh gush of air.
Need a fucking pounding force inside me.
Demanding that I take her.
I nipped at the shell of her ear, sucked at the pulse point that throbbed below it, tongue stroking out as I made my way down her throat, tasting the whimpered sounds that escaped her.
“I missed you. More than you could know.” Her fingers were in my shoulders when she said it, ripping at the material of my tee. “I need to see you, Jace. Feel you.”
Who was I to deny her that?
I shot up to sit on my knees, straddling her waist on both sides, and slowly peeled my shirt over my head, ignoring the sting of the fabric raking over the stitches when I did.
She was worth it.
So damned worth it.
Especially when she looked at me like that. Her lips parting on a sexy sigh as her eyes rushed over me.
Lashes of fire.
Heat and love and greed.
She reached her shaking hand out to trace across my chest. “And it’s you, Jace. You who’s the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen. The most gorgeous boy who stumbled into my life. You stole my breath the first time you came through that office door.”
Her fingertips brushed down. Stroked across my abdomen.
Every damned muscle tightened, rippled with unbearable need, this feeling that I might lose all control.
“Little did I know you’d soon be the keeper of it. The keeper of my breath. The keeper of my heart.”
She reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders to hoist herself up, angled so the words came as sweet caresses across my face. “The keeper of my soul.”
I pushed her back down onto the bed, my hand splayed across her chest. “And I’m not going to give it back.”
There was a warning in there, but the girl took it as a tease, her teeth worrying on that bottom lip as redness splashed across her silky flesh. “You’d better not.”
I dipped down quickly and raked my teeth across the defined curve of her collarbone.
She jumped.
Gasped.
Whispered, “More.”
More.
I jerked back both sides of her blouse, winding them off her shoulders, lifting her upper body from the bed so I could drag it the rest of the way from her arms.
It bound her all up, and I attacked her neck as I did, kissing that soft column as if it sustained my life.
Her head rocked back to grant me better access.
“Jace.” It almost sounded like confusion. “Every touch. Every time. How do you do this to me?”
Her scent flooded me.
Filling my head.
My heart.
My soul.
And I was going to worship her forever.
Intensity whipped the air, that energy alive in the room that was ours.
Ours.
Hunger raced through my veins and poured onto my flesh.
Severe and strong.
Uncontainable.
Brighter than anything I’d ever felt.
Blinding.
I tore her shirt the rest of the way free, loving the tiny shock of surprise that jetted from her lips when I reached out and tugged down the cups of lace to expose the tight buds of her rosy nipples.
Her tits were full and pouring out over the top.
“Motherfuck . . . you are sublime.”
I ran the knuckle of my index finger over one.
She arched, mumbled, “Yes.”
I let my thumb take its place, rolling and teasing as I angled down to lap at the other with my tongue as I pushed her back to the bed.
Sucking and loving and living.
That was what it felt like when I was touching her.
Coming alive.
I reached behind her back and freed the clasp of her bra, and I relieved her of those bindings, too.
Free.
I wanted her free.
To live in me the way I wanted to live in her.
Without the chains of the past to hold us back. To beat us down.
And her hands were suddenly everywhere. Nails in my shoulders, scraping down my back, their own plea that meshed with the cries that fell from her mouth.
More.
I ripped myself back and went to work on the button of her jeans, moving away from her only long enough to slide them from her legs.
Good God.
She stole my breath.
Hitched and hooked it, my heart caught up in the middle of it, hammering wild.