Eyes Turned Skyward

“But you’re not ready for me to know?” I understood all too well.

“I don’t want you to look at me differently and suddenly see someone else…someone you couldn’t ever want.” I could say the same exact thing. “There are ugly parts of me, Paisley. Sins I’m still paying for.”

“Is that where you were this week? Paying for those sins?”

Two heartbeats passed while his jaw ticked. “Yes, in a way.”

“Did you cheat on me?” I asked softly, using intonation to make sure he knew I didn’t think it was possible. “Did you sleep with someone else? Touch someone else?”

“Fuck, no. How could you even…” He shook his head. “That’s not a possibility. You’re the only woman I want.” My smile must have tipped him off, because he rolled his eyes. “You’re killing me, Paisley.”

“We agreed to default to trust, so that’s what I’m doing.”

“You have every right to know what’s going on—”

“Let’s not talk about it tonight,” I offered.

His forehead puckered. “Don’t girls always want to talk?”

I shook my head, my hair tickling my bare skin. “I missed you something fierce, Jagger. I just want to be where you are tonight. We can sort out everything else later.” I don’t want to tell you my secret, either. No, I wanted tonight, and I was going to take it.

His eyes softened, relief evident as I stayed my own execution. I rose on my tiptoes and cupped his face in my hands, running my thumbs across the sharp stubble that had grown since his morning shave. “You don’t have to worry. Whatever it is, it’s not going to stop me from wanting you…from loving you.”

His lips parted, and his eyes turned hungry. “Say it again.”

“You don’t have to worry.” I smiled.

“Not that part.” I glimpsed the vulnerability he hid so well. He was so adamant against attaching to anyone, to any kind of relationship, so he didn’t love anyone, but it also kept anyone from loving him.

He was starved for it.

Guilt slammed into me. I’d known I loved him for months and couldn’t say it, even when he did. Couldn’t make that promise that I’d be here for him to love. I’d accidentally withheld the one thing he needed desperately.

“Paisley?”

I grazed my thumbs across his lips and searched his eyes. “I love you, Jagger Bateman.” My lips met his in the softest kiss we’d ever shared. We clung there for a moment, and I reveled in the love unfurling through my chest, radiating through me.

He slowly brought his hands to my waist but didn’t deepen the kiss. “Say it again,” he begged.

“I love you,” I whispered and kissed him again. “I love you.” I brought my lips to his cheeks, his chin, the skin of his throat, punctuating each kiss with an “I love you” until his hands tightened on me, his grip turning possessive.

He brought his mouth down to mine, this time stroking his tongue inside with a tenderness he’d never shown before, drawing a moan from my throat. “I need you.” His voice snapped any tether in my mind.

“Yes,” I answered as hunger awoke in my belly. Three words, and I was ready to strip in my kitchen.

His hands skimmed down my back to my rear, and he lifted me easily. I wrapped my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck, and kissed him with every ounce of love I could pour into him. He walked us up the stairs, pausing just outside my bedroom to lean me against the wall. He didn’t pounce like I’d come to expect; instead, he ran his fingers down my cheek, looked into my eyes like he was making love to my soul, and I liquefied. “I love you, Paisley. I love you so much that I don’t understand how I could have taken a single breath before I found you. I came to life when you did on that beach. I don’t want to live another day that I can’t tell you that.”

I arched up, bringing my mouth to his. “You can tell me that for as long as I live,” I promised him, then threaded my hands into his hair and kissed him like this would be the only chance I had. The wall was great leverage as I rocked into him, getting as close as I could, but it wasn’t enough. I needed his skin. My fingers made short work of unzipping his uniform top, pulling it from between our bodies. He balanced me against the wall to free his arms from the top. My fingernails grazed his skin as I lifted his tan undershirt, revealing the lines of corded muscle and deliciously inked skin I was dying to taste. My mouth opened on its own accord and fastened to the skin above his heart, sucking a small bruise into the surface, like I needed my own mark to compete with the other swirls of ink.

He hissed and leaned into me, forcing my head up, and tugged his shirt over his head. Oh. My. God. His dog tags rested against his skin, bare from neck to waist. A uniform had never turned me on, but half a uniform on Jagger? I was going to spontaneously combust. I tested the resistance of his chain and reeled him in for another kiss, savoring the way his grip tightened on my hips. “Bed,” I whispered as I pulled away.

He groaned and fumbled with my door handle for a second before he got it open. He flipped on the light, then carried me to bed. He lowered me until I rested on the soft white comforter in the center of the four-poster bed. The white canopy draped across the top contrasted with Jagger’s tan skin as I looked up at him, trying to swallow my heart, which had jumped into my throat. “You’re beautiful.”