Paige was almost asleep now too. She tried to rouse, to listen to what he was saying, but it was impossible when she was exhausted not only from their beautiful lovemaking, but from the emotional angst of the preceding week.
“Just until morning.”
Morning. He was saying something about the morning. But she refused to allow real life to steal so much as one moment of the night’s fantasy. Instead, there was only this, his body against hers as he moved to his side, shifting her until her back was to his chest, one hand over her heart.
A heart that beat only for him.
* * *
He was doing it again, making her wild and crazy with his large, talented hands roaming over her body.
The morning sun tapped at her eyelids, but she didn’t want to know what time it was. Didn’t want to face what “morning” might mean.
She wanted this. His hands on her, his lips, his warmth. Wanted all the beautiful, heartfelt things he’d said last night.
I’m yours.
He skimmed his fingers across her breasts, exciting the peaks to tight buds, then down her belly and over her sex. Gently—hungrily—he pulled her leg up over his, opening her to his touch.
It was pure instinct to put her hand over his, guiding him. She loved the feel of their linked fingers, the combination of both his caress and her own.
He pressed a hot kiss to her neck. “Good morning.”
“So good,” she said. More like moaned as he nipped at her neck, sending tantalizing shivers through her body.
A kernel of fear tried to bubble up, worry that this would be the last time, and she needed everything before it all went away. But she knew better. Lovemaking based on fear held no love at all. So she shoved that darkness away as she turned in his arms, wrapped hers around his neck, and kissed him deeply.
They rolled together on the bed, a passionate tangle of arms and legs, until he was sitting up in bed and her legs were wrapped around him, her arms curled at his neck.
She looked deep into his eyes and then, holding his heated gaze, she took him inside. All of him in one gloriously slick, hot thrust that stole her breath. And made everything inside her melt again.
Together they began to move, her body slowly rising on him, stroking all the nerves on the inside. His tongue entered her mouth as his body plundered hers, the pace deliciously, agonizingly slow. They rocked and rolled together, their mouths feasting on each other, arms tight, bodies fitting together like a hand and glove.
She rode him, and he took her, her breath quick as they writhed and undulated sinuously, their bodies growing slippery. Until finally the pleasure was too great, and she had to move faster, matching the rhythm of her hips to the rapid beat of her heart.
She threw her head back, dragging in air, and he bit down lightly on the soft skin between her shoulder and neck, marking her.
“Evan.” His name falling from her lips sounded wild, sexy, sultry, crazy, and so unlike her. So unlike the woman she used to be, before the greatest pleasure she’d ever known.She heard him cry out her name, and he sounded just as raw, just as desperate as she had. Then she was beyond thinking, could feel only a million bursts of pleasure multiplying, spreading, shooting throughout her body until they became a wondrous cataclysm of ecstasy.
Until the only sound she could make was the three words she’d been holding back for what seemed like forever. They could no longer stay locked inside as she leaped from the peak and tumbled down into bliss.
“I love you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
I love you.
They were the most beautiful words Evan had ever heard.
And the most terrifying.
He tightened his hold on Paige, their limbs still fused as they breathed with what felt like one breath.
There was no question, no doubt that what they’d shared had been so far beyond just sex. It was communion, connection, total intimacy.
But was it love?
Even as Paige lay in his arms—the one woman who would never lie to him, who simply didn’t have it in her to do so—he couldn’t shake away all the lies he’d been told too many times before in his life. Couldn’t forget how badly love could go wrong. That the people who said they loved him might eventually change their minds…and abandon him.
“It’s not a bad thing.” Her whisper was like a soft caress inside and outside. “I’ve always loved you. Since forever.”
He felt her words, felt her, in the very place he knew better than to let himself feel. No one knew better than he did that it was so much smarter, so much safer to keep the walls around his heart.
She lifted her face to his and cupped his jaw with warm hands. “I’m not asking for anything.” She stroked her thumb over his bottom lip, and he had to open his eyes to the beauty of her gaze as she opened her soul to him. “I know your world is upside down right now. I know you probably think this, us, is crazy. And I know you need time to process.”
She sounded like the psychologist she was. Except that she’d also said she loved him.
Since forever.
“I know what I feel.” Her words were soft, but steady, the way she always was. Even now, as she did the most frightening thing in the world by laying her heart on the line for him. “My love for you is steadfast. It’s not some transient thing that will be gone tomorrow. You can believe in that, even though trusting anything or anyone is hard right now.”
He should move away from her, unwrap his arms, disengage in some way.
But he couldn’t do it.
Her lips lifted in the faintest of smiles. “I’m not going to push, no matter how much I might want to. And the truth is,” she admitted, “that I do want to push. Because I’ve waited so long for you.” She shook her head. “But none of that changes the truth. Or the facts.” She held his gaze. Unwavering. “I’m here, Evan. And I love you. Always.”