“I can’t.”
“Why not? What the hell do you want, Xavier?”
You.
He can’t say it. It’s too much, to say it out loud, to give voice to that one word that could change everything, that could ruin anything. She doesn’t even need him to say it, but she has to know, right? How can she not, after everything?
“It’s the right thing,” he says instead. “I . . . It’s the right thing.”
“But why?”
“Because . . . because I can’t stand it anymore. It’s exhausting, I’m exhausted and I just . . . can’t do it anymore. It feels like . . . like it’s getting worse.”
“What’s getting worse?”
He just shakes his head in defeat. He doesn’t know what to do now, doesn’t have any idea at all what the right thing to say to her is, how to make it better without also making it worse.
But then she’s stepping closer to him, slowly, giving him time to back away.
He doesn’t.
She’s so close now that he has to look down to look into her eyes and he can see the moment when she decides to call him out on his bullshit; her gaze changes from confusion to determination and God help him, there’s no way she can see it there in his gaze, the absolute control he has over himself, control that she can snap if she just gives him a sign.
She lifts her hand to his cheek. As soon as her fingertips make contact with his skin, his eyes shutter and he leans into the touch.
“Bianca,” he murmurs, turning his face into the palm of her hand, pressing a kiss there. The contact sends a shiver through her that he can almost feel himself. “We can’t . . .” he starts, leaning down into her, his forehead against hers, his hand coming up to cover hers, “can we?”
“We can do whatever we want. We make the rules,” she whispers, her words barely a breath against his lips.
“Fuck it.”
He has to kiss her. One last time.
He loves and hates this kiss because he knows this is the last time he’s ever going to feel this way.
“Please,” she begs as his mouth finds that spot just below her ear at the edge of her jawline, her hands sifting through his hair before giving it a sharp tug.
He pulls away and follows her direction, back to her mouth, hot and open and wild under his.
“Whatever we want?” he asks against her lips.
“Whatever we want,” she agrees. “And I want you.”
“You have me, boss.”
“Show me.”
“I will, gonna show you with my fingers and my mouth and my dick until the only word you remember is my name.”
“Xavier,” she gasps against his ear.
“Yeah, just like that.”
His hands slide down over her ass to grip her hips and pull her against him, and then down to her thighs, wrapping around those sweet curves and lifting her into his arms.
Carrying her from the kitchen straight to her bedroom, he only stops when her tongue runs along the shell of his ear, and then she bites down at the earlobe and he has to press her against the wall and suck at that spot on her neck again.
And part of him, a part that he doesn’t like all that much about himself, wants to leave a mark, wants her to look in themirror a few days from now – hell, maybe even a week from now – and see it, still there, a reminder of him even though he’ll be long gone. Maybe he’ll leave one at the curve of her breast and the inside of her thigh too.
