“You think I don’t see you?” I murmured. “You walk around like I don’t exist, baby. Like it doesn’t kill me. Yes, I want it. I’ve wanted it,” I said, my voice rougher than I meant it to be. Frustration simmered just beneath the surface, tied on every syllable. “But you’ve been busy…being a mother.”
The words came out sharper than I intended. It was barely a complaint, just brutal honesty expressing the ache I’d swallowed day after day, watching her drift farther away while pretending I didn’t notice.
Her chest rose and fell, lips parted slightly, eyes scanning my face like she didn’t know whether to hit me or kiss me.
And then—
She launched into me.
***
Her hands were in my hair, tugging hard enough to hurt, and her mouth crashed into mine with a desperation that snatched the breath from my lungs.
The kiss wasn’t gentle or careful. It was all the words we’d left unsaid, all the nights we’d turned away from each other instead of reaching across the silence.
I gripped her waist roughly, spun us so her back hit the wall with a soft thud, and kissed her like I’d been starved. Because I had.
“Baby,” I breathed against her lips, my voice cracking open after each letter. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
She gasped into my mouth, nails digging into my shoulders. “Somehow, I want to say I hate you,” she whispered against my mouth.
“I know,” I whispered back. “But you love me more.”
Instead of denying it, she just pulled me closer.
I lifted her onto the marble counter without breaking the kiss. Her gasp hitched against my mouth, and it lit a feral reaction in me. The cold stone met the back of her thighs, but she yanked me closer even more desperately.
Her fingers threaded into my hair, tugging, dragging me deeper into her heat.
I growled low, pressing between her legs, feeling her legs wrap around me like chains I didn’t want to break free from.
The kitchen was dimly lit, but she was all fire, with skin flushed, lips bruised, pupils blown wide with unadulterated lust.
“If you think I’m letting you get off easy, you’ve got another thing coming,” I breathed against her jaw.
Boldly, and almost out of breath, she smirked, dragging her nails down my bare chest. “Thought didn’t even cross my mind.”
I claimed her mouth again, deeper this time, and more possessively.
One hand fisted in her hair, the other sliding up her thigh beneath the cotton of her dress. Her breath hitched, hips arching into mine, silently begging.
God, I was ready to give her everything: to burn for her, kill for her.
Her name left my mouth like a prayer and a curse. “Zoella….”
With her legs wrapped around me and her mouth whispering my name like she needed it to survive, I forgot about everything and, for the first time in years, felt like just a man.
And if I ever needed saving, she was my salvation.
Her head fell back as my mouth moved down her throat, licking and sucking on the bare skin of her collarbone.
My hands slid in between her smooth thighs, gliding gently over the wet entrance of her pussy.
Thankfully, there were no panty barriers.
“Whose pussy is that between your pretty thighs?” I demanded.
“Yours,” she moaned.
