“Kelce, honey…” He tilted his head down, his eyes glittering with the lights and the shadows softening his features. And while my heart skipped many, many beats, my mind couldn’t read him.
“I don’t understand…” I began, but he wrapped an arm around my waist and gently tugged me into his arms. Shaw and I had hugged often, and my body had been close to his more times than I could remember. But this was different.
He nudged my head to look up at him, and I couldn’t say another word. His gaze danced under lowered brows. I touched his face, unexpectantly, to see if he was real.
“Ask me why I didn’t love her,” he said, his voice deep and soft. I was very aware of his hand splayed over my lower back.
“Who? Chloe?”
He shook his head, and the side of his mouth pulled up, making him even more irresistible. He caught my eye. “Why didn’t I love Riley? Ask me why I didn’t love any of the women I dated over the last…hell…ever.”
How much had he had to drink? “You’ve never been in love?” My voice was a whisper.
“Have you? Have you ever really been in love?” he asked me through tight lips, his eyes narrowed.
I looked away. I didn’t want to answer him. “What is with you this evening?” I asked, making a half-hearted attempt to pull away.
He swung me around and bent to my ear. “Tell me. Have you ever been in love?”
I swallowed hard.
“Because I have.” His breath on my skin, in my ear, was melting me. He nuzzled my neck and mumbled, “Shit, I think I still am.”
I had no words. I was speechless, afraid where this was going but wanting—no needing—for him to explain.
He pulled back, and I couldn’t hide my heart as he ensnared my bewildered gaze.
A flush flew over his face as he whispered, “I can face a line of three-hundred-pound men who want to destroy me each week, but you…here you are, bringing me to my knees.” The scent of bourbon was on his breath as I fought the desire to wrap my arms around his neck and thread my hands through his amazing hair.
He cupped my face and drew his thumb across my lips, sending shivers throughout my body. His gaze darted from my eyes to my mouth, his tongue traced his bottom lip, and our breathing grew heavy and in sync. “Just…” Was his voice shaky? “Let me just do this…just once. I need to know…”
Then Dawson Shaw kissed me.
He was as gentle as a naïve teen experiencing it for the first time. He was soft, moving his lips over mine in a slow dance. His hand threaded through my hair, tilting me to a better angle before his tongue parted my welcoming mouth, and we tasted each other. Each movement took us deeper, creating a greater hunger and feeding a mounting frenzy.
To stop my eyes from filling with tears at the utter beauty of him and the way he was treating me, as if I was so unbelievably special—and to stop myself from realizing I could still fall further for him—I grabbed both sides of his face, never wanting to let him go.
I felt like I was on some ethereal planet I never wanted to leave. It was the final piece of the puzzle.
With one kiss, the wall separating what we’d believed we were to each other fell. God, the fates, the stars, the journey we’d been on…it had brought us here. We kissed, and a part of me that had always been hiding emerged, feeling beautiful for him.
I felt beautiful for him, to him…because of him.
He pulled back, his eyes closed, his brows lifted, his lips parted and deliciously swollen. While his eyes were closed, mine were wide open, and I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—take my eyes off him. I wanted to memorize every moment with him in case it never happened again. In case the world rushed in, and this was just a fantasy. In case my life intruded and reminded me that this would never work. I just wanted to stare at this beautiful boy—my gorgeous man.
Because he would always be both to me. The beautiful boy who’d always picked me up when I fell, and the gorgeous man I never deserved.
He leaned forward, touching our foreheads together, his eyes still closed, and he lifted one of my hands to his mouth, kissing my fingers. “I don’t know if I’ve ever known a bigger challenge than what I did just now.”
“Excuse me?” I pulled back. “Kissing me is a challenge?”
“No, it’s not kissing you—although making that first move did take me almost two decades. It was finding the courage to stop.” He lifted the other hand and kissed it. “Because I knew as soon as I did, that brain of yours was going to hit me with all the reasons it should never have happened.”
My brain still wasn’t connecting the right synapses to produce cohesive sentences, so I squeezed his hands. I thought it would be reassuring.
“Say something,” he said. “You’re never at a loss for words.”
“I have no words,” I said.
