Maybe just a kiss will heal what time hasn’t been able to.
Maybe one kiss with his hands in my hair, one breath from him, will close the circuit that’s been opening, hurting me.
It’s the only rational thing I can think of as he stares at me like he wants to eat me.
“And now what? You still obsessed with me?” My voice is raspy, but there’s no tease in it anymore. I lightly scrunch the bedding under my fingers, inhaling the smell of Jesse that surrounds me. If only to remind myself this is real. With my heart on my sleeve, I gaze up at the man who broke my heart ten years ago, the one who still holds every potential to break it all over again.
He takes three slow, torturous steps toward the bed. And then he inches onto it, and I don’t move. My chest rises with each lessened inch between us until the lines of his jaw, the gold flecks in his green eyes, are visible.
Jesse moves forward on all fours, and like a scale, I fall back as he comes down on me. His elbows land next to my ribs, boxing me in, his large frame hovering over me, and I have no escape.
But there’s nowhere I want to go.
Silence encases us as I lift a finger, tracing the ink on his throat up to the softness of his parted lips. His green irises stare right into me, like they see everything.
He kisses my fingertip, and I drop my hand to the side of his face, admiring the way his jaw fits in my palm.
“You want the truth?” His voice pulls my gaze back to him, and I nod. “I never stopped being obsessed with you.”
His confession crashes into me, breaking down a wall with such force that all I can do is shiver under his touch.
Jesse trails kisses across my palm.
“Is this wrong?” I ask, worried I just ruined everything by asking. Worried that what we are doing is so wrong. That it’s going to hurt me even more. That it’s a temporary Band-Aid on my heart. That I’m treating Jesse like an easy fuck when the truth is he holds a piece of my heart I never got back.
His eyes grow darker, a small grin pulling on the corners of his delicious mouth.
“If this is wrong, I don’t want to be right. I’m a good man, Penny, but I want to be bad right now.”
“Show me how bad you want to be,” I whisper back against all my judgment, and for a moment, he hesitates. Like maybe he thought I wouldn’t agree tothis,and he’ll jump up and say “gotcha!” or that our time has passed, there’s too much hurt, too many years between us. That doingthiswould be irresponsible.
But he doesn’t do any of that.
Instead, he laces his strong hands through my wild hair, gripping me tightly, trapping me under him, and lays his lips on mine.
His kiss isn’t soft and sweet, it’s rough and needy. He sucks my lip into his mouth, and the breath in my lungs no longer belongs to me. I moan, and he releases my mouth, smiling against me. He smells like I remember, like leather and musk. His tongue darts into my mouth again, and I hold on to his neck.
It’s thicker than it was ten years ago. He is solid and steady, and I’m filled with a desire to claim him right here, right now.
His biceps flex against the fabric of his shirt, and logic leaves my body—disintegrating into thin air, because all I want is to see what’s under his clothing.
I want to run my fingers over every line of ink covering his torso. I want to kiss the column of his throat, I want to scrape my nails down the valleys of his back.
I want to remember, just for tonight, what it feels like when Jesse Rivers is all mine.
We strip down until there’s only my lace panties and his black boxers between us. The air is cool on my skin, but the heat of his body makes me feel wild. Ravenous.
Jesse rakes his eyes over my body as I inch back on the bed. He grips my thigh, and I stare down at the tattooed hands wrapped around my pale, unmarked skin.
I love how we contrast, love how he still remembers where I like being touched. He massages my inner thighs as I writhe on the bed, bucking my hips, desperate for pressure on my aching center. But Jesse takes his time, studying me as he does.
“Fuck, you’re so sexy, Penny.” He growls, and I reach for his shoulder, yanking him toward me until his lips crash onto my neck. He kisses me slowly, his tongue swirling around the sensitive skin. Then his fingers dip into the band of my panties, and I gasp as he pushes two fingers inside me.
There’s no space between us to think about what this is. Or how familiar yet different it feels.
I’m not the teenage girl he promised forever to and had stolen kisses with. I’m a woman who’s been without him for ten years, who’s fought off what-ifs and denied herself so much because of his betrayal. But he’s not the boy I knew either. He’s steady and sure, confident and strong.
“You’re dripping for me.” He bites my earlobe as his calloused thumb strokes me. His tongue ravishes its way down my collarbone until I’m arching my back.
