The tears returned to her eyes, stinging. He had feelings for her. He truly had feelings. He cared for her intensely, craved her strongly and depended on her for his happiness. He was scared, he’d said, and honestly, he was right. She was, too. In the wake of his admission, she found the strength to face the truth. When she’d imagined having a family, she hadn’t factored in the vulnerability she would experience, or the fear of one day losing all she’d come to love.
“All my life I’ve considered feelings for another person a prison.” He released her hands to cup her jaw. “I will never be able to control how you feel about me. I will never be able to force you to stay with me, to accept what I have to offer, and it terrifies me.”
“Beck...”
“I want you to give us another chance, Harlow. I need you to. Please.”
“But we’re both so broken.” A relationship wasn’t just about finding the right person but also being the right person. “How can we make anything last?”
“We make a decision to fight for what we have.”
In a fight, someone always came out the loser. “Neither of us knows how to fight.”
“I know I want you, and that’s enough for me. We’ll be honest with each other. We’ll talk when we’re feeling overwhelmed, and when we fight we won’t walk away. We’ll hash it out and make up in bed.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “With us, only one thing matters. And it’s this. Am I enough for you?”
He gazed deep into her eyes, a moment charged with electricity, a moment of shocking intimacy, every emotion unveiled. Longing, relief. More fear.
And as he peered at her, she thought she even saw...love.
Suddenly, no answer had ever been clearer.
“Yes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
BECK HELD HARLOW in his arms for a long while. Just held her, making no move to seduce her. He’d not forgotten her words. You’re incapable of meeting anyone’s emotional needs. He would meet hers if it killed him, and it just might.
He burned for her. But he also liked the intimacy of the moment. Hell, he loved it.
“Beck,” she said. She’d pulled her hair into a ponytail, several tendrils having escaped confinement to frame her face. Her skin was free of makeup, her eyes glittering like diamonds, her lashes so long they curled into ebony fans. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips lusciously red.
She could have been dolled up, but it wouldn’t have mattered. No matter what she wore, or didn’t wear, she met a need he’d never expected to have. A need for her specifically. Her smile. Her scent. Her wit. Her warmth. Her thorns. No one else would do—now...maybe not ever. Once you’d had perfection, everyone else became a pale imitation.
“Yes, baby.”
“I want you.”
“No. There’ll be time for that later.”
“I need you.” She reached up, toyed with the ends of his hair. She smelled faintly of disinfectant, but not even that could hide her innate fragrance of strawberries, surely driving him deeper and deeper into insanity, where only she existed. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Killing me.
“Kiss me,” she demanded.
The world could have been burning around him and he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from obeying. Nothing could have stopped him. He’d been without her too long, and while he could go several minutes without breathing, he couldn’t go without this woman for another second.
“Beck... I’ve missed you so much.”
“Baby, I’ve wanted to die without you.”
He pressed his lips into her and like that, urgency rode him hard, lightning flashes of demand riding the tides of a desire he couldn’t control.
His tongue dueled with hers, the taste of her sweet and luscious, better than he remembered. He nipped his way to her jaw, to the pulse hammering at the base of her neck. the softness of her skin enrapturing him, reminding him of all the other places she was soft as silk and hot as hell.
“You are mine, and I am yours. I won’t forget again.” He lifted his head to peer down at her. The beard stubble he hadn’t shaved this morning had left thin lines of pink around lips that were already plumped by his kiss, redder than usual, and velvet-soft—a fine wine guaranteed to go straight to his head.
Her pupils expanded until only a rim of ice-blue remained—still enough to drown in. “I won’t, either.”
Triumphant, he yanked her top over her head, tossed the material aside. The white cotton bra she wore had a front clasp, and he kissed his way down her chest to rip it open with his teeth. She gasped as he tongued one of her nipples, then the other, plumping and reddening them, too. Her hips began to writhe against him, the core of her instinctively seeking the fullness he’d taught her to crave.
He removed her shoes, tugged off her pants and panties, leaving her bare. Opening her slender thighs was a compulsion, one he obeyed. She was already wet, glistening, and he licked his lips in anticipation.
“The things I’m going to do to you...” Weeks without her. Weeks of longing and imagining and cursing and dreaming. They would not be leaving this bed until they were both sated.
She placed her foot against his chest. “You doing things to me is great, but I’m going to do things to you, too. I want to be the best you’ve ever had.” Confident words, belied by a tremor in her voice.
“You already are.” Where her skin touched his, he sizzled, especially over his heart, the organ currently trying to beat its way out of his chest. He took her ankle, lifted and pressed a kiss on her calf. “All you have to do is look at me, and you surpass everyone else.”