His eyes flick up, catching mine. The look detonates in my chest—guilt, memory, desire sparking all at once, scorching through me. Then he rips the packet open with his teeth, hands shaking as he rolls the condom on.
I curl my legs up, panties shoved down, my pulse so loud I can’t hear anything else. He snatches them from my ankle and flings them aside, eyes never leaving mine.
“Good girl,” he mutters, voice rough and low, the sound sliding over my skin like another touch. He pushes my thighs wider, his grip biting into me, and lines himself up.
The blunt head drags through my slick. The warmth of his skin on mine sends me into a tailspin. My body answers before I can think—gripping, quivering, begging. Every nerve lights, every muscle straining for him.
He presses harder, thick and unyielding at my entrance, but he doesn’t push in. Instead, he teases, nudges, and my body rebels, arching, contracting, greedy and wild with the need to take him deeper.
“Fuck, Janie,” he groans, his voice shredded. “I've thought about this, about you, about being inside of you a million times since that night.”
“Then take me,” I pant, arching up, grabbing the back of his neck to drag him closer. “God, Warren, please. I'm yours.”
He holds still for one beat, like he’s branding the image into his memory. Then he pushes in, slowly and deliberately. Inch by thick inch until he’s buried inside me.
My back bows, a cry tearing from my throat. Every nerve lights up, sharp and blazing, the forbidden edge making it hotter, filthier, impossible to stop.
His mouth finds mine again, swallowing my broken choke. “So fucking tight,” he mutters against my lips, hips grinding deeper. “Five years, Janie, and I’m losing my goddamn mind.”
I wrap my legs tighter around his waist, pulling him as deep as he’ll go. “Don’t stop. Don’t you ever stop.”
He thrusts again, harder, the headboard rattling against the wall. His breath rips out ragged, mine a counterpoint, both of us straining, breaking, coming apart together.
Heat detonates low in my body, sharp and relentless, and my cry shudders against his shoulder. He groans into my hair, driving me through every pulse and aftershock until I’m shaking apart under him.
His hands fist the sheets, his rhythm stuttering as he falls with me, body convulsing, voice breaking on my name.
We cling, trembling, sweat-slick and wheezing, mouths finding each other in desperate, messy kisses that taste of salt and whiskey and need. Neither of us lets go, not even when the quake of it ebbs, not even when his thrusts slow and still.
For a long moment, the only sound is the brutal pound of our hearts. My cheek is pressed to Warren’s chest, his heartbeat thundering against my ear. My own hammers back the fear, joy, the knowledge that we’ve crossed a line there’s no coming back from.
His lips brush my temple, the faintest whisper. “Goddamn, Janie…”
And that’s where the silence falls heavily, electric, leaving us stranded between ruin and something neither of us is brave enough to name.
TWELVE
Warren
I lie back against the pillows, my heartbeat finally slowing from gallop to canter. Janie's head rests against my chest, her hair spilling across my skin like dark water. The air conditioner hums quietly, cooling our damp skin.
I’d fought it for so long I almost believed I could. But it took nothing, a tile of her lip, her touch, for me to fold. For me to remember, I never stopped wanting her.
My fingers drift through her hair, separating the silky strands. When I press my lips to her temple, she makes a small sound that lodges somewhere beneath my ribs.
"I never stopped thinking about you." The words tumble out, quiet in the dim light. "Not once since that night. Cutting you off seemed necessary then, but it never killed what I felt."
I hadn't planned to say it, hadn't planned any of this. But the truth pulses between us, too powerful to contain. Now that I've gotten out of my own way, I want to shout it to everyone.
Janie shifts against me, her chin tilting up. Her eyes catch what little light filters through the blinds.
"I waited for you to answer my texts." Her palm spreads flat against my chest. "I checked my phone a hundred times a day. Then I saw you blocked my number..."
"I thought it was the right thing to do." My throat tightens. "For your family. For Blake. For you."
"Has that changed?"
My hand cups her face, thumb tracing her lower lip. "I think it has. I don't know how to handle it, but this is bigger than me. My feelings for you aren't surface."