“I love you.” He said simply, his eyes fierce. “I’ve loved you since the first moment I clapped eyes on you in Latin class. Since that day in the rain, when you climbed into my car and slipped my sweater over your head to get warm. Since the first time I watched you with Jamie, laughing and joking even though the weight of the world was on your shoulders. Since I saw you running in crazy, breathless circles around the circumference of my favorite tree, a look of absolute joy on your face.” He traced a finger down my cheek. “I’ve loved you since before I even knew what love was.”
“Bash—” My voice was thready.
“No, you don’t get to talk. No more telling me I’m crazy or running away from this.” His hands slipped around my shoulders and wound up into my hair. “I’ve been playing it your way, waiting patiently for you to come around. And, Freckles?”
He leaned close and our lips brushed.
“My patience has officially expired.”
His lips landed on mine — consuming me, devastating me, stripping away my every defense. I didn’t try to fight it — I didn’t want to fight it. Instead, I kissed him back, just as hungrily. I met his kiss head on, my hands clinging tightly to his shoulders to steady myself. He broke away to curse under his breath as one of his hands worked at the tiny, stubborn zipper on the back of my dress. I worried he was about to tear it off me — which would probably get me, Fae, and Simon fired fromLuster— but the jammed tread finally gave and slid open. The dress pooled by my feet, and I heard Bash growl at the sight of what lay beneath.
Simon and Fae had insisted on the sheer black corset, instead of the plain strapless bra I’d wanted to wear. They’d argued that the bustier’s garter straps were necessary to hold up my stockings, tying me into the tightly-bound contraption before I could so much as mutter the wordsWhy aren’t there any underwear?At the time, I hadn’t been too thrilled with the idea but now, as I watched a carnal, possessive look fill Sebastian’s eyes while he took in my ensemble, I was more than happy to have such overbearing friends.
“Holy hell,” he muttered, his eyes locked on my body.
His hands reached around to my back and worked at the bindings there as my fingers unbuttoned his shirt and yanked it upward, untucking it from his pants. My palms slid up his bare chest muscles and beneath the jacket on his shoulders. With a swift movement, I pushed the garment to the ground, followed soon after by his crisp white shirt. They landed in a heap next to my abandoned dress.
I laughed as Bash struggled to untie the corset, and he glared at me. “I’m about to cut you out of this thing,” he threatened, the serious look in his eyes telling me his words were no idle threat.
“Here,” I said, turning in his arms so he had better access to the laces at my back.
His hands worked faster now, finally making some headway and loosening the ties enough to slide the corset off. As it fell to the floor, Bash’s hands skimmed from the small of my back, around my bare hips, and finally to my breasts. I pressed into his touch, my head resting against his shoulder blade and my eyes locked on his bed across the loft. Just above it, the photograph of our tree was visible even in the shadows — a perfect beacon of the past, its beauty immortalized forever on canvas.
My breaths grew ragged and my focus went fuzzy as one of Bash’s hands worked its way down my body, his expert fingers quickly making my knees go weak. When he felt me beginning to lose control, he spun me around in his arms to face him. Leaning down, he gently pulled the gartered stockings from my feet, pressing a kiss to each kneecap as he did so. On his journey back upward, Bash kissed a path along my body, stopping at a few sensitive areas that made me gasp and weave my fingers into his hair, pressing him as close against me as I could manage.
A moan slipped from my lips — a low, instinctual sound that reverberated in my throat — and at the noise, Bash abruptly stood, hiked his hands beneath my thighs, and lifted me against him. I wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed his neck as he strode toward the bed, carrying me with hurried impatience.
It had been a long seven years, waiting for this moment.
When he lowered me onto the bed, I fell back against plush down pillows and watched through half-closed eyes as one by one, he removed his shoes, undid his belt, and let what was left of his clothing drop to the floor.
“I can’t believe you’re here, in my bed.” His voice was husky with lust, deeper than I’d ever heard it. “I’ve had this dream, over and over, so many nights I’ve lost count. I keep thinking any minute I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone, just another figment of my past I can’t get back.”
I didn’t think about repercussions or consequences. I didn’t think about anything but Sebastian, and how desperately I needed to feel his bare skin on mine. I extended my hand up to him. “Touch me, Bash. I’m no dream — I’m real.” My voice was breathy. “Touch me.Please.”
At my words, his restraint shredded completely. He was on me,inme, before he’d even settled fully on the bed, his thrust making us both gasp in unison at the feeling of being whole again, rejoined and connected, for the first time in so long I’d nearly forgotten what it could be like. Our eyes locked, the inferno of passion blazing so strongly between us I thought his gaze might burn me to ashes, but I couldn’t look away.
My view was perfection — the man I loved hovering over me and, on the wall above us, a gorgeous backdrop of the most beautiful oak tree in the world. And, to me, it was somehow right, somehowperfect, that after all this time, our joining should happen once again beneath the shadows of our tree, sheltered under its sweeping boughs as we’d been one spring day a million afternoons ago… Back when we were two dumb kids, fumbling and stumbling upon the joys of one another for the first time. Young and in love and, for a brief time, full of infinite dreams for a bright future together.
Those kids we’d been weren’t gone — they were still inside us, calling out in ecstasy at having found each other again after all this time. And as the grown man and woman we’d become reveled in the joy of rediscovering each other, so did the souls of our youth. They sang out, a hymn of passion and reunion, their joyous melody guiding me down the path to sheer oblivion, and I felt my chest swell with pressure.
I felt a short, sharp sensation within the left side of my breast — a pang, as though my chest was overflowing with too much blood — followed by the most intense feeling of completeness, of utterwholenessI’d ever experienced. Pleasure built to a tipping point, crashing me down into release, and my last thought as I spun madly into euphoria was that after seven long years, it had finally happened.
I had my heart back.
***
I used the illuminated screen from my cellphone to guide me around the loft. A glance back at the bed revealed that Bash was still fast asleep, sprawled across the down comforter with his limbs askew. I wanted nothing more than to climb back in bed with him, but that would have to wait for a while.
I had something to do first.
The familiar ping of my cellphone receiving a text message had woken me from a deep slumber. I’d opened my eyes to find my limbs completely entwined with Bash’s. His leg was wrapped around mine, one arm was thrown over my midsection, and his face was nestled into the hollow of my throat. I’d smiled as I slowly untangled myself from the knot of limbs and linens on the bed, moving cautiously so as not to wake him. There were deep shadows under his eyes from one too many sleepless nights of work and worry. It was easy to forget that in addition to everything we now knew aboutLabyrinth, the weight of the entire Centennial issue was on his shoulders as well.
Bash stirred once as I worked myself free, but simply shifted and sighed before falling back into a deep sleep. When I managed to make my way to the edge of the bed, I turned back around to look at him with a small smile on my lips. I wasn’t sure how I’d managed to survive so long without seeing his face every day, without hearing his laugh or being the subject of his jokes, but I wasn’t going to do it anymore.
Screw the honorable Senator Andrew Covington and his NDA. If he wanted to play hardball with me — threaten to take my parents’ house, come after me for repayment of Jamie’s medical bills, or demand restitution for breaking the terms of our contract — that was just fine. After what I’d learned tonight atLabyrinth, there was only one of us who should be worried about the fallout from their actions — and it wasn’t me.
When I reached the center of the loft, I grabbed Bash’s discarded white button down and pulled it on. In the darkness, I stubbed my toe on his coffee table, letting out a subdued scream of pain as I hopped silently toward the countertop where I’d left my purse. I pulled my cellphone out just as another lowping sounded, alerting me to an incoming text. Sliding my finger across the screen, I saw I had three unanswered messages from Fae.