Page 104 of Beautiful When He Breaks

I open my eyes and find him already watching me, pupils blown, curls a little messed from where my fingers apparently got brave. There’s want all over him, but there’s also that same careful attention that keeps knocking the ground out from under me. He’s turned on, obviously; I can feel that. But he’s still paying attention and making sure I’m with him.

It makes me want him more.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admit, because the truth feels better than panic. “But I don’t want you to stop.”

“You don’t have to know everything right now,” he says, voice low. “You just have to tell me what feels good and what doesn’t.”

The words sink deep enough that my breathing changes. I nod once, because it’s the only one I can manage without saying something stupidly emotional in a half-finished nursery while my daughter is at the main house and the man I love is looking at me like this.

Julian’s hand leaves the wall and comes to my jaw, thumb brushing over the corner of my mouth. “Can I touch you?”

My throat goes tight. “You’re already touching me.”

“More,” he says, and the word is so quiet and direct that it steals every clever answer I might’ve had. “I want your consent, baby.”

I know what he’s asking. Maybe not every detail yet, but enough for fear to flicker, then settle because it’s Julian in front of me. It’s Julian’s hand on my jaw, Julian’s eyes waiting for me instead of taking anything. The part of me that might’ve panicked once is quiet now, not gone, but quiet.

I realize with a strange, shivering clarity that I want to find out what happens next. I want to know what his mouth feels like when we stop pretending kissing is enough.

“Yes,” I whisper. “Yeah, Jules. You can.”

He exhales slowly through his nose, and the control in that single breath almost ruins me.

Then he kisses me again, but this time it’s different. Slow and deep—giving me one more chance to settle into the choice before the ground changes. His hand slides from my jaw down my throat, palm warm against my pulse before moving lower to my chest. He can probably feel my heart trying to escape.

He kisses the corner of my mouth, then my jaw, then the spot beneath my ear that makes my fingers clamp down on his sides.

“Fuck,” I breathe, turning my head without meaning to.

Julian’s laugh is low and almost unsteady. “Good?”

“Don’t get smug.”

“Mhm, I’m already smug.”

He kisses my throat once, open-mouthed and careful and hot enough that my hips shift before I can stop them. His hand tightens at my side, and for a second, he just holds me there against the wall, breathing against my skin and trying not to rush.

When he lifts his head, his eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them.

“Eli,” he says; his voice so fucking low and sexy, it makes my cock twitch. “I need you to tell me yes again.”

My body answers before my mouth does, but he waits anyway. That waiting is what breaks the last of my hesitation.

“Yes,” I say, clearer this time. “Fuck, yes. I want whatever you wanna do to me.”

Julian’s mouth parts slightly, and for a moment, he looks like those words hit him harder than the kiss did. Then he lowers himself slowly, hands sliding down my sides as he drops, not taking his eyes off me until he’s on his knees in front of me.

My breath leaves me in one hard, shaking rush. “F-fuck,” I breathe as he noses the front of my athletic shorts, right along the length of my cock. One of his hands slides under my shirt, caressing my abs with sure fingers.

When he reaches the waistband of my shorts, he pauses, looking up. The question is right there in his eyes and I answer by curling my fingers in his hair and nodding once.

He eases the shorts down, knuckles grazing hypersensitive skin, and I feel the tremor in his fingers as clearly as the cool air hitting my thighs. The sight of that tiny giveaway—my unshakable Julian just as wrecked—is almost too much.

My cock is hard as fuck as he pulls it out from my boxer briefs, and I watch as he licks his lips before he looks back up at me.

“Eli,” he murmurs, voice thick, “you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to touch you like this.”

I meet his eyes again, then I say the one thing I should have said a long time ago.