Page 84 of Healed

Fuck, but how I wanted her.

How I wanted to be able to take her right here, right now, to show her how sorry I was.

How I wanted to be able to place my lips against her own. To hold her even closer. To peel every layer of clothing off her body and to worship every last inch of her the way she deserved.

Her hands lowered to link her fingers with mine, and without thinking, I brought them up between our bodies, planting kisses along her clenched knuckles.

I sucked in a sharp, shaky breath.

That had been a mistake.

“Leave, Gabby. Leave.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I’m hanging on by a fucking thread. Leave!” I said, sounding harsher than I meant to.

“No. I want to be here.”

“And I’m not capable of being what you need right now,” I warned her. She looked at me with confusion.

“If I take you now, I can promise you I’m not going to be capable of being gentle. If I take you now, I’ll end up fucking splitting you in two. I need you to walk away, to give me some space. Because the second we cross this line, we are never going back behind it. The second you give yourself to me, you are my old lady—ceremony or no ceremony.”

I kissed her hand again, and then before I could think better of it, I brought my lips to hers, my tongue running along her lower lip. “I need you to be absolutely certain before you make this decision, Gabriella, because I am not letting you go a second time.”

“I’m certain,” she breathed.

“No,” I laughed. A shaky, breathless laugh. “No, you’re not. You’re horny. You’re relieved Sam is gone. You think you need to repay me for keeping you safe.”

“I don’t,” she tried to protest. I just laughed.

“Yes. Yes, you do. And that’s why I need to respect you enough to walk away.”

“But you haven’t,” she said.

“I haven’t.”

But I should.

I needed to.

“Go to bed, princess,” I said, stepping back from her. As I did so, the clouds seemed to disperse from her eyes, and she seemed to come back to her senses. She was fleeing from the room a second later, and, fool that I was, I couldn’t help but watch her go.

Chapter 24

Gabriella

Holy hell, what was that?

What in the actual fuck was that?

Every inch of my skin felt alive. Every part of it tingled and burned, as though he’d somehow left pieces of himself behind wherever he’d touched me.

I could still feel the brush of his lips against my knuckles, the warmth of his breath against my neck, the way his forehead had rested so naturally against mine, as though the last ten years had never happened.

One minute I’d been trying to comfort him, trying to stop him carrying the weight of tonight on his own, and the next I’d forgotten why I’d walked into that bar in the first place.

I’d forgotten everything except him.