Page 47 of Meant for You
“But?” I forced out.
She shook her head, beautiful, wild hair moving in the fading sunlight. “There’s no but. I’m just afraid, and I guess a little part of me is sad.”
“Sad? Christ, why, Eves?”
“What we were, what we used to be to one another, is gone,” she whispered.
Fuck, she killed me. “It’s not gone, baby, it’s just evolved. What we have coming, it’s gonna be so much better, I promise you that.”
“But if we do this and it doesn’t work out, we can’t ever go back. And if we don’t take this step forward, now knowing how we both feel, nothing will ever be the same.”
“Is that what you wish? That we could stay the same, the way we used to be?” If she said yes, my heart was going to fucking shatter at her feet. Yeah, I’d take anything she gave me—only part of Everly was better than losing her completely—but being her best friend wasn’t enough anymore and it never would be again.
She tilted her head back more so her stunning brown eyes clashed with mine. “No, because if I don’t do this, if I don’t give this a try, us a try, I’ll wonder if I made a mistake, letting fear stop me, for the rest of my life.”
“So we’re doing this?” My fingers flexed against her waist.
“Yes, we’re doing this.” She smiled.
My knees went fucking weak. “I’m going to kiss you now, okay?” Because I fucking had to.
That small smile curling her gorgeous lips got wider. “Okay.”
I slid my hand up her delicate spine into her warm, thick hair and dipped my head, breathing her in before finally taking her luscious mouth in a kiss that could have stopped my heart if it hadn’t already been banging so damn hard in my chest.
Every part of me lit the fuck up from just that touching of mouths.
I curled my arm around her waist, pulling her in closer, needing to feel every inch of her body pressed against mine. Gently, I sucked on her lower lip, soft and cool. She opened for me, hot and sweet, a drugging contrast, making me groan low.
The taste of her, the way she felt in my arms, the way she was kissing me back, gentle but hungry, tentative but fucking needy, was more than I could take. And when she made a sexy-as-fuck whimpering sound, the relentless ache behind my zipper, the driving need of my hard cock, only got more intense.
Everly felt it—there was no way she couldn’t—and when she wriggled against me, giving me some much-needed friction, I growled, working fucking hard to call on my control.
I wasn’t going to fuck her on a picnic table our first time or in Bull’s hunting cabin, not in its current state anyway. I wasn’t going to risk messing this up.
But that wasn’t the only reason I sucked on her tongue one last time, why I savored her lips, giving them another gentle pass, cooling things down or at least trying to before lifting my head and ending the kiss.
We were going to take this slow.
Every step of the way, I was going to make this perfect and ease her into it, because, yeah, we both wanted it. But Eves was right; we were too important to each other. This was too important. And I wasn’t going to rush. I wasn’t going to risk a misstep with her. I only had one shot to make this perfect.
Because I knew without doubt that she was too good for me, that she could do a fuck of a lot better.
I pressed my forehead to hers and released a shaky breath. “Fucking hell.”
She laughed, and it was breathless and so damn sexy. “Does that mean I don’t need practice anymore?”
“Baby girl, you never did.” I grabbed her hand and led her back to the picnic table. “Ready for cheesecake?”
* * *
Some asshole banging on my apartment door startled me awake.
I growled and shoved back the covers. I was having the best, fucking dirtiest dream about Everly. And now I was hard and horny, and I wanted her, and I couldn’t even tug one out to ease the pain since whoever was at my door was a persistent motherfucker.
“Hang the fuck on.” I tugged on my jeans, wincing as I slid up the zip, and dragged on a shirt to cover my hard dick before storming over to the door and yanking it open.
Bull stood there with a stupid fucking grin on his face. “Did I wake you?”
