It feels like I’m about to explode, and from the way she’s gasping, she’s right there with me. The last threads of my control are unraveling, and I don’t care anymore.
“Fuck—Reese—” I can barely get the words out. My carefully maintained walls are crumbling, and I’m letting them fall.
My sweat drips onto her skin. I can’t think straight anymore—just need, want, mine. The sounds she’s making are driving mecrazy, and when I see that same desperate hunger reflecting back in her eyes, I know I’m crossing a line I can never return from.
“I can’t wait to feel you come, Dante,” she moans. “I love you so much.”
That does it. I’m finished.
Reese rides the wave of pleasure with me, her cries mixing with the sounds I’m making as I empty myself deep inside her, her body gripping me tight.
Everything else falls away, and there’s just this. The perfect clarity of knowing exactly where I belong.
I collapse on top of her, pressing my lips to her cheek where it’s damp with sweat.
We lie there. Neither of us speaks. How strange it is that two people can be this close, can share something so intimate, and still be separate beings with our own unknowable inner worlds. Maybe that’s what makes moments like these so precious—their fundamental impossibility.
After a while, she shifts, turning her head to look at me.
I kiss her forehead, and she lets me.
I’m in love.
Steam billows as I emerge from the shower, water rolling down my neck. And there she is, looking at me like I’m the answer to a question she didn’t know she was asking.
“What’s got you looking so pleased?” I say, walking over like I’m not counting every step, memorizing how her floors feel beneath my feet.
She props herself up, the sheet sliding down to reveal the curve of her shoulder. “It’s silly, but you’re leaving wet footprintsall over my cypress floors,” she says. “And I love it. Love that you’re here.”
I understand completely. It’s not about the damn footprints. It’s about belonging. About finally letting ourselves have this, properly this time.
I lean down to kiss her shoulder. “Promise me I’m not going to wake up and find out this never happened.”
“Not a dream,” she whispers, fingers tracing my jaw like she’s memorizing every angle.
“Good. Though God knows I’ve dreamt about this enough. About getting it right. We’re doing this again?” The question lingers in my throat, loaded with all our past mistakes.
She sits up fully, letting the sheet pool around her waist. Her eyes meet mine. “We are.”
“But better this time. No more hiding when things get scary,” I agree, settling beside her. My heart pounds hard. Can she hear it? “No more trying to be what everyone else thinks we should be, either.”
She laughs softly. “This is definitely a great way to start a new year.”
“It is,” I admit quietly. “We’ve come pretty far, haven’t we?” She looks up at me with those brown eyes—full of everything we’ve built and everything we haven’t said yet.
“I think so,” she says. “I’ve actually been thinking that I’m going to start my own production company this year,” she says. The words tumble out before she can second-guess herself, but I catch the flicker of doubt, the faintest shadow behind her confidence. “It’ll be harder than anything I’ve done, and ifRobyn Hoodsucceeds, I’ll be terrified. But in a good way. Like how I feel about us.”
“I fucking cannot wait to see what you accomplish.” I kiss her. “We’ll figure it out, together. Our own way.”
“Our way,” she whispers, her lips curling into a smile against my jaw.
I chuckle softly, gently stroking her short hair. “You know, you’re never going to get rid of me, fighter.”
“That’s what I was sorta hoping for, Mr. Hastings.”
Chapter 51
Dante
