He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice has dropped to something softer but more dangerous.
“I’m done letting anyone reduce you. Including myself.”
Well, shit. That’s not fair. He can’t just say things that profound when I’m already emotionally compromised and half-naked. That’s cheating.
His lips find my skin again, and this time, each kiss feels important, and necessary.
“I’m going to worship every inch of you,” he says against my ribs, and the words vibrate through me, settling somewhere deep in my chest. “Every part they’ll never deserve to understand. Every part I was too stupid to protect before.”
And there it is—the admission hidden in the promise. That maybe he’s been protecting me all along in his weird, controlling way. That maybe every IOU, every moment of him being an absolute dick was just him trying not to care as much as he does.
That maybe he never stopped loving me; he just got really good at hiding it under all that emotional armor.
“Rowan,” I whisper again, because I need to say something, but my brain is currently offline, and all I have is his name and this feeling that I’m unraveling in the best and worst way.
“Let me,” he says against my skin, and it’s not an order. It’s something vulnerable. “Just for tonight, let me show you what I should have shown you then. What you deserve. What you’ve always deserved.”
And because I’m weak... I let him.
Heaven help me, I let him.
He shifts slightly, brushing his nose down my side, over the dip of my waist, and my entire body responds to that simple touch with embarrassing enthusiasm.
“I’m going to show you the difference between being looked at”—his mouth finds the edge of my ribs—“and being seen.”
I can’t breathe. Actually cannot locate my lungs or remember their basic function. Not because he’s touching me—though that’s definitely scrambling my circuits—but because he’s actually seeing me. Every freckle I’ve tried to cover with concealer. Every shaky inhale that gives away how much this is affecting me. Every scared, unhealed part I’ve been hiding under sarcasm and law school stress.
His hand slides behind my knee, lifting it with a tenderness. The trembling gets worse, but I can’t tell if it’s from want or from the terrifying realization that he’s treating me with actual care.
And then he kisses my inner thigh.
Just once.
But it absolutely wrecks me.
My eyes sting with tears I refuse to acknowledge, and I have to blink hard to keep them from falling. “Don’t make this a favor,” I whisper, because I need to know this isn’t just another transaction. “Please don’t make this another thing I owe you for.”
His head snaps up.
The look in his eyes burns hotter than anything else has tonight—fierce and offended and tender all at once.
“Tessa,” he says, voice low and absolutely certain, “you don’t owe me a damn thing.”
Then he kisses the inside of my other thigh, slower this time. Each press of his mouth feels intentional.
I cover my mouth with one hand because the sound that escapes isn’t polite. Or quiet. It’s raw and needy.
He smirks against my leg, but even that expression carries gentleness.
“Let me earn you back,” he says quietly.
And just that easily, my heart isn’t mine anymore.
Again.
Fuck.
By the time he kisses the soft crease of my hip, I’m shaking hard enough to register on the Richter scale. Not because I’m nervous—though okay, yes, also that—but because I’ve never been touched with this kind of intention. Not with just hunger, but with something that feels dangerously close to reverence. My body is being treated as something worth honoring, and I don’t know what to do with that.
