Page 79 of Until We Come Home

“I should be asking you that.” She picks idly at the beaded hem of her dress. “I’ve been so selfish with you lately. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but I see it now. All the drama I’ve dumped in your lap these past few weeks.”

“We’ve both been a little spun out lately,” I say.

“No, I haven’t been fair to you,” she says, her voice unsteady. “And you still came out here to find me. You shouldn’t have had to do that, given how tense things have been between us.”

I don’t answer right away, stretching my legs out in front of me.

“I want to talk about everything,” I say. “All the stuff we haven’t said. We need to have it out. But it doesn’t have to be tonight. You’ve had one hell of a night, and you’re still my best friend. If that’s all this is for now, we can just sit here and talk.”

“Thanks. But I’m okay, really.” She lets out a shaky breath, wiping a smudge of mascara off her cheek with the back of her wrist. “I’m not even crying over him. It was just too much all at once, and I couldn’t find you, and I really wanted you there, and the whole room was suffocating me, so I bolted.”

I reach across the floorboards, sliding my fingers through hers where her hand rests against her knee. She turns her palm over and holds on tight. Quiet settles over the studio while the music shifts to a slower track, and I look at her, the silk flowers in her loose hair, the glitter catching the light every time she moves, and there’s nowhere else on earth I’d rather be.

“For what it’s worth,” I tell her, “I really loved your dance tonight. It was beautiful.”

Her chin quivers, a watery smile breaking across her face. “Yeah? You really thought so?”

“I really did,” I tell her, squeezing her fingers.

She laughs a little and looks down at our hands, running her thumb across my knuckles. Then she steadies herself and lifts her eyes to mine.

“I know you offered to let it wait,” she says. “But I think I’ll burst if I keep it locked up another second. And I hope I’m not misreading this, because otherwise I’m about to embarrass myself horribly.” A wet laugh slips out. “But I think you feel it too. I think we almost said it at the lake. And if it isn’t painfully obvious by now... I’m in love with you, Mateo. Completely in love with you. I think I have been for a long time, but I was too terrified to admit it. I can’t pretend anymore. It’s all I see.”

My heart kicks hard against my ribs. I open my mouth and nothing comes out.

“Mia,” I murmur, reaching out to brush a stray tear from her cheek with my thumb. “I’m so in love with you it scares me. Part of me knew the night we met in Napa, and I’ve spent every day since trying not to ruin what we had. I almost told you a hundred times this summer. I love you, Mia.”

I cup her jaw and lean down to kiss her, long and slow.

She responds instantly, her fingers tangling in my shirt before sliding into my hair to pull me down. I shift over her, framing her face with both hands, kissing her with every bit of the longing I’ve locked away for two years—since that first blurred evening in Napa, all of it leading to this moment.

Her lips part under mine, drawing me in deeper as I press her down against the floorboards. I hold her face, half afraid to let go, needing proof that she’s here beneath me in the dark.

I pull back an inch, brushing my mouth against her cheek. “You’re sure about this? Because⁠—”

She cuts me off with another kiss, and it’s all the answer I’ll ever need. Her fingers tighten in my hair while my hand trails down the curve of her neck to her collarbone, and she shivers under my touch.

Whatever control I had left vanishes. I need her, more than I’ve ever needed anything. Wrapping my arm around her waist, I lift her across the floor to the thick mat by the wall, spreading my jacket over it first. She looks up at me, certain.

Her makeup is smudged, the flowers coming loose in her hair. Everything in me wants to make her mine. I bring my mouth back to hers, laying her down on the mat and following her, bracing my weight on my forearms.

I kiss her throat, the hollow at the base of it, the edge of the embroidered neckline, and her head tips back and her hands push up under my shirt, flat and hot against my back. I slide my palm up the outside of her thigh, under the hem of the dress, and she arches into me and hooks her leg over my hip, pulling me against her, and the sound she makes when I press into her through our clothes goes straight to my head.

I pull back just a breath, my hand cradling her jaw, her gaze fixed on mine in the dim light.

“Mia,” I say, my voice rough. “I need to be clear. I can’t do a casual arrangement like what you had with Derek. I won’t do that with you.”

She looks up at me and nods.

“I know,” she says. “I don’t want casual either. I could never be half-hearted with you, Mateo. You’re the one person I’m all in for.”

Relief rushes through me so hard my arms nearly give out. I’m already straining against my zipper, and when she reaches down between us and palms me through my pants, I groan into her neck.

“Then take me,” she whispers, dragging her palm along the length of me. “I want your cock inside me. I want you to fuck me like I’m yours.”

I kiss her hard, losing every last bit of sense I’ve got, and pull back only long enough to reach for the dress. I peel it up over her hips, then her stomach, and she lifts her arms so I can pull it over her breasts and off over her head, the flowers scattering across the mat beneath her. Then she’s lying back on my jacket in nothing but her nude tights, no bra, and the sight of her knocks the air out of my lungs.

She watches me with her lip caught between her teeth as I hook my fingers into the waistband of her tights and drag them down, taking her in as I go. She’s so fucking gorgeous it almost hurts to look at her.