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I run my hands up his chest, realizing my fangs are gone as I press my lips to his. “Now will you stop torturing me?”
I flip him onto his back, and he grasps my hips and grins up at me as I climb on top and push my hair behind my shoulders. He shakes his head a little, eyes blatantly tracing every inch of me as his hands skim up my stomach, my breasts.
“God, you’re so fucking perfect.”
We groan simultaneously as I lower myself onto him. He never takes his eyes off me as I start to move, but instead of feeling self-conscious under the weight of his gaze, it fills me up. I want him to see me. I never want him to look away.
“Come here,” I say, breathless, and he sits up into my waiting arms, our torsos coming together. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and my legs around his waist, our foreheads resting against each other. The kiss is breathy and desperate and deep as he wedges his hands beneath my legs to help me move against him.
I whimper, and he wraps one arm around my back, the other guiding my hips as his lips hover near my ear.
“Just like that,” he breathes. “That’s perfect. There you go.”
Heat builds in my core, my chest, my gums again. I pull back, clenching my teeth and hissing out a breath as the fangs reappear, but then Reid’s hands are on my face, pulling me close.
“Go ahead. It’s okay, love. Go ahead.”
I search his eyes for any hesitation, and finding none, I let my instincts take over. My fangs sink into the space between his neck and shoulder. The taste of his blood is familiar, but the way it feels as it fills me is entirely different. There’s more heat, more need, and it fuels the other heat already scorching my veins. My breaths shorten to pants, every muscle in my body wound as tight as it can go.
Reid strokes the back of my head, murmuring something beside my ear that I can’t make out over the roaring blood. Then out of nowhere, I’m cresting the edge, the orgasm tearing through me strong enough that I wouldn’t be able to stay upright if not for Reid’s hold on me. I cling to his shoulders as wave after wave rolls over me, the sensation so much my body almost feels numb, like it can’t quite register the intensity of it.
As if from a distance, I feel Reid tensing, hear his groan in my ear as he finishes with me. And the next thing I know, I’m on my back on the bed, Reid hovering over me as I struggle to catch my breath. He pushes the hair out of my eyes, his face flushed and chest glistening with sweat.
His smile is hesitant as he studies my face. “You okay?”
But as the world filters back in and that all-consuming heat ebbs away, an entirely different rush fills me.
Tears.
Reid’s face falls, his eyes going wide. “Oh no, baby, no. I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry.” His hands flutter around me like he’s not sure what to do with them. “I never should have—”
“No, no.” I wave my hands in front of my face, trying to swallow the tears, but that makes them run harder. “It’s nothing. I don’t know why I’m crying.” My breaths turn into hiccups, and I press my hands into my cheeks like I can force the heat accumulating there away. “God, this is so embarrassing.”
The concern on his face deepens. “No, Valerie…”
“I mean it. I just—” I search for a way to explain it, this overwhelming feeling expanding in my chest, filling my lungs and overriding my system. “I’ve missed you, I guess. I’ve just really, really missed you.”
He strokes my cheek and studies my face as he brings our noses together, the heat behind his eyes simmering low like the last of the embers in a fire. “I’ve missed you too. Every minute of every goddamn day. Even when we’re in the same room, I miss you.”
The words don’t bring comfort, just a deepening of the sadness already growing in my chest. Because everything has changed, and yet nothing has. It might, but not yet. And it hurts too much to pretend this is certain if there’s even a chance I might lose it.
It’s the one thing I haven’t let myself say, haven’t let myselfthink.
If this doesn’t work out, I don’t know how I’ll ever get over it. I don’t know how I’ll ever move on. How I’ll ever love someone else because I’ll always know it’s not as much as I loved him.
“I should go,” I whisper.
“Valerie.”
I shake my head, but he doesn’t release my face.
“I can’t do this, Reid,” I gasp. “I can’t—I can’t lie here and pretend like I have you.”
“You have me.”
I shake my head again. Because I don’t, not really.
“You have me,” he insists, his eyes searching mine, the look on his face only growing more desperate as he doesn’t find whatever he’s looking for. His lips flatten in a tight line as he looks from me to something over his shoulder, then he releases my face and rises from the bed. “God, this—this isn’t how I was going to do this. Just don’t go anywhere.”
