AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You want to push me away and end us? Do it because you’re done. Do it for a reason that’s real. Not because you’re scared of getting your heart broken.”
“Is that what this is?” I asked on a disbelieving breath.
“I know you, Maci, and I thought you knew me too, but let me lay this shit out there,” he began, his deep voice swirling with desperation and a plea. “I wouldn’t risk a friendship with my two best friends for some random fuck, but I would risk it for this. For you.”
My head shook as those traitorous tears built and spilled over, all while my heart pulled in different directions. Soaring at his words and instinctively trying to shield itself from falling for them.
“You’re all I think about,” he admitted as the hand at my cheek slowly slipped to my neck. “I want you so goddamn bad, and that goes so far past sex. I hate watching you walk away from me. I hate leaving one of our beds if you’re in it with me. I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t wake up with you in my arms tomorrow morning, and I know you feel the same.”
“I don’t.” The strained words scraped up my throat and revealed every ounce of their untruth.
“Then why are you crying?” he gently challenged.
“Because I seriously fucking hate you right now.”
“No, you don’t,” Connor whispered before his mouth fell onto mine again, and it was all I could do to hold on as that kiss consumed my world.
Soft and pleading. Sure and commanding.
Making my head spin and pulse race as I prayed for this to never end. This feeling like I couldn’t get enough. This feeling of comfort and security in his arms.
This love.
Our movements were slow as we undressed and drifted to my bed. Hands searched and lingered. Lips promised and teased until the last of our clothes were falling to the floor, and Connor was pushing into me as he held me close.
Stealing my breath. Shaking my soul. Taking the pieces of my heart I’d tried guarding from him. Loving me carefully, completely, until I knew there was no going back. Not from this. Because this gentle passion was a side of Connor I knew no one else had ever seen.
It belonged to me. To us.
And as my body burst into a million stars, I found it all too difficult to swallow the words gathered on my tongue.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
“Never doubt what you mean to me,” he murmured after finding his release inside me, his trembling body locked tight where it hovered over me. Lifting his head until those blue eyes were directly above mine, he searched me for long moments before claiming, “You’re everything.”
Everything.
I knew right then I was done pretending to be something I wasn’t. I was done protecting myself from a heartache that may or may not happen. Whatever came for us tomorrow and in the following days, I wanted every moment of it.
CONNOR
“Connor.”
I paused from loosening my tie, a smile slowly curling at the edges of my mouth at the infuriated voice that came a split second before my front door slammed shut.
Taking my time, I shuffled out to the kitchen, where I could hear Maci cursing me and rifling around.
It’d been a handful of days since I’d come so damn close to losing her, and in that time, everything had changed. Guards were down. Walls obliterated. She no longer questioned what she meant to me, and I knew, without a doubt, that she was in this just as deep as I was.
The hours we had together were more meaningful and always too short, but that didn’t mean the pranks had to stop...right?
Amusement coated my voice when I dryly asked, “Yes, sweetheart?”
“Where are they?” she snapped as she whirled around to face me, clutching a towel to her chest. A towel I’d be peeling away if I weren’t so fucking exhausted.
