Chapter 23 #2
Fire lights behind her eyes. She steps into me, and her breath warms my jaw. “You don’t get to decide who touches me, Rhett.”
I cup her chin, tilting her face up, forcing her to look at me. My thumb grazes her cheek, slow enough to feel the tremor run through her. “Yeah?” I murmur. “Maybe I should. It would’ve saved us some time.”
She huffs a quiet, breathy laugh, but her eyes are glowing with something dark and wanting. “Do you think you have the right?”
“You,” I say softly, my thumb sliding to hover over her lower lip, “have always been mine. You’re just too damn stubborn to admit it.”
She lets out a stuttered breath, while her hands curl tighter around the edge of the counter.
“Show me then,” she whispers. “Show me how badly I’m yours.”
I don’t move, yet.
If I touch her now, everything changes.
Then, before I know it, she is in my hands—soft, warm, trembling—and I pull her against me like gravity finally figured out where I belong. Her fingers fist in my shirt, dragging me down, and her breath stumbles against my throat.
Her lips hover a breath from mine. So close I can feel her inhale.
“Rhett…” Her voice is nothing but need, shaping my name.
I close the distance and do the thing I’ve been dreaming about since I was twenty years old. Over a decade of restraint ignites in one devastating collision of mouths.
I kiss her, and she becomes my oxygen.
My world narrows to her lips. To the warmth of her breath brushing mine. She makes a soft, broken sound when I pull her closer, and I feel it travel through her chest into mine. I slide my hands to her waist and grip, my fingers pressing into the curve of her hips as I draw her in.
I lift her onto the counter. I let the movement drag, let the friction build.
Her fingers bite into my shoulders. Her body arches, answering before she thinks.
I step between her thighs, and she opens for me, legs easing apart as if she’s been waiting for that space to be filled.
She fits against me, her body rising to meet mine.
“Mine,” I breathe against her lips.
I drag my lips along her jaw, tasting skin I’ve memorized in my head for years.
“Mine,” I repeat, lower this time.
My mouth traces her collarbone, lingering where I know she is sensitive before returning to her lips.
“Mine.”
When our eyes meet again, everything stills. The pull between us feels ancient. Inevitable. I’m certain I could stay suspended in this moment forever and never need air.
“You have always been mine,” I tell her.
Her hands slide from my shoulders to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair. She pulls my mouth back to hers, biting my lower lip sharp enough to rip a groan out of me, and I swear she is punishing me for every year I kept my distance.
“I should’ve said something sooner,” I murmur, tracing her earlobe with my mouth, letting my breath skim the sensitive place beneath it. “Should’ve told you. Should’ve fought for you. I should’ve never left, Sunny.”
My grip tightens on her waist. I have been waiting so long for this moment, I feel the need to commit every curve of her body to my memory.
“I don’t care about any of that anymore, Rhett.
” She kisses me again. “I don’t care that you waited,” she continues, her voice steady even as her hands tremble in my hair.
“I don’t care that you left. I don’t care how long it took you to figure this out.
” Her forehead presses to mine. “I’m here now. We’re here now.”
Her head tips back like she is offering herself to me. I lower my mouth to the column of her throat. Her pulse jumps rapidly against my tongue. My hand slides to the base of her neck, holding her steady while she trembles for me.
I kiss her again, slower this time. This is something fragile and holy, and if I only get one chance to do it right, I want to take my time with her.
I want to memorize her mouth—the way she softens and then answers me, the quiet sound she makes when I tilt my head just enough to deepen the kiss.
I want this burned into me, etched under my skin, something I can pull out years from now and say this was real, this was ours.
When her teeth catch my lip, it sends a sharp, bright jolt straight through me, and I can’t stop the way my body reacts.
I press my hips into hers, letting her feel what she does to me.
To let her know this isn’t casual, this isn’t passing.
Her gasp hits me, and I swallow it greedily, and when her nails dig into my shoulders, I want to let go.
I could lose myself here. I want to. But wanting her has never been the problem for me. Wanting her has been the one constant I’ve never been able to outrun.
“I don’t share, Sunny,” I murmur, the words leaving me rougher than I intended.
My hand slides up to her jaw, thumb brushing her skin, reverent despite the hunger roaring in my chest. I tip her face up gently so she has to look at me.
I need her eyes. “I need to know this is what you want. Because if we do this,” I swallow, “there’s no pretending afterward. There’s no going back to before.”
Because before nearly killed me, and that was before I tasted her, before my body learned exactly how right she felt against my mouth.
I see it then, the flicker of worry in her eyes, and it guts me. She thinks I mean distance. Loss. That I’d walk away if this went wrong.
My grip softens immediately. “No,” I breathe, shaking my head. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
I rest my forehead against hers for a second, steadying myself.
“Once you let me have you,” My voice trails. “I won’t know how to stand on the other side of that line again.” I won’t know how to stand next to her and act like I haven’t imagined this, dreamed of this during hundreds of quiet nights when I told myself wanting her was selfish.
“I don’t want anyone to touch me but you, Rhett,” she whispers.
I know I shouldn’t risk this. She may want me to touch her now, but what if she’s swept up in the moment?
The world after Josh almost killed me once, and now I’m staring at the woman who makes me want to live. Who makes me want to fight for every goddamn heartbeat I have left.
I can’t survive losing her. Having her back in my life has made me achingly aware of how empty and dull everything was without her.
If this goes wrong, I don’t just lose the possibility of her.
I lose her.
And the thought of walking through the rest of my life with that absence again feels unbearable.
My eyes trace every inch of her face, searching for the slightest hesitation, a flicker of doubt telling me I should stop. And when I can’t find any, they helplessly fall to her chest, and I hear a breathy whisper drift from her lips, “Will you touch me, Rhett?”
I look back into her eyes, and they swallow me whole. Every rational thought evaporates. I would do anything for this woman—anything—to have her, to keep her, to never let her go.
“Fuck it.”
My hands clamp around her waist, pulling her flush against me, and I feel the immediate tension of her answering force.
She meets me halfway while grabbing fistfuls of my shirt, yanking me toward her.
Her nails scrape up my stomach through the fabric before she grabs the cotton at my chest and pulls me tighter between her legs.
Her hips lift, pressing against mine, a clear demand I feel all the way down my spine.
I’ve waited so long for her to take me like this, to meet me without hesitation, and I nearly lose it all right there.
I lift her from the counter, and her legs curl instinctively around me.
She clings to me almost desperately, and I can’t stop the surge of possessiveness I feel.
Her breath ghosts along my neck, and it drags a fire straight through me.
My hands tighten at her waist, pressing her harder against me, and I feel the way her hips shift instinctively, demanding me even as she clings.
I walk her backward until her spine meets the wall, my body pinning hers there.
My mouth trails down her jaw, tasting every place I’d once only imagined. Her breath breaks, her chest rising fast beneath my hands. I brace one palm beside her head, the other holding her up.
“There hasn’t been a single day when I didn’t notice you. Not one, Sunny.”
She kisses me again, soft at first, hesitant, like she’s testing the truth of my words.
But I feel it in the press of her lips, the shiver that runs through her.
It’s already real. It’s always been real with her.
Her mouth molds to mine, and every nerve in my body screams that we’ve been waiting for this our entire lives.
“Make me yours, Rhett,” she pants. “Please, I want to be yours.”
I slide my hand along her side, slow and possessive, toying with her. I let my thumb brush beneath the hem of her shirt, and she lets out a puff of air as she wiggles her body beneath mine. I can tell she’s becoming impatient.
She breaks the kiss just enough to pant against my mouth.
“Don’t tease me, Hayes,” she breathes. “Either touch me or let me do it myself.”
A laugh slips out of me. “Try it, Sunny,” I murmur, gripping her hips, pulling her tight to me. “See how far you get.”
I lift her, her legs tighten around my waist, and I carry her toward the bed. Her lips make their way to my neck, biting and tasting me with reckless intent, like she’s determined to leave her mark.
“Rach…” My voice is rough. I’m barely holding together. “You keep doing that, and I’m not going to be gentle.”
I feel her as she smiles against my skin. “Who said I want gentle?”
She nips my collarbone, sharp enough to make my breath stutter, and for half a second I wonder if I’m imagining her—this version of her.
I lay her down onto the mattress, savoring the way her body arches toward me the second she hits the sheets. Her breath catches exactly the way I hoped it would, eyes fluttering as her hands slide into my hair and yank me back to her mouth.
“Rhett—”
Having all of her attention, all of her want, focused entirely on me is intoxicating.
I could drown in it and still crave more.
But this isn’t just about me. This is about her finally letting herself be seen, finally taking what she wants.
For once, she doesn’t have to bend to anyone else’s expectations, doesn’t have to wear the mask that the world insists she wear. And I want her to taste that freedom.
“Tell me what you want,” I rasp, dragging my lips down her neck.
My teeth graze her skin between kisses, and I watch as goosebumps skirt up her legs.
A string of jumbled sounds flies from her mouth.
I make my way down her body, but when she doesn’t respond to my demand, I pause.
“I want you to use your words, Rachel. Tell me exactly what you want.”
Every inch of me hums. My body aches with desire, but my mind keeps circling her.
Tonight, she takes what she wants. And I’ll make sure she gets it, exactly as she chooses.
Her brown eyes lift to mine, pouring straight into me, raw and honest, daring me to follow her wherever she leads.
The thought of the control she is finally claiming over herself makes me want her in ways that are almost feral.
“Everything.” She takes a breath, steadying herself. “I want every way you’ve imagined touching me.”
I bring my body back up to hers, and my lips find hers in a messy, consuming kiss.
“I can’t wait to take my time with you,” I murmur against her lips, brushing them once. “To learn every inch of you, every spot that makes you forget the world exists.” She shivers in my arms, pressing herself harder against me, and I keep my forehead against hers, letting the moment breathe.
“And I’ll watch,” I continue quietly. “Every way your body responds to me. I’m going to take my time, Sunny.” My thumb strokes slowly down her side. “And I promise, I won’t waste a single second.”
I claim her mouth again, my lips and tongue tracing her rhythms. The line between want and need, restraint and abandon, melts into something neither of us can name.
It doesn’t matter who yields or who waits, who controls or who surrenders.
All that matters is the heat of her body against mine, the tremor of her hands in my hair, the way she moves with intent and trust.
And when she finally falls over the edge, it is like she takes the rest of the world with her. Every quiet longing, every year of holding back, every stolen glance and unspoken thought, crystallizes in that single, shattering moment.
I see the rest of my life stretched out before me, hers and mine entwined, inevitable and fucking breathtaking.