Her smile was shy. “I have.”
“Then,” I drew in an enormous breath, “I guess I’ll allow it.” Her lips parted, maybe to scold me for trying to make light of this serious moment, but I wasn’t finished. “On the condition you say it again.”
Her soft laugh reached inside my chest and squeezed.
“Vance . . . I love you.”
I wrapped my arms around her, crushing her to me, and it put my lips right beside her ear. I’d only said it a handful of times in my life. I’d held the words in, locked up tightly in my heart, but I should have known better. There was no countermeasure I could install that she couldn’t outsmart, no combination she couldn’t decipher.
It was surprising how easily the words rolled off my tongue. “I love you too.”
And now that it was out there, the world seemed to stop. All that remained was the need to show her how I loved her. I tightened my arms behind her back, lifting and turning us so she was beneath me, making her soft brown hair splash all around her on the mattress.
Every plan I’d made was tossed aside and smoldered into ash in the fire enveloping us. Emery’s legs wrapped around my hips, and her hands gripped my shoulders, and her wide, beautiful eyes begged me to bring us together.
So, I did.
She made a sigh similar to the one when I’d first kissed her, like she’d been in agony and finally found relief with me. I eased my hips forward, sliding into the snug heat of her body that gripped me like a vise.
Fuck, she was all around me. Everywhere. Which one of us was inside the other?
I kissed her as I pushed deeper, going until her hands tightened on my shoulders, signaling that was as far as she could take me. I dropped my forehead into the crook of her neck, breathing in the faint perfume she’d put on hours ago, and gave her time to adjust to the size of me.
I wished I could see us from afar right now, our naked bodies tangled together, lit by candlelight and the fireflies floating in the air under a moonless sky. Her heart was pounding. I could feel it with our chests pressed together. Did I own it the way she owned mine?
When she was ready, I drew my hips back and then eased them forward, and this action pulled a pleasureful whimper from her. It begged for more, so I gave it to her. I found a slow, steady rhythm that allowed me to move deep and really feel the sensation as I pushed into her body.
“Oh, God,” she moaned as I sucked on her neck. “You feel so good.”
I grunted in agreement.
Our kisses dripped with passion. Her fingers dragged down my back, gliding over the straining muscles as I exerted myself, rocking my body over hers, sliding inside her. It was wild to me that I’d spent all this time telling her every filthy plan I had, all the dirty fantasies of how I was going to fuck her, yet this wasn’t anything like that. It was infinitely hotter.
Better in every way.
I’d had plenty of sex before, but never . . . a connection.
We were both sweating now, making our skin stick together as I thrust, and her body took the impact. My muscles were taut and strained, and my orgasm kept trying to creep closer, but I wasn’t going to get mine until she had hers.
I hadn’t made Emery come from penetration alone, so it seemed unlikely that was going to happen right now. I slid a hand under her ass, tilting her hips up, which allowed me to grind against her clit with my pelvis.
The cadence of her breathing changed abruptly, and her hand suddenly grabbed a handful of my ass. I grinned. This new angle was a winner. I drove into her, rolling my hips on the downstroke so she’d get pleasure inside and out, and when my mouth claimed her, Emery broke apart.
Her orgasm radiated through her body, and the rhythmic pulses deep inside squeezed at me. I froze and closed my eyes, trying to hold off, but she was writhing and moaning beneath me, and I was done for.
The explosion of pleasure detonated, sending a shockwave of ecstasy flowing through my limbs, all the way to my fingertips and toes. I moved, riding the remainder of her orgasm as mine began, and she shivered beneath my frantic kiss.
Shit, my orgasm was intense, and from the sound of it, hers was too.
She was still shuddering when I slowed to a stop, lodged deep inside her. I held my weight off her by rising onto my elbows, and it gave us a chance to see each other in the vulnerable aftermath of our climaxes. Her heavy eye makeup was smudged and her face dewy with perspiration, but—God, was she stunning.