“It’s exactly what I thought it would look like,” he said, finally, voice pitched low. “Colorful and homey . . . and slightly cluttered.”
Her mouth fell open on a gasp. “Are you serious? I just performed the biggest clean of my lifetime!”
Julian was laughing, lines fanning out around his eyes. “That wasn’t a criticism.” The smile on his mouth dropped in degrees, and he reached up to thread his fingers through her hair. “How could it be when it reminds me of you?”
The organ in her chest flopped over with all the grace of a cinder block. “Y-you’re calling me cluttered, and I’m expected to find that romantic?”
He grazed their lips together, those long fingers spearing farther into her hair until he cradled her scalp, controlling the angle of her neck. Gently, he tugged, pulling her head back, and then—oh Lord—he ran his open mouth up the front of her throat. “If the clutter is yours, I want it,” he whispered against her mouth. “If you’re late, I don’t care. Just fucking show up.”
Hallie’s knees, ankles, and hips nearly gave out, all at the same time. Especially when his grip tightened in her hair, angling her one way and his mouth another, devouring her like a meal. The kiss was leashed, but Hallie could feel the physical vibrations and knew it cost him a heaping dose of willpower to hold back. And she didn’t want that. With his stubble rasping against her chin and his minty tongue licking into her mouth, she wanted more of what they’d done last night. Badly. But he ended the kiss with a growl before she could shed her robe and demand to be taken, his forehead pressing down on hers.
“I took your virginity on the ground last night, Hallie.”
“Objection. I gave you my virginity on the ground last night, Julian.”
“Fair enough.” He seemed to be performing a serious study of the curls on the top of her head, that deep valley present between his brows. “But I didn’t use as much care as I would have . . .”
“As you would have normally?”
“What do you mean ‘normally’?” He frowned. “That implies that there is even the remotest comparison between you and anyone else.”
Oh.
Okay, then.
“So I’m abnormal now?” she breathed, rearranging her entire definition of romance.
Apparently it was not wine and roses. It was this man telling her she was cluttered, perpetually late, and unusual.
“Definitely that.” He took a long sampling of Hallie’s mouth, until she was weaving drunkenly on her feet. “I meant to say, I didn’t use as much care as I would have liked.” The heel of his hand scrubbed down her spine, fisting the material of her robe. “If I hadn’t let what I feel for you build until it was out of control.”
Hallie stared deliriously up at the ceiling, her brilliant, beautiful lover speaking a uniquely blunt version of poetry into her ear. And she was supposed to tell him about the letters? That they’d come from her? Right now? She was just supposed to shatter this perfect bond of intimacy and honesty they’d formed? This sense that everything was right in the world when they were skin to skin, mouth to mouth?
But you haven’t been honest. Not entirely.
Sure, every word of those letters had come straight from the heart. But she’d misrepresented herself. Let him believe he was writing to a perfect stranger. And worse, when he’d quoted her exact words, she’d let the opportunity to be truthful pass. Well, she couldn’t regret it more than she did in this moment, when he held her so tightly, she had to limit her breaths.
“I loved what we did last night,” she whispered, because at least it was the truth. And, since it felt so good to tell him the truth, she gave him more. “I want to do it again.”
“We will,” he said quickly, snaking a forearm beneath her butt and drawing Hallie onto her toes, aligning their laps, tilting his hips, their breaths accelerating like twin engines between them. “We damn well will, Hallie. But I’m taking you out first.”
“You are?” She felt him thicken between them. “You have a plan, don’t you?”
He bit off a curse and eased his hips back, holding hers away in a crushing grip. “Yes. I’m setting the tone.” His mouth swooped down and caught her lips, delivering a dizzying onslaught of strokes from his tongue. “And the tone is, you’re my girlfriend, not a girl I hook up with in a field and send home in an Uber, all right? I couldn’t sleep last night. It felt like I’d left everything undone with you.”
Last night.
When she’d been dropping off her confession letter at the stump.
Tell him.
He was being so honest, and she needed to do the same. But would telling him the truth only ruin everything? At the very least, she could bank a few more kisses before dropping the bomb.