Page 86 of Hiding from Hope

“It’s just… I don’t know how to say it,” he says quietly, self-consciousness knots his words, so I pull him closer.

“Close your eyes,” I whisper and pull his head toward mine, so our foreheads touch. Standing on the tips of my toes, we stay there for a breath. “Tell me in the way that you can. Tell me through great poets or classic literature. Let them tell me.” I can feel his smile as we stay embraced with each other. I feel his heart race from where our chests touch. I feel his desire where his hands roam my lower back, and every so often, my ass. I scratch the back of his neck delicately and comb my fingers through the hair there, and after a few breaths, he speaks.

“‘And it was only when I began to feel actual, physical pain every time you left the room that it finally dawned on me: I was in love, for the first time in my life.’” My eyes snap open, and I watch him whisper the words of his heart, his eyes gently closed, his smile bright and cheeks flushed with vulnerability. Unable to keep my eyes closed, unable to miss this, I watch him as he continues. “‘I knew it was hopeless, but that didn’t matter to me. And it’s not that I want to have you. All I want is to deserve you. Tell me what to do. Show me how to behave. I’ll do anything you say.’”

I take a steadying breath, basking in the silence for a few heartbeats, and watch as the man I love bares his entire soul to me.

“Choderlos de Laclos, Dangerous Liaisons,” I whisper as a tear drops from my eye. Feeling the weight of his words, the insurmountable pressure of holding his delicate heart in my hands. This man, who has spent so much time closed off to everything in life, is finally opening up to everything he’d denied himself. And it’s all for me, all mine. I have to breathe deeply to settle my heart, to tell myself we can do this, that I can handle that, because that’s what love is.

Jessie catches my lone tear the moment his eyes open and lock with mine.

“Why are you crying, baby?” His eyebrows pull in tighter.

“Because it still doesn’t feel real. That you could love me like this.”

“You don’t believe you are deserving?” I shake my head at his question, and he tilts his in confusion.

“It’s not the deserving, it’s you. That you could see me and want me. To feel so deeply, for me. I used to dream about you just being interested in me. It just… feels like a fantasy,” I whisper back, my heart ricocheting in my chest at the emotions flooding this room, the way it feels like Jessie has completely intertwined himself in my heart. I couldn’t possibly get him out now, even if I tried my darndest. He is stuck with me.

“The way you have my heart and soul, sunshine, is the realest thing I’ve ever felt.” He leans down and kisses me gently, whispering his next words to my lips. “I was frozen, moving through time just existing. But with you beside me, burning, glowing, you melted right through all my ice and made me feel again. You brought me back to life. I never cared much about fighting for a future, but when that looks like you, I’ll fight as hard as I need to keep you.” My nails dig into his scalp as I pull him down to my lips, sealing his words the only other way I know to tell him how I feel. That my heart is his, he is in me, under my skin, surrounding me completely, and I never want to be without him ever again.

“Jessie—”

He reaches the back of my thighs and lifts me, my legs wrapping around his waist, and he gently lowers me to the bed.

He looks down at me, our bodies completely touching, burning, my breathing matching the pounding of his heart against my chest as he takes my lips in a demanding kiss. His hand trails up my outer thigh as the other finds a circle around my neck.

“I’d spent so long hiding from hope.” He kisses each of my cheeks, gently scraping his teeth across my jaw before he rises up to hover his lips above mine. “I hadn’t realized I had been hiding from you. I’m done hiding, Casey. I want this, all of it. I only want it with you, and I want it forever.” I can’t pinpoint the reason, but there is pain in his words, so much longing and pain, and my heart catches when I spot the moisture welling in his eyes. Unable to bear it any longer, I frame his sharp jaw with my hands and pull him closer so I can whisper the words against his lips. “It’s like I said. Our forever has already started.” And then I take him in a kiss. He kisses me with such skill, his tongue tangling with mine, his taste of the dessert mom had baked, the sweet cream and just him. A moan leaves my lips, and it undoes his composure just that little bit more as he pulls back and rips his shirt from his back. He sits on his knees and raises one of my feet.

“You have cute little toes.” He points out and I laugh self-consciously. But his eyes never leave mine as he pulls at the cuff of my tights, raising my other foot to do the same and when they are both loose, he lazily drags them down my legs, his gaze burning through mine, the blue of them glowing in the low light of my room.

“Your thighs are the sexiest I’ve ever seen,” he states as he leans forward, tights discarded on the floor and kisses a path slowly up the inside of my right thigh. I gasp the closer he gets to my center, reaching a hand under my shirt, massaging a breast as he continues his trail up my left thigh. Dodging the one place where I want him most, I can feel the smile of satisfaction on his face and the hard bulge nudging my leg. When he looks up at me through hooded eyes, his devastatingly handsome smile hits me as his teeth latch onto the strap of my panties. He starts to pull them down, slowly, warm breath leaving a trail of need in its wake, the scratch of his beard a painful tease making my back arch, searching for friction.

I feel hot all over, like a live wire loaded with energy. When I feel my panties leave my legs, I manage to look down and see him staring hungrily between my legs.

“But this? Fuck, Casey. I fucking love your pussy.” He drags a lazy finger through the middle of me. The sound of how badly I want him is almost embarrassing, but I am so taken by my need for him I can’t find it in me to care.

“Please, Jessie,” I beg.

“Please, what?” he challenges, a dirty smile on his face as he sits smugly between my legs, his fingers playing with me like it’s nothing, like I’m not about to come apart after a few small touches and dirty words.

“Make love to me?” I ask on a gentle whisper, for some reason overcome with emotion. Not feeling the animalistic desire, but something completely new. It’s deep and raw. It hurts, but in a way where I never want it to stop hurting.

He sees everything running through my head. Peeling his pants and boxers from his body, he leans forward, pulling my top and bra from me and hovers over me.

“Stella mea,” he whispers the language I haven’t heard before, as he lines himself up and gives one gentle push, stealing the gasp from my lips with the seal of his. The moment he fills me completely, he moves his hips out slightly, rotating and circling to make room and picking up the pace.

“You somehow end me and breathe life into me all at once.” He kisses me gently, his tongue dancing at the seam of my lips until it finds mine. He kisses me fervently, and I feel every word he says right to my bones. It feels like he too has brought me back to life, like breaching the surface in the ocean, finally able to breathe again.

The delicate passion of his kiss turns into a desperate need, his gentle caressing hands gripping my hips and growling as he slams into me harder, faster.

“My.” Thrust. “Fucking.” Thrust. “Woman.” Thrust.

“Yours,” I all but moan. “I’m yours, Jess. Always.”

He thrusts harder again as I hook my legs around his waist tightly and pushing up with all my weight, throwing him to his back, never letting him leave me, and when I settle on top of him, impaled completely my head drops back on a moan as I guide myself up and down a few times.

“So fucking beautiful,” he whispers as I rotate my hips, looking down to see those magnificent blue-green eyes. I feel the rapid beat of his heart, my own personal love song.

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