Page 113 of Inked Adonis

But I can. I will. I have to.

Words won’t be enough this time, though. Words are what got us here—they can’t save us.

So as much as I want to say all those things to her and have that heal the gaping wounds between us, it’ll take more than a few sweet sentences.

So I look at her, and I say with my eyes and my chest and my whole fucking heart all the things that words can’t capture.

I’m waiting to hear her say it back.

Yes, Sam. I’ll come back, Sam. I love you, Sam.

She does me one better.

She rises up and presses her lips to mine.

We stumbledown the hall to her bedroom, bouncing off the walls and crashing against her door. Between kissing my way down her neck and shucking her sweatpants down her thighs, I manage to turn the knob.

We spill through the door. It’s a tight squeeze, so there isn’t far to go. Her bed looms over her shoulder, beckoning us into it.

But before we get there, she presses a hand to my chest, halting my advance. “Promise me something.” Her eyes search mine, vulnerable but determined. “Next time you’re scared for me, talk to me first. Before the anger. Before the accusations.”

I cover her hand with mine. Her heartbeat thuds in time with my own. “I promise. But you have to promise, too—no more secrets. Even the ones you think will protect me.”

A ghost of a smile touches her lips. “Deal.”

It’s the first promise I’ve made in years that feels more like freedom than chains.

From there, it’s like tumbling down a hill. Gravity pulls us together, pulls our clothes loose. I part her thighs, and we slide together with a collective moan.

I dig my hands under her tank top, tugging it up and over her head while she unbuttons my pants. Her hand reaches into my boxers.

“Fuck.” I drop my forehead to hers as I thicken to the stroke of her fingers. “I’m not even inside you, and I couldn’t give this up.”

“I didn’t want to leave—not really,” she murmurs. I drag a hand between her legs, and she whimpers. She’s hot everywhere, silky smooth. “I just hated the way you looked at me.”

I grip her chin and force her eyes to mine as I thrust into her hand, as she clenches around the stroke of my finger. “What about now? Do you like the way I’m looking at you now?”

The way her pupils are steadily chipping away at the brown in her eyes is enough of an answer, but I want to hear her say it.

I skim the pad of my thumb over her pouty lower lip. “Talk to me, Nova.”

“It’s hard when you’re doing—” She gasps, bearing down on me again when I press a second finger inside her. “How am I supposed to think straight when you’re doing that?”

Her hand tightens around me, her movements growing clumsy as she gets closer and closer to her breaking point. I circle my thumb over her center, and she cries out. “Yes, I like it. I like—all of it. Do more of that.”

I curl my fingers into her and watch the shifting of her expression. The awe and relief and desperate need for more.

Nova is an open book when I’m touching her.

This is the kind of interrogation I should’ve done from the start. The second I walked through the door yesterday, I should’ve carried her to our bed. I could’ve stripped her of the truth in a matter of minutes.

There’s no hiding when I have her like this.

She can’t hide from me.

Worse… I can’t hide from her.

But there’s no turning back when I have her like this, either. She arches off the bed with a gasp, and I feel her pull me in deeper. Her hand fists in the material of my shirt as she comes.

---