Page 121 of Your Place or Mine

And mended it all at once.

I hadn’t laughed intimately with someone in years. Hadn’twantedto. Hadn’tfeltenough to.

But here I was, tangled up in this woman I’d sworn I couldn’t stand, and she was undoing me with one touch at a time.

I leaned back and stared at her.

She was a mess—ponytail falling out, cheeks flushed, eyes glassy. And I’d never seen anything so goddamn beautiful.

“You’re gonna wreck me, aren’t you?” I asked, low and quiet.

Her lips twitched. “Not if you wreck me first.”

My chest cracked open.

That was it.

No walls. No filters. No pretending I wasn’t already halfway ruined by how she looked at me.

I kissed her like I didn’t care how deep we were already in.

Like I’d waited years for someone to look at me like I wasn’t just grief in a flannel shirt.

We melted into the couch, bodies tangled, breaths uneven, beer bottles forgotten on the table behind us. My shirt ended up somewhere on the floor, and her hoodie joined it.

But we didn’t rush.

It wasn’t about sex.

Not tonight.

It was about skin.

Contact.

Relearning the language of touch with someone who wasn’t afraid of the broken pieces.

At one point, she laid her head on my chest, hand over my heart like she needed proof it was still beating. And I let her stay there.

Because for the first time in years, Iwantedsomeone to feel it.

I wantedherto feel it.

The way her mouth curled into a smile mid-kiss made my blood heat even more. God, she knew exactly what she was doing.

She molded to me, warm and wanting, and I could hardly think around the ache she pulled from me with nothing more than her body, her lips, her laugh.

I barely pulled away to catch my breath, but she shook her head like she couldn’t bear the space.

“Please don’t stop,” she whispered.

Her voice was hoarse with need, and I’d never wanted anything more in my life than to give in to it.

I smiled, leaned over just enough to shut the blinds.

She laughed, low and breathless, and pressed her forehead to mine. “Didn’t even think of that. Somebody could’ve gotten an eyeful.”

“If I’m lucky,” I murmured, my lips brushing hers again.

---