Page 58 of Guarded
He pulled back and studied me, uncertain. “Is this okay? I don’t want to rush you, Noah.”
It didn’t slow my descent, but rather altered my trajectory. I wanted to pull Jeremiah down with me. For him to feel this sensation of forgetting who we used to be, who we were before he came into my life. Before this kiss.
Everything had changed now. Really, it had been changing for weeks. I’d known that when I’d welcomed him into my room dressed the way that I was.
I answered him by grabbing the front of his shirt and hauling his lips back to mine. I wasn’t passive this time, I returned his kiss with fervour. My grip was solid on his shirt, not letting him retreat. Not when he was giving me everything I’d ever wanted.
Everything I’d ever needed.
Jem wasn’t going anywhere though. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me closer. His hands weren’t exploring my body like I’d half expected they might though. No, they were just holding me tighter. This wasn’t sexual. It was intimate.
It was another thing I’d never experienced. Kissing had been a means to an end. One I had to initiate every time. Rushed. Perfunctory.
Not like this. Jeremiah was kissing me like he never planned on stopping.
Eventually though, we did break the kiss. Our faces hovered inches apart, and I knew he was seeing the same things in my eyes as I was his. Wonder. Shock.
Hope.
“Fuck, Noah,” he breathed, cupping my face with hands so warm they’d make a human wince. “Where have you been all my life?”
Desperately pinning my hopes on the wrong person.Two kisses with Jeremiah had me rewriting my own history in my mind. Lyle had never been the one for me. He could’ve treated me liked a goddamned prince, and it still never would have worked out.
Because he wasn’t Jem. It was that simple.
I’d thought I’d been denied the happily ever after whenJem had flown away from me, but I’d been wrong. This right here was the fairy tale I’d been promised.
Slow down, Noah,I reminded myself sternly.He doesn’t want to be tied down yet, remember?
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. Now more than ever, I wanted Jeremiah to be happy. Given he’d explicitly told me that he wasn’t ready to commit yet, I needed to put the brakes on.This was the epitome of the right person at the wrong time. Jeremiah was my person.
But the timing was fucked.
“I wish I’d met you sooner,” he murmured, stroking his thumb over my cheekbone.
“Me too,” I said truthfully. What I didn’t admit was why. I wished we’d met so I could’ve saved him from Hell. All those millennia he’d suffered for…I’d never be able to give them back to him.
But I could give him his freedom now. The chance to live the life he’d always wanted.
Then, when he was ready, I’d be right here waiting for him.
I thought Jem might take me back into his embrace. Maybe tackle me against the door and turn this sexual.
But, once again, he surprised me.
He retreated and gave me a crooked grin. The kind that stopped your heart in your chest and made you wish for a camera. “I believe I have some art to hang?”
Right.The art. That was the reason he was here.
My whole body tingled from the loss of contact. I grabbed his hand in mine and it all went quiet. “Let me show you where everything is.”
The mood might not have been sexual earlier, but that was then. This was now.
Now I was watching Jeremiah’s naked shoulders bunch as he lifted the frame into position and asked for my approval.
Licking my lips as sweat trickled over each nodule of his spine.
Seeing the absurdly sexy look of concentration he wore as he aligned the picture just so.
