Page 86 of Yearn
Fear of being seen the way he saw me now—stripped, vulnerable, every flaw illuminated and worshipped.
Fear of letting someone hold the part of me that had been bruised and discarded so many times before.
Fear of what it would mean if I stopped running, when all I was used to was running.
Need meant I couldn’t pretend anymore.
Couldn’t pretend this was just sex, just release, just a fling.
Need meant I was already his, whether I admitted it out loud or not.
Oh God. . .this is really why I didn’t go back downstairs. . .
My chest ached, my throat grew tight with something deeper, scarier, and more precious.
It was the rise of new love.
I’m here again. Can my broken heart take this?
My body felt alive in his arms, but my heart was shaking, whispering words I wasn’t ready to say.
How am I going to make this work?
Because I didn’t just want him for tonight, or for the high, or for the fantasy.
I wanted him in my life.
In my mornings.
In my chaos.
In the small, ordinary places where the world had once felt empty.
I wanted him. . .forever.
The word pulsed through me like another heartbeat.
Forever.
Chapter sixteen
Salt and Surrender
Teyonah
As if he felt the exact second my body couldn’t take another tremor, Dominic finally switched the rose off.
The shift was jarring.
Without the vibration thrumming through me, every other sound rushed in louder—the hiss of water pounding tile, the hammer of my heartbeat in my ears, the ragged scrape of my own breath clawing its way out of me.
My pussy still jumped in aftershocks, clenching around nothing, as if my body hadn’t caught up to the absence of that relentless hum.
Then, with one sure twist, he reached over and turned the shower off.
Steam clung to us.
My body sagged, boneless, against him.
