Page 117 of Breakaway Hearts

I’m almost at the end of that particular novel, and all the passages I’ve marked in it flash through my mind in a rush. Has she looked at them? Did she see the notes I wrote on the tabs?

Shit.I might as well have bared my entire soul to her.

Everything that’s been tumbling around in my heart over the past days and weeks is spelled out on the tiny tabs that annotate that book. Everything I’ve been thinking. Everything I’ve been feeling.

And if the shocked look on Callie’s face is any indication, she definitely read them.

“I’m… not quite finished with that one,” I say, as if that fact has any bearing on the tension filling the kitchen.

She just nods, still holding the book in a tight grip.

“You’ve been using the tabs I gave you,” she whispers.

My stomach is so tight I feel like I’ve swallowed a brick. I nod. “Yeah.”

Callie blinks, looking almost dazed, and pulls the book away from her chest, staring down at the cover for a moment.

“I loved this one,” she breathes, and I can’t quite tell if she’s talking to me or herself. “It’s one of my favorites I’ve ever read.”

“Yeah, it’s—” I break off, licking my lips. “Callie, I…”

My words die out as her shoulders square a little. She lifts her chin, holding my gaze. I’m staring at her face as if I could somehow decipher every one of her thoughts, but I can’t place the expression that crosses her features. She sets the book down on the table, and I’m rooted in place as she walks toward me slowly.

When she reaches me, her delicate hands come up to cup my jaw, and she lifts onto her tiptoes and presses her lips to mine.

It’s a soft kiss, tentative and exploratory, like she’s searching for an answer to a question she hasn’t asked.

Then she drops back down onto her heels, her lips breaking away from mine. She gazes up at me, a tiny line appearing between her brows as they furrow.

She looks almost afraid, like she’s worried I’ll reject her, and that thought is what wrenches me out of my frozen state.

My arms band around her waist, hauling her against me as I crush my lips to hers. She makes a little noise against my lips, something between a sigh and a whimper, and the sound goes straight to my cock. I kiss her harder, slipping my tongue between her lips, delving into her mouth. Her back arches, her body molding against mine as I nearly bend her backward with the force of the kiss.

It’s been so fucking long since I touched her in more than just small, incidental ways. I’ve been going to bed with an aching cock every night and nearly jerking my dick off in the shower every morning to thoughts of her, but I haven’t let myself touch her while she’s been healing.

But now it’s like a dam has broken, and I feel like the fiend she once called me, so ravenous for her that I can’t get enough.

“Fuck, Firefly,” I mutter against her lips, my hands roaming over her as I turn us and start walking her into the living room, kissing her the whole time. “I need you so much.”

“Reese…”

She pants my name, untucking my shirt and sliding her hands beneath it. The feel of her touching my bare skin drives me fucking wild, and I groan raggedly as we finally reach the couch. We fall onto it, and I settle between her legs, grinding my cock against her pussy through the layers that separate us, as if I wish I could fuck her right through them.

Callie sucks in a breath as my dick hits the perfect spot, so I do it again, rolling my hips against hers as I attack her neck and shoulders with hungry, open-mouthed kisses. I drag my tongue up the line of her throat, and she tilts her head back, delving her fingers into my hair as she arches beneath me.

“So fucking beautiful,” I murmur, trailing my mouth lower and dragging my teeth over her collarbone. She squirms against me, and I’m about to bite down on her shoulder when I catch a glimpse of the fading bruise on her chest.

Like the others, it’s paled to a barely visible greenish color, but it’s still a visceral reminder of what she went through not that long ago.

Concern and guilt hit me like a punch to the chest, and I pull back, my cock aching and my lungs burning as I kneel between her legs on the couch cushions.

“Wha—?” Callie blinks, looking stunned. “What are you doing?”

Her hair is a mess from when I had my hands in it as I walked us over to the couch, and two points of color sit high on her cheeks. She looks more stunning than she ever has before, if that’s possible… and I can’t have her.

“We have to stop,” I say, my voice heavy with regret. “I don’t want to, Firefly. Trust me. But you’re still recovering, and I can’t—”

“Bullshit.”

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