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I took a ragged breath, knowing I needed to answer.

Her heartbeat was wild in the column of her neck, and I couldn’t stop myself. Her draw was too enticing. Slowing, I dragged the tip of my nose up her throat, and a trail of goosebumps appeared in its wake. I savored the little gasps that fell from those sinful lips.

Perfect. She was fucking perfect.

My fingers traveled up her thigh until they gripped her hip.

“Dalton.” My name was said like a prayer.

“Yeah, baby?”

Anything. Anything she asked for, I would give her. That was how fucking down bad I was. I pulled back enough to take in the unguarded expression on her face. My eyes were glued to her, memorizing everything about her in that moment. The flush on her cheeks, the way emotion swirled in those big chocolate and caramel-colored eyes of hers framed by thick lashes.

I wanted to savor this—her.

She started to say something, and my heart ached in anticipation of what it could be, but it wasn’t Ari’s voice I heard.

“Please, tell me you’re going to fuck. Holy shit, the heavy breathing? The need in y’all’s voices.” A high-pitched shriek nearly broke the sound barrier. “I fucking told you, Ari. I told you that he was falling fo⁠—”

“Hang up right now,” Ari shouted, trying to push me away to get to the phone, but I didn’t budge.

“Are you still listening, Gracie?” After a few beats of silence, her attention was back on me. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m done pretending, Sunshine. I want you, every part of you that you’ll give me. Not as some front or cover but for real.” Her plump wet lips parted, her brown eyes blazing with want, but I refused to move, needing to know where she stood. If she wanted me the way I wanted her. “This was never fake, not for me. Every moment with you has meant everything to me.”

Her eyes widened, but she had yet to say anything, and my heart felt like it was being squeezed to the point of bursting. I swallowed. If I thought that part was going to be tough, the next part was going to kill me. “If you don’t want this, I need you to break my heart, darlin’. Because I don’t think I can stop falling for you unless you do.” I let out a humorless chuckle. “Hell, I probably still won’t, but I’ll back off. I won’t chase you in private.”

She gave a sharp inhale, looking up at me like a deer in headlights as more of my confessions tumbled out.

“I think about you constantly. Wonder what you’re doing and if you’re thinking about me at all. I want to be there for your wins and your losses. I want to be the one you choose to confide in. The one you run to and not from.” I took a deep breath, forcing my hand to still on her head when I desperately wanted to pull her face to mine. I had to get the rest out. “I know that’s not what you asked for, Ari. You made it clear this wasn’t going anywhere the first night we met, but my head and my heart are confused.” I leaned my forehead against hers. It was too difficult to look at her. Scared I’d see her rejection before she actually said the words. I knew she felt things for me, but I didn’t know if she’d let herself act on it. So I steeled myself and said the last of it. “But my heart thinks we have a chance to make this real. To be yours.”

Something warm and wet dropped onto my skin, and I caught another of her tears with my thumb, looking up at the drop in awe.

Without warning, Ari launched herself at me, wrapping her legs around my waist and burying her face in the crook of my neck.

“I said break my heart, not my back,” I laughed out, wrapping my arms around her.

“This is all your fault, Dalton. I was perfectly fine before you came along. And now, going home feels lonely without you. Now, I want to hear your voice. Now, my stomach flips when a text comes in, hoping it will be you.” She leaned back, dropping her legs back down to the floor and facing me with her teary eyes. “Now…now I can’t remember why I told myself not having you in my life was better, why I had to do this alone, why I didn’t deserve to love and live simultaneously.”

Love.

She didn’t exactly tell me she loved me, but the profession was close enough.

My hands gripped her waist, her skin hot to the touch.

“But what abo⁠—”

She cut me off with her mouth pressed to mine in a hard, fast kiss.

“There’s nothing more, Thatcher. I choose you. Everything else, we’ll work out. I don’t have all the answers in this moment, but I don’t need them.”

Undone. I was completely undone by her, by her words. My entire existence shifted in that moment, because she was mine.

I moved my hand under her shirt to place it on her bare stomach and held her close. “I’ve been thinking about doing this with you since our Facetime.” I rasped the words against her ear, lost in lust and feelings.

“Yeah?” She ran her fingers over my chest, and a shudder went through my body from her touch. “Me too.” Her lips were a hair from mine, her sweet breath hitting my face, and I closed the distance. She parted for me so I could tangle my tongue with hers, whimpering into my mouth, and I swallowed her sweet sounds. I held her tighter against me before picking her up. Her thighs wrapped around me, and I grinned against her, sliding my tongue into her mouth and kissing her deeply. Small hands slid up my bare chest, traveling up over my neck before gripping either side of my face with a tenderness that caused my chest to ache.

I ground against her, and she matched my movements with as much desperation as I had as I carried her to her new dresser, setting her ass on top.