Reece found her chin with his hand and tipped her face up to his.
“Charlie,” he murmured, his voice lush with awe. Not pity, not disgust. He looked at her with pure, undiluted tenderness. “I forgive you. And I can’t understand anyone choosing not to know you.”
His words spread through every inch of her, from her fingertips to her shins to the top of her head. She breathed in deep and exhaled on a staggered sigh. “Oh wow,” she laughed humorlessly. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
His eyes creased as he smiled. “I’ll tell you again anytime you need a reminder.”
She wanted that. She wanted it so much she felt like her heart might seize. She wanted Reece’s affection anytime, every day, whenever and wherever.
An emotion she hadn’t felt in years fluttered inside her rib cage, begging to be released. She wanted to kiss him, wanted to press herself into all his little corners and absorb every ounce of his affection. She wanted to let go.
But something held her back.
“I keep waiting for you to…flinch,” she confessed. “The more I say…”
Reece’s smile slanted into an amused smirk. “Are you forgetting that we met at a support group?”
Charlotte bit her lip. “Fair point.”
“My whole life changed when you came back to the 3Ds,” he said. “I looked forward to sitting next to you every week.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. And then, the real question that had nagged at her for years: “Why me?”
He smiled, all lopsided and self-conscious. “You made these little noises under your breath while people spoke. You rarely talked, but you hissed and grumbled and growled because you were so mad for everyone else.”
Charlotte blushed. “I did?”
“Yeah, you did.” He chuckled. “It was so cute, I lived for it. I had to sit next to you so I could hear you.” He ran his thumb across her neck until he found her pulse point. She swallowed at the soft pressure of his hand against her fragile skin, her heart racing under his touch. “You care so much about everyone, and you get so pissed off when you see an injustice. But I don’t think you apply that same care to yourself.”
She licked her dry lips, overwhelmed and amazed. Reece just kept looking at her, seeing the best and worst of her, knowing her through and through.
“So no, I’m not going to run, Charlie.” The humor vanished from his voice. “You don’t scare me.”
Her gasp escaped before she could squash it. It was better than any profession of love, more affecting than any romantic gesture. It was also the truth. She told him her secrets and he held her closer.
A frustrated moan stole from his mouth.
“What?” she whispered.
Reece clenched his eyes shut. “I’m trying not to make the same mistake twice.”
Charlotte nuzzled against his neck, her eyelashes brushing his skin. Desire unspooled within her as she felt his pulse jump. “What’s that?”
“Bombard you with affection and freak you out.”
Her answering laugh was huskier than usual. She slithered her hand under his shirt, flattened her fingers against his back. It was ridiculously unfair how sexy she found the notches of his spine.
Reece’s hand tightened at the back of her head, tugging at her hair before releasing. Pinpricks of pleasure-pain singed her scalp. Her mouth fell open in a silent gasp.
His hips rocked forward as his restraint faltered. She clung to his torso, not wanting him to stop.
“You’re not going to freak me out,” she promised. Pleaded, really. She grabbed for his waist and found purchase on his hip, pulled him against her again.
Delicious friction sparked between their bodies. He hissed through his teeth. “Charlie…”
She rolled over, bringing him with her as she turned onto her back. Reece didn’t protest. He caught his weight on his left hand and pressed his palm against the mattress beside her head. He felt undeniably right between her thighs. Her knees bracketed his hips.
Reece looked down at her for a long beat, his face an open book of uncertainty and want. They’d hooked up only last night, but the energy felt different between them now. This wasn’t just desire. Heavy, vulnerable longing threatened to consume Charlotte whole.
Against all odds and expectations, this mattered.
That little glimmer of fear returned.
“I’m not good at this,” she blurted out.
She wasn’t even sure what she meant. Intimacy? Sleeping together?
Falling in love?
Reece lowered himself onto his elbows. He studied her face with those glorious green eyes, dark pupils tracking across her bruised lips and pink cheeks. “That’s okay,” he murmured as he tucked her hair behind her ear. A suggestion of a smile pulled at his mouth. “You’ll learn.”
As they kissed, Charlotte stopped smuggling away details to remember later. She only knew sensation: the press of Reece’s weight on her, the heat of his mouth moving with hers. There was no need to rush—time became irrelevant. She wove herself against his body with reverence, with permanence.
At some point after their clothes got lost in the sheets and the separation between their bodies disappeared, she understood. She didn’t overthink it. She barely planned it. She just said it.
“I want this.”
She couldn’t see Reece’s face, pressed as it was to her neck, but she could feel her words run through his body. He stopped moving even as his cock twitched within her. The muscles in his back tensed under her fingertips.
