“Like what?” she asked in a tiny voice.
His mouth twisted, as if words were pressing in behind it and he was trying to rein them in. “All those tears you shed over him…it’s bothered me from the first night we were together.”
Her brows drew together and she shook her head. “Evan, those were for you. For the feelings you were showing me that I’d never felt before. For…all the years I wanted you and never thought I would have you.” Her eyes were welling even at the mention of it.
He looked as if his world had just spun. “What?”
“How could you honestly not know?” Drawing a deep breath, she reached into her manila file and pulled out the two sheets of paper she’d copied at the office that morning. She stood and dropped them on the desk in front of him, emotions threatening to sweep her away at what she was doing: showing him the confession forever captured in her teardrop-splattered handwriting on those pages. It was everything she’d ever wanted to say to him and never had the guts to. “There. There is my heart laid open for you, okay? I wrote this in my journal one night back in college, and after last week I know that not a word on those pages has changed. So read it, and if it isn’t proof enough of how I feel about you, and if you can’t forgive me for one hasty decision, maybe it’s best we’re over before we ever really began.”
He stared down at what she’d written, but she couldn’t tell if he actually read the words. “Look, I knew, but I didn’t know… I didn’t know you felt like that. That deeply.”
“Now you have it in black and white.” She was shaking all over, tears streaking her cheeks. When had she walked around his desk to stand beside his chair? Her heart was threatening to choke her. Taking a breath, she straightened and smoothed her damp palms on her skirt. Dignity, right. He probably thought she was an insane stalker now.
“If I humiliated you, I’m sorry, but I was a walking pile of humiliation over you for two years until I met Todd, and he managed to pick me up somewhat before slamming me right back down. That will never happen to me again. I told Todd he couldn’t hurt me anymore, and now I’m telling you that if you want me, get off your ass, because I love you, Evan, more than anything”—she paused to sob, those words wrenching her soul—“but I refuse to live like this anymore.”
He cleared his throat and lifted his gaze to hers. “I have so much to say to all that it’ll take the rest of the day to get it out.” He glanced down at her journal entry, at the words that had flown from her hands the night she’d watched him with the girl at the frat party. She’d wanted to be that girl so desperately she might have sold her soul for it that night. “But since we’re a little strapped for time, consider this me…getting off my ass.”
He stood, and she had no time to brace herself before he jerked her to him and scalded her lips with his own. She shook, went limp and groaned helplessly against the onslaught, disbelief fogging her senses along with a desire so strong she could scarcely contain it.
He was real and solid and hot in her arms, burning her even through all their layers of clothing. Layers she couldn’t wait to strip through. She clenched his shirt in her fists, feeling his back muscles tense beneath her fingers, feeling his thigh surge hard between hers until her skirt rode up her legs, higher and higher until he must have felt he heat of her p**sy through his pants. The edge of his desk bit into the flesh of her ass as he planted her against it.
“I need to lock my door,” he murmured, his lips scarcely leaving hers as he spoke.
“I did it when I came in.”
“So certain of your powers of persuasion?”
“Something like that.”
Breathing labored, Evan grasped the lapels of her jacket and stripped it down her arms. When she moved to help him remove it completely, he held it just at her forearms, trapping both limbs useless behind her back. He pulled away to look at her and when she lunged forward to claim his mouth, he eluded her, holding her still.
“Please,” she whispered.
“You said you loved me.”
“I do, I love you.” It rolled so naturally off her tongue now, as if she had been saying it all along. It didn’t even matter if he said it back. “I swear to you, if it had been you who got hurt, I couldn’t have even waited for a flight. I’d have swum the ocean to get to you.”
“Remember when you asked me what makes me hurt?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“You know the party when I first introduced you to Todd?”
“Yes.”
“I have a confession, too. I was waiting for you to show up there because I’d made up my mind that I’d messed around long enough and I wanted to be with you. I knew, even back then, that you and me would be forever. As a twenty-two-year-old that scared the hell out of me, until I realized the thought of you not being there after graduation scared me far more.”
Her trembling intensified. He was going on. “I only made the mistake of introducing you to my best friend before I could take you away to tell you this. And I saw you guys stare at one another a little too long, and then you talked all night and finally left together… I decided maybe it was a sign we really weren’t meant to be. It was the only consolation I could find.”
“Evan…”
He shushed her with a finger to her lips. “Let me say this. The one thing I’m thankful for is that being with him kept you in my life all these years. But I can’t forgive myself for not giving us a chance sooner. I was always in one meaningless relationship or another and none of them were worth hurting you like that.”
“It’s okay. If it ends with us here, like this, it’s all okay.”
“Nothing is ending here.” He kissed her, as she’d been dying for him to do. Emotionally, she was numb, in shock, but her physical need for him hadn’t suffered. It eclipsed all other thought.
The finger he’d pressed to her lips had trailed down over her chin, following the hollow of her throat to the V-neck of her teal blouse. She panted, wanting to thrust her breast into his hand, but his fingers busied themselves deftly working her buttons. She wiggled her h*ps closer to him, needing more contact. He tasted so heavenly she couldn’t get enough of his lips, of the teasing way his tongue swirled with hers.
Cool air caressed her br**sts when he freed her shoulders of her blouse and her bra straps, and it was unbelievable to her that she was actually bare-chested in the workplace. Dear God, she’d never been so wanton. A mere month ago, the very thought would have mortified her. But Evan’s lips slipped over her nipple and there was no room for anything except raw sensation. Still trapped and helpless, she ached to touch him, to clench his silken hair in her fingers. He licked and sucked until she was as wet between her legs as the flesh he kissed, her h*ps undulating to his rhythm.
His hand trailed up her thigh, under her skirt, to grasp her panties and give them a sharp tug. She moaned and shifted to help him pull them all the way down, feeling them slip off over first one high heel and then the other. His fingertips brushed over her cl*t and she melted in agony as he rubbed. “Mmm. God, I can’t wait to get you home,” he murmured.
She giggled. “I thought you wanted to do it here?”
“Oh, we will. But to have you nak*d in my bed…at home. It’ll just seem more real. More…permanent.”
Permanent. Had a single word ever sounded more beautiful to her?
He pulled her away from the desk then and wrenched her jacket off, his movements now nearly uncontrolled. Arms finally free, she clutched at him in relief. With both hands, he pushed her skirt so far up her legs she was nak*d from the waist down.
“I’ve wanted to do that all morning,” he said, before lifting her and setting her precariously on the edge again, spreading her legs to accommodate his hips. She was so eager to feel him wedge into her she was dripping, panting, her pulse frantic. But he dropped to his knees.
How could she have ever lived the rest of her life without this? She cried out when his tongue speared her, lapping at the cream she wept just for him, just from his nearness, his touch. He groaned and her face burned but she was beyond embarrassment. God knew he’d seen every bare inch of her in every position imaginable over the past few days. She’d gone through too many emotions today, and now that it was over she wanted him to f**k her until she was numb. But he wouldn’t lick her in a rhythm that would bring her any relief, and she was caught at the precipice of ecstasy, writhing against him.
She murmured in frustration when his mouth abandoned her. He stood, one hand wrenching at his pants as the other anchored her around the waist. “Kelsey,” he whispered against her ear, and moments later she felt the broad head of his c*ck nudge her opening. Her heart dropped as he pushed into her in that overpowering way of his, holding her tight.
She gasped his name as he cursed and filled her in every capacity, physically and emotionally. A leftover tear dripped from her eye, splattering on his shoulder.
“Shhh,” he whispered, stilling his movements. His cheek grazed hers, deliciously coarse with a hint of stubble, as he sought the corner of her lips with his. “I love you.”
“Oh, God.” She lifted her head to meet his kiss, joy and elation flooding her along with the fear that could only come with getting the one thing she’d wanted for so long. She wouldn’t let it go this time. “I love you.”
“Baby, I’m sorry.”
He reached up to wipe her tears away and she let him for a few moments, until his scrutiny became too much and she pitched herself into his arms. Gently, he withdrew from her almost all the way before guiding himself back into her desperate heat. Her body readily welcomed him as his lips explored the wetness on her cheek.
“These tears are all for me…” he murmured, sliding his hands beneath her bottom to hold her still as he took her with gentle thrusts.
She couldn’t form a reply at the moment; her throat muscles were locked around her moans of ecstasy. Those deep, slow strokes were driving her out of her mind. After just a couple of days he already knew all the right places on her body, knew when to keep it slow to build her to a frenzy, knew when to give it to her hard and send her flying. And knew when she needed him to do to her whatever he wanted.
“Oh, yes, Evan.” Her makeup would be wrecked and her hair would be a mess, but a moment later she couldn’t think of anything except him inside her as she clenched her teeth against the pleasure and dug her fingernails into his shoulders. Her legs went around his waist on some inclination all their own, locking at the ankles. She hadn’t bothered to kick her heels off, needing to revel in how sexy and desirable she felt wrapped around him half-clothed. “Just like that.”
“So sweet.” He groaned, keeping his pace, his jaw pulled tense as his gaze burned at her like flame through emeralds. She lost her breath as the heat they produced together rose to a blistering fullness. “Are they?”
She knew what he meant, but at that precise moment, she couldn’t answer him. She came like a slingshot had flung her toward the sun. Evan abandoned his slow pace to join her, his groans in her ear and the new strength of his thrusts powering her ascent. But she knew him well enough to realize she wouldn’t be able to avoid his questions for long.