Page 75 of Every Shattered Note
“It wasn’t nothing.”I press my lips trying to figure out if this is what I want to say, and I do.“I haven’t felt like that in a long time.”
He reaches out.His hand slides over mine, his thumb brushing the pulse at my wrist as if grounding himself.
“Come here,” he says.
He pulls me close to him.We’re so close I can feel the heat of his body, and suddenly I’m close enough to see the lines at the corner of his mouth, the slight bruise along his collarbone from where my teeth might’ve caught.
“I haven’t had many good things in my life I didn’t fuck up,” he whispers.“But this?You?I want to try.Even if it scares the shit out of me.”
I cup his face, letting my thumbs trace the stubble along his jaw—slow, reverent, like I’m memorizing him by touch.I press a tentative, aching kiss to the corner of his mouth.
He catches my lips with his, and everything stills.
This kiss isn’t like the one before—no rush, no frenzy.Just quiet gravity.
It’s not want.It’s need.
My mouth opens beneath his, and he groans low in his throat like he’s been starving, and I’m the only thing that tastes like home.The kiss unfolds like a prayer—slow and sacred, like we’ve both been waiting our whole lives to get it right.
My fingers thread through his long hair as he stands, his hands skim beneath the thin straps of my dress, fingertips tracing the slope of my shoulders like he’s memorizing the moment.Like this is sacred.
“I’ve been thinking about this all damn day,” he murmurs against my jaw, voice low and thick.“About how you looked when you came for me.How you’d look if I lost myself in you, not just to touch you, but to remember what it feels like to belong somewhere.”
My breath catches.“Dex?—”
“Just ...”His mouth grazes the edge of my cheek, slow and wrecked.“Let me have you again.”His hands tremble, just slightly.“Unless you don’t want to.”
I pause.Not because I’m unsure, but because I want him to feel it when I say it.I want him to know this isn’t heat alone.It’s not just lust or leftover emotion from earlier.
I meet his gaze.“I want you.”
His breath shudders out, like I’ve knocked the air from his lungs.His eyes darken—something raw flickering there, something that looks like awe.
He leans in, forehead resting gently against mine, his voice almost reverent, pleading.“Say it again.”
“I.Want.You.”I brush my lips against his.“All day,” I whisper, letting the words curl between us.“I’ve wanted this.You.Not just your hands, but your mouth, you inside me, claiming me.”
His jaw tightens.A muscle tics near his temple as if he’s holding himself back.His fingers trace the hem of my dress, slow as if waiting for permission that I give with a look.
He exhales through his nose and reaches for the thin straps, easing them down one by one.The fabric slides under his fingers, catching slightly on my skin before giving way.He pushes it past my hips, his knuckles grazing my thigh, until it pools at my feet.
I’m bare beneath it—no bra, only a pair of cotton underwear.
He stills, eyes darkening as they fall to my chest, something raw and reverent in his gaze, like he’s seeing something sacred instead of sinful.
“You came out here like this?”he rasps.“Fuck, baby.”His hand curves over the side of my breast.Reverent.Possessive.Almost undone.“You were just ...walking around with nothing under this thing?”
His mouth finds my collarbone first.Then the dip beneath it.Then lower.
He drags his lips across the curve of my breast, his tongue tracing circles before closing around my nipple.Heat floods through me, surging up my spine as I arch against him, needing more than his mouth, needing all of him.His stubble rasps along my skin as he moves, and I gasp—because it’s not gentle, not soft, but it’s exactly what I need.
“I could taste you for hours,” he mutters against my breast, tongue flicking, teasing, lingering like he’s chasing a memory.
And then ...then, he lifts me.
ChapterThirty
Alyssa
