Page 63 of Love Me Again

But it was goodbye, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

There was no use fighting over it. She didn’t want to fight. She wanted to feel.

One last time.

Boone knew what she was doing. Sensed it, deep in his bones. She wasn’t giving in. She was getting out.

If he had even an ounce of willpower, he’d put a stop to this until he proved to her that he was going to fight for their second chance. For her.

But her mouth was avid under his, her hands smoothing over his tensed muscles. How had he denied himself this? How had he ever thought a life without her was going to lead anywhere but right back to her?

He didn’t have a damn clue what he wanted from this life except to be by her side for the rest of it. Not deserving it didn’t mean a damn thing to him with her mouth fused to his.

She felt exactly the same, like nothing had changed, except for this little charge of desperation coming from both of them. Maybe a desperation to feel what they’d once felt without any of the baggage that defined them now.

He could be determined this wasn’t goodbye, this wasn’t an end. He could be determined he’d follow her to the ends of the earth, carrying all the baggage they both had.

But he couldn’t take what he’d done back. He couldn’t lift all the weights he’d tied to them both.

They both had to decide to live with it, and clearly, that wasn’t the decision she was making. She wasn’t going to live with it.

He didn’t know what to do with that, so he simply set it aside. Threw himself into the heat that was the two of them.

He held her flush to him, the softness of her curves, the scent of her wrapping around him. Her hands smoothed over his back, like she was reveling at touching him again.

It was its own drugging heat, that even though she was determined to leave him, clearly, she still felt this.

The need, the heat, the hope of what coming together could feel like.

She tugged at the hem of his sweatshirt, and he tried to move to accommodate her, but a twinge of pain stole his breath for a second. Not the emotional kind, this time. An actual bolt from moving his knee the wrong way.

“Are you okay?” Josie asked, immediately worried.

Okay? She was kissing him and in his arms and he didn’t have to deal with what she was going to do after that just yet. “Yeah, yeah. Better than.”

She laughed a little. “I don’t want to hurt your knee.”

“I’ll take it. I’ll take anything.”

“Boone.” It was some kind of admonition, but he didn’t pay it any mind. He led her back to the bedroom, never taking his hands or mouth off her.

Then he maneuvered so he could sit on the edge of her bed, but he pulled her to him, so eventually she straddled his lap.

“There. No knee problems.”

She looked at him, her mouth a soft smile, her eyes glazed with desire. But more than just that.

It was always more with them. Always would be. Surely she’d have to see that. Maybe she thought she could walk away, but she’d change her mind. She had to.

There was a softening in her now. A yearning. She brushed the hair at his temples just like she used to do when she loved him.

She still loved him. She had to. He simply couldn’t fathom everything inside of him being so wholly unrequited. And while he’d spent a lot of his life purposefully making things harder on the people he loved—all in some stupid, childish bid not to disappoint them or hurt them worse by trying and failing—he was done with that.

He would try and fail for her a million times over. “I love you, Josie.”

Her expression grew pained. Like she was having doubts or second thoughts, but before he could talk her out of them—or maybe he should talk her into them and then she wouldn’t leave—she seemed to gather herself.

She put her mouth to his again and rocked against him. He groaned into her mouth, thoughts scattering somewhere else entirely. Softness and love gave way to desperation and the kind of demanding desire that obliterated all thought. She pulled at his shirt. He managed to get hers off first. They grappled with clothes, with each other, and he only hissed out an expression of pain once or twice. Every time he did, she’d pull away ever so slightly, so he started talking instead of making pained noises.