Page 78 of How to Kill Your Rival

Resting on my elbows, I take her face in my hands and kiss her. Tasting her pleading and swallowing her moans.

It’s slow and glorious, laced with an intimacy I have only ever dreamed of.

Eliza meets my gaze and holds it while I thrust. She looks up at me with wet eyes, and I want to kiss her forever. Kiss her until we’re both old and grey and have lived a long life together.

My heart breaks at the softness of her gaze, and how sweet she looks beneath me. Still my strong, vengeful, brilliant rival, but also so much more. My heart. My home. My reason to be.

I take my time, slowing every time she nears orgasm. Or I do. I need this to last. It’ll be over soon enough.

She lets me.

I’m not prepared for Eliza letting me lead. I’m used to doing whatever it takes to stay in her presence. Knowing that I’m allowed in her space, but not there to occupy it. Now she lies beneath me, meeting my rocking thrusts with such an open desire that it guts me. Her hands cradle my face as mine slide into her thick hair.

This is what I’ve waited years for.

It’s worth it.

Tipping my hips, I find a spot inside that makes her breath stutter, and she doesn’t swallow the sound. It comes out of her soft and unregulated. She arches her back and pulls me closer.

‘James.’ My name is so very perfect on her lips.

There’s a moment where I think she’s going to tell me she loves me. Her eyes are misty and her cheeks flushed, and she stares at me as her mouth opens. But there’s still a flicker of fear there. Fear that I understand more after my conversation with Maggie.

It’s enough to believe she’s even considering it.

I love you, I think with every rock of my hips.

I repeat it in my head with each thrust until the words tumble free in a mess of desire and adoration.

‘I love you.’ Thrust. ‘I love you.’ Thrust. ‘I fucking love you.’ Thrust.

Eliza tips her head back. The long line of her throat is exposed and begging for my mouth. She shivers when I slide my tongue over her pulse point; her nails dig into my shoulders.

I feel the change in her before she makes a sound; the hitch in her breath, the way she flutters around my cock, the cording of her muscles as her thighs clench my waist. I can feel the moment the last of her walls drop away, and there’s nothing left but this. Us. Now.

She breathes my name in one broken whimper as she loses control. The delicious way her body grips mine drags my orgasm from me in a hot groan as I swell and burst inside her.

I keep rocking long after she stops shuddering, grinding until we’re both utterly spent.

There you are, I think. There’s my girl.

Her breath is ragged and warm against my throat. ‘I think I might love you, too.’

The words are so soft. So filled with the fear of rejection still. I kiss her until she relaxes again, her cheeks wet and her lips salty. The words I’d never thought I’d hear from her. If I thought an orgasm feels good, it pales compared to being loved by a woman you adore.

We lie together for a long time after, her cheek on my chest. Her hand rests flat on my ribcage, and I try to find words to convey what I’m feeling.

I am completely, mortifyingly happy. Who knew it was possible to feel so many things in one small, very human heart? The expanse of Eliza Hamilton’s love is staggering.

* * *

Our bliss is short-lived before Eliza’s phone rings.

‘Ignore it,’ I whisper against her temple.

She doesn’t.

Sitting, she pulls the bedsheets against her chest as she puts the phone to her ear.