“Yes. Yes.”
“You’re important to me.”
“Taylor,” I rasp.
Her mouth is all over my neck. “You’re big and sweet and proud—” I stamp my mouth down over hers to stop the flow of words. Not because I don’t want to hear them. Not because some deep down part of me needs them, craves them, but because I’m about to be gutted where I stand. She’s either killing me or bringing me back to life. I don’t know.
“Enough, baby,” I breathe into our kiss.
“Let me finish.”
“No.” With my chest caving in and my body begging for release, I back her hard into the wall, lift that other leg and fuck her in the brutal way she loves. In the way that will distract her from her mission of dismantling me, bone by bone, brick by brick, word by word. “I’ve got that pretty cunt trapped now, don’t I?”
The sound that leaves her is half moan, half sob, green eyes blind, her back jolting up and down against the wall, nails leaving bloody marks on my neck, my back. “Oh my God, Myles. Yes, yes, yes.”
I drag my tongue up the sensitive slope of her neck. “I know what you like.”
“What about what I love?” she murmurs haltingly against my mouth, her eyes squeezed shut. “What about who I could love so easily?”
Brave. She’s braver than me. I stop thrusting. I crush myself against her, inhaling, dizzy from the excessive pace of my heart.
“You,” she says against my ear. “I could love you so easily.”
With those unbelievable words ringing in my skull, my body bucks without permission. Once. Hard. She whimpers and I come inside of her, my body depleting itself so swiftly, I struggle not to fall to my knees. Jaw slack, eyes unseeing, I reach between us and find her clit automatically, rubbing her out with the pad of my thumb, using the slickness of my come to circle that nub faster and faster until she’s shaking between me and the wall, her thighs trembling and clenching around my hips, her voice a chant in my ear.
“Myles, Myles, Myles.”
Her warmth rushes around the place where our bodies join and I heave a breath of relief. “Sorry. Sorry. I don’t know what happened. I—”
She shushes me, draws me into a kiss. Her legs drop from around my waist and I stoop down to prevent our mouths from separating. Or maybe to delay the moment I look her in the eye and confess the words on the tip of my tongue. I could love you so easily, too. I already do. God help me, Taylor. I’m not sure how it happened and I don’t know what’s the right thing to do.
If she’s brave enough to make her admission, I can damn well make mine.
She expects honesty from me and I want to give it to her. She believes in me.
I don’t know where the hell we go from here, but I can’t let her get away.
“Taylor—”
Voices grow louder outside the door of the church. Taylor sucks in a breath and our hands collide in our haste to fix her panties and dress. I pull off the condom and zip my pants one handed, crossing to the trash can and disposing of it. When I return to Taylor, she’s giggling and trying to collect her fallen purse at the same time. Before I know what’s happening, I’m laughing, too, collecting my gun and feeling lighter than I’ve felt in my entire goddamn life. She makes me a better man. A better human. She makes me so much better.
I’m opening my mouth to tell her that when the church doors swing open and two nuns walk in, stopping short when they see us. Behind them, I see the rain has stopped and sidewalks are once again full with the summer crowd. How long have we been in here?
“Sisters,” I say, reaching for Taylor’s hand, gratified when she takes it in a way that suggests she was already reaching out. “We were just waiting out the rain.”
One of them raises a white eyebrow. “It stopped some time ago.”
“Did it?” Taylor has decided to feign innocence, a hand pressed to the middle of her chest. Over-the-top perplexed. “We couldn’t hear through all that thick wood.”
“Oh boy,” I mutter, dragging a hand down my face.
I turn to find her turning crimson. “I-I mean…what I meant was the door is—”
“You’re digging yourself deeper,” I drawl, nodding at the nuns and pulling Taylor through the double doors. When we hit the sidewalk, I scan the street for threats. Windows, parked cars, people walking by. Nothing out of the ordinary. She’s safe. So I finally let out the rush of amusement I’ve been holding in, laughing for the second time in as many minutes. “You just made a dick joke to a couple of nuns.”