If It's Only Love (Boys of Jackson Harbor 6)

I’m not sure I could ever get used to the fact that Easton wants me like this—that I can have him anytime I want him. Or I could, before.

I push the thought away and focus on the rough grip of his hands on my hips and the wet sweep of his tongue across my nipples.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” he murmurs as he kisses his way down my stomach. “I don’t know if I actually slept last night. I wanted you in my bed.”

I slide my fingers into his hair and tug him up. “Easton.”

He lowers his smile to my mouth and kisses me until everything else falls away. He only stops his touching and kissing—his worshipping—long enough to put on a condom and position himself between my legs. He pauses there, so close to where I need him, and frames my face with his hands. “We’re really doing this,” he says softly, reverently.

I lift my hips, seeking him, needing him. One last time.

He slides into me and moves so tenderly that tears sting the backs of my eyes. “I love you.”

“I love you.” All I can do is bury my face in his neck and hold on, because it’s only love, and that’s never been enough.

And when we’re spent and breathless, once my tailbone feels tender from the hardwood floor, he rolls us over so I’m on top of him and wraps his arms around me.

“Sorry about that,” he says.

I close my eyes and focus on the rise and fall of his chest with his heavy breaths. “Why sorry?”

“I was thinking about you, and then there you were.” He chuckles. “I don’t know, Shay. After years of thinking about you, of missing you and wanting you, it’s going to be hard to pace myself now that you’re mine.”

Emotion clogs my throat at that, and I can’t reply. I can hardly even breathe. Now that you’re mine. But for how much longer?

He rolls us to our sides before standing and helping me up. He scoops our clothes into a big pile in his arms. “Coffee?” he asks with an arched brow.

I bite my lip and shake my head. “I’m good.”

He smacks my bare ass. “Then go get in bed. We have three hours until Abi gets home, and I want to spend it all naked with you between my sheets.”

I try to smile, but this morning’s news weighs heavily on me and I can’t quite make my lips obey. This is all a preview of what could have been, and I’m being sliced apart from the inside.

“Hey.” He cups my jaw. “Did I hurt you? Are you okay?”

“You didn’t hurt me.” But I’m not okay. “Come on.” I don’t want to share my news while we’re standing naked by the front door. “I’m going to go upstairs and clean up. I’ll meet you in bed.”

His eyes flare hungrily again and his gaze dips down and back up, but I turn away before he can meet my gaze. This feeling in my chest when he looks at me like that and I know what I have to tell him? It’s a little bit like heartbreak.

Easton

Something is wrong with Shay, and I think I know what it is.

I open the curtains in my bedroom to expose the picture windows and the floor-to-ceiling view of Lake Michigan. I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted to spend the afternoon in bed with her. While she cleans up in the bathroom, I run downstairs to grab a plate of fruit—grapes, fresh strawberries, a few mandarin oranges—and a pot of coffee in case she changes her mind about it.

When I return to the bedroom, Shay’s in my bed. She curled on her side with her head on my pillow as she reads the back cover of the military suspense novel from my nightstand.

“I liked this one,” she says.

I smile. I’m going to love trying to keep up with her. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d have time for pleasure reading while you were working on your dissertation.”

She huffs out a laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Maybe if I hadn’t made time for pleasure reading, I would’ve finished a couple of years ago.”

I set the plate of fruit and carafe of coffee on the dresser before climbing into bed with her. “You’re really here.” I pull her back to my front and press my hand flat against her breastbone.

“I am,” she says. “It’s unreal. I didn’t think we’d ever . . .”

I press a kiss to her bare shoulder. She didn’t believe we’d make it work. One night in Paris then a night in my hotel room in Chicago before her dad died. I want us to have a chance, and it’s always been yanked away from us before we could settle in.

“We’re going to make it,” I say. She stiffens in my arms, and I instinctively hold her tighter. “I know you’re scared. I know you don’t trust this to work, but . . .” I force myself to relax my hold. “I’m struggling to not be selfish. I want you in my arms all the time, but I know you have other things to do this week.”