Seconds ticked past, making me bristle and my stupid heart double-beat.
I needed to see. To look at her. To know what the hell she was doing.
But the softest feather touched my hand, followed by another on my forearm.
I jerked.
Shit.
Heat.
Sizzling.
Crackling.
Potent and powerful and perfect.
“Even your damn Euphoria can’t stop the link between us,” she murmured as one of her hands traced the sinew of my forearm, so soft it almost tickled but firm enough to prove it wasn’t my body’s sensory reaction to her delicate touch but the central nervous system of primal desires. “No matter your technology and masks, Sully, our chemistry will override everything.” Her other hand linked with mine, threading our fingers together, joining us in a bind that was so innocent yet dripping with carnal yearning.
I went insanely hard.
I turned breathless as she traced the underside of my wrist.
I swayed as my heart drummed; skipping to a new rhythm thanks to the electrical charge she fed me. Her electrical pulses collided with mine, conductive and disruptive, syncing with my own power, ensuring the positive ions within her soothed out the negative ones within me.
Fuck
Me.
Such a sinless touch, yet I’d never been more aware, more in tune, more hungry.
This was how she knew.
This was how she knew instantly that it wasn’t me kissing her.
Not from her outward senses…but her inner ones.
Those could not be faked.
Those could not be lied to.
Those could not be tricked or cheated or scammed.
“Christ.” I shuddered as her hand added pressure, linking her fingers around my wrist and pulling me into her. My eyes stayed closed, basking in the raw power between us. Loving the unhindered connection. The blissful awareness that what I felt for this woman and what she felt for me was real.
It wasn’t about trusting what someone said or did.
It wasn’t about trusting our own external senses.
It was about trusting how they felt within. How our force fields blended. How our souls spoke in that unknown language that we both understood.
I didn’t need sight anymore.
I only needed touch.
I needed to touch and kiss and slip inside this amazing, wondrous goddess who had just set me free.
Wrapping my arm around her waist, I pressed her into me. Our hand remained linked, glued at the palms and entwined by fingers. And when our lips met, I groaned in agony.
Agony over what I’d done.
Agony over what I was.
Agony that she might never forgive me and this magic, this mayhem, this magnetism between us wouldn’t be enough to keep her.
My tongue speared past her lips. Her taste exploded in my mouth.
I groaned again, clutching her closer, trying to climb inside her.
The kiss switched from a simple connection to an attack of lust and lunacy. Our heads danced, our tongues duelled, our lips heated from friction.
I could come just from kissing this girl.
I could come just from holding hands with this girl.
She was everything.
My legs buckled as her tongue swept over my teeth. My brain misfired, forgetting to hold up my weight when all it cared about, all it needed, was to be inside her.
I slammed to my knees, dragging her down with me.
Her mouth opened wide in discomfort. Hay pricked us. Brick bruised us. But I couldn’t stop kissing her.
Unlooping our fingers, she pressed both hands against my chest, pushing gently. “Stop…please.”
Stop?
I couldn’t.
I didn’t want to.
I never wanted to stop.
“Sully.” She avoided my seeking kiss.
I needed to taste her again.
“Please, stop.”
My eyes opened, blinded at first as if I’d lived in a different realm and forgotten how to see in this one.
Eleanor stared back. Her lips swollen and pink. Her cheeks flushed. Her gaze cool and resolute.
More pain.
A goddamn axe to the chest.
It took every bit of strength I had left, but I pulled away. My lungs pumped air to a suffocating heart. My blood pressure ensured I would never walk again unless Eleanor helped relieve my excruciating erection.
But with the way she watched me…it hinted of punishment instead of pleasure.
Punishment I deserved, and punishment I would gladly take if it made me worthy of her.
Worthy?
Shit, I’d done so much to be the opposite of worthy.
My ribs cracked with overwhelming force—an emotion that I’d done my best to murder each time it appeared. A truth I could no longer deny.
I ran my tongue over my lips.
I raked both hands through blond hair.
I prepared to give myself to another.
To her.
Forever.
Our eyes caught.
I shrugged almost in apology.
I stared at my queen with her invisible crown and confessed.
“I love you, Eleanor Grace.”
Chapter Twenty-One
THE WORLD STOPPED.
I sat in a bubble of time, an iridescent capsule where nothing and no one could touch me.
I love you, Eleanor Grace.
I love you.
I
Love
You.
In another life, I would’ve launched into his arms and kissed every inch of him. I would’ve clambered onto his lap and inserted him deep inside me so we could consummate such a vow.