When I finally found the wherewithal to flutter my lashes open and smile up at the man above me, I discovered a total mess. He’d squeezed his eyes closed and his face was so red it was almost purple, as if he were holding his breath. His arms trembled with effort as he continued to brace them on either side of me and keep himself at a distance.

He was about to snap.

“Knox?” I reached up and touched his cheek.

He opened his eyes, and tears dripped from his lashes, splashing onto my cheeks. “I can’t do it,” he rasped, hissing out a great heaving breath from his lungs. “You were right. I can’t shut it off. I can’t stop loving you.”

“I know, baby. I know.” Cupping both my palms around his face, I wiped more tears off his cheeks with my thumbs.

He sobbed out his distress as he leaned down onto me fully and pressed his forehead to mine. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too.” When I wrapped my legs around his waist, he surged deeper within me and gripped my bottom to bind us together as tightly as possible, until we were as close to becoming one body as two people could get.

His mouth mashed against mine. It was carnal and sweet and about the best, most revitalizing kiss of my life. With one hand in my hair and the other on my ass to keep me where he wanted me, he thrust hard. Then his tongue tangled with mine, and he fucked me with a new purpose.

I arched up, absorbing it all, my body igniting all over again as he drove deep, hitting a bundle of nerves that just couldn’t withstand the impact without contracting and sending me off into another orgasm.

Clenching around him tight, I screamed my way through this one, clutching him and listening to him grunt as he ground hard against my clit and emptied himself.

“God,” I gasped, petting the back of his shoulder as I tried to come back down from that high, but it left me too dazed to do much past keeping my legs securely locked around him so he could never leave me.

He collapsed on me, full weight, and I loved it. Stroking his back and hoping to entice him to stay, I used my nails to occasionally scrape over bare flesh. He moaned his pleasure and I preened happily.

“I should get off you,” he eventually mumbled into my hair.

But I locked my legs tighter. “Don’t you dare.”

He did move somewhat, shifting his hips off me and sliding his face down until his cheek was cushioned against my breasts, but otherwise, he held his arm firmly around my waist, letting me know he wasn’t going anywhere.

The occasional sniff and wetness on my chest told me he continued to cry. But he didn’t want me to see it just yet, so I let him have that privacy.

“Are you going to say I told you so?” he finally asked, no heat behind his voice, just curiosity.

“Mmm.” I closed my eyes, feeling languid and happy as I kept caressing my fingernails over his back. “Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow when I have some brain cells again.”

He let out a breath, then said, “City?”

“Yeah?”

“I really did miss you.”

I hugged my arms around his shoulders. “I missed you too.”

“Are you still going to be here in the morning? Or is this just a dream?”

“I’ll still be here.”

He sighed out his relief and relaxed against me fully. “Good.”

I swear, he fell asleep in that very instant. But that was fine with me because I wasn’t long to follow.

When I woke to daylight pressing at my closed window curtains, he was still there. I was still there, and we were still wrapped naked together.

We’d shifted position throughout the night until I was the one draped halfway on top of him, my leg thrown over his hip and my head resting on his heartbeat. I lifted my face to study his. He’d grown into a man, someone who barely looked like the boy I once knew, but I liked this version of him too. Even the scar gave him character.

I touched it softly, remembering how Mason had told me he’d gotten it. I hated knowing what had happened to him, hearing how he’d suffered and what he’d had to do to survive, but it made me feel closer to him. And I loved him even more.

I just wished last night had been enough to keep him from running again. If he pushed me away today, I wasn’t sure I could handle it. Leaning in, I kissed his facial scar in three different places.

I knew he was awake when his lips tightened into a smile.

“Do I sense the return of my princess charming?”

I grinned, delighted he remembered that. “I don’t know. Does my sleeping beauty require another true love’s kiss to awaken him?”