“Everything alright?” I asked him. In other words, what the hell are you doing here?

“Mom sent me to pick you up,” he answered as his gaze travelled heatedly down my body.

Remembering what he’d said last time about Christy, I asked, “Did she really send you or did you tell her you would pick me up?”

He shot me a weak, crooked smile. “I may have articulated that, yes.”

Why was he staring at me like he wanted to tear my clothes off and make me forget my name? Aside from the rare moments he’d let me in – and mostly unintentionally – he’d been nothing but guarded around me. There’d been a thick, twenty foot tall stone wall in place between us and an electric fence on the other side – the latter to make sure I wouldn’t get through.

“I figured.” I set my phone down on the last remaining box in the bedroom and tucked my hands into my pockets.

“What are in the boxes?”

“Some of Mom’s personal treasures and photo albums when I was really small.”

His eyebrows rose. “That must have been nice. Did you want to store the boxes at Mom’s house?”

“No, it’s alright. I’ll have to hire a car out tomorrow and I’ll take them with me home.”

“You think you’re leaving tomorrow?” Think?

I shrugged. “I will be leaving tomorrow.”

He looked amused, gripping the doorway tighter as he leaned his upper body into the room, eyeing me intensely. “And just what makes you think I’m going to let you go?”

I gulped and my stomach twisted nervously. “What do you mean ‘let’?”

His amusement faded and his face darkened. He dropped his arms and took a step over the threshold and into the bedroom. He was hardly six feet away.

“I don’t want you to just be content,” he said in a near whisper. Softness crept into his face, lighting his eyes and bringing back a rush of heated emotions in me. I knew straight away he was thawing, turning into the Jaxon I’d known and loved. “I want you to be happy.”

I licked my dry lips and fought back the emotions choking me. “I want to be happy too.”

“I’ve been angry for so long, and I’m tired of being angry, Sara. I kept thinking I’d fill my life with money and women and I’d forget all about you. It’s made me angrier, and hallow because my life’s lost meaning.” He took another step forward, keeping his gaze pinned on me. “I’ve been numb, and I convinced myself that if I ever saw you again, I wouldn’t feel the same about you. It’s been five years after all.”

Looking down at the box, he took another step forward, hardly three feet from me now. His eyes returned to my face, roaming the features like a fine-toothed comb. “Money got old. There’s only so much shit you can spend it on. When you have it in enormous quantities, you’re immune to it – immune to the thrill of a purchase. And women… there are beautiful women left, right and centre, pining for you because of this superficial image they’ve wired into their heads. I don’t even remember any of them. None of them want me, they want the image and the thrill of a rich guy and what his pocket can offer them. I don’t remember faces, I don’t remember the fucking, it’s meaningless, all of it.

“Five years and I numbed myself out, accepting this fucking tainted, lonely existence. Pretending I didn’t want you still, pretending you fucked me over and that you were nothing but a nasty, horrible bitch to soothe the ache – as if cursing you out was a balm over a wound that only kept festering. There’s no salve to the heart when it comes to forgetting you. You’re unforgettable; unimaginably, unbelievably, inconceivably unforgettable.”

I watched him take a few deep breaths as his face contorted into that of sadness. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. You’re it for me. You always have been, and I refuse to let you walk out of my life again. I need you too much. Even after all this time, I’m so fucking in love with you it kills me.” His voice broke and he looked away, the pain in his face scorching me on the inside.

I was crying, but not tears of sadness or guilt. Tears of fucking joy streaked down my face as the fear inside of me washed away like a wave retreating back into the ocean. I’d been so terrified he hated me, terrified that there was no more love between us.

It was my turn to take a step forward, and I stopped right in front of him. Bringing both hands on either side of his face, I leaned into him until our chests were touching and looked up into those impossibly beautiful blue eyes of his.

“I never stopped loving you,” I breathed out, tasting the salt of my tears around my lips as I licked them. “I want to be good enough for you–”

He cut me off with a kiss. An amazing fucking kiss. Heart stopping kind that was deep, intense, filled with longing and, most of all, love. I knew these lips so well, could practically taste the emotion he was seeping out of him and into me. He caressed my tongue softly, wrapping both arms around my waist. I wrapped mine around his neck, bringing him deeper into me as we started the slow dance of our tongues, reacquainting and relearning.

There was no anger in him, no punishment in the strokes of his lips against mine. There was only gentleness. Such a vast blanket of warmth enveloped me, cocooning me into his bubble of safety and love. A deep yearning bloomed inside, and it wasn’t passion or lust, it was a thirst for love.

I could feel the hard ridge in his pants as he pressed me harder against him. He slid his hands down to the back of my thighs and picked me up effortlessly. I wrapped my legs around his hips, and bunched his light sweater with my hand as he walked forward. I felt the cold wall against my back and lost myself in the feel of him.

“I’m sorry,” I found myself saying against his lips. “I’m sorry for everything, Jaxon.”

He groaned in return and slipped his hot hand under my shirt, trailing his fingers over my abdomen and slowly up to my breasts. He broke away from my mouth and kissed me feverishly down my neck, stopping near the marking he gave me.

“Do you know why I put that on you?” he asked, billowing hot breaths against my skin.

“Tell me.”

“I had to make you mine somehow.”

“I thought you did it to piss me off.”

He chuckled softly. “That too.” He resumed his kisses, grazing his stubble against my skin, leaving marks in its aftermath.